I have a secret.  Ok, it's not really a secret now that I'm about to tell you:

Houston, we have a soap page!

I was overly optimistic when I announced my plans for the page way back in January.  I mean, how hard could it be?  Famous last words...  Anyway, we're up and running with it.  Thanks for your patience!

Speaking of soap, I thought I'd share a couple of photos of the soapmaking process.  In this one, you see the warm coconut, palm, and olive oils awaiting the addition of a goat milk/lye mixture.

After adding the goat milk/lye soup in a slow stream and stirring like crazy the whole time, the saponification process begins.  When it's done, it looks like pudding and is ready to be poured into the mold.  Like this:

After that I put it in a warm place until the next day when I carefully unmold it.  Then Roger cuts it into big bars and sets it aside to cure.  A few weeks later, this is what it looks like:

Now you know.  Cool, huh?

The weather as I type this is far too lovely for me to be squandering time in front of the computer, so this will be brief.  But since I am still sitting here with a child on my lap, I might as well show you the turkeys.  They have been here for two weeks already - my how time flies!

That's what a turkey looks like when it's one day old.  Ben is raising them for one of his 4-H projects this year, just like he did last year.  He does a very good job of taking care of them; I only have to look in the brooder once a day to see that he is keeping them in food and water.  In a couple of weeks, they'll be ready to move out of the brooder and onto pasture.  Then, when they're ready for market, they will be almost as big as Ben.

Here he is in the show ring with the turkey he selected to take to the county fair for judging.  He won the trophy for Novice Showmanship.  I'm very proud of him!

Today was the kind of day you daydream about in the middle of January.  The sun was warm, the winds were mostly calm, the mud was drying up, and the pastures were green.  Green is very good.

 

We got a lot of spring cleaning done this afternoon.  Max tended the fire.

Olivia helped clear debris out of the garden.  Note her stylish attire.  She's a very classy little girl.

The duck harrassed Frodo, which was, I suspect, the highlight of his day.  Poor Frodo endured the humiliation with great patience. 

Here's the very next photo in the series, in which Frodo gets his revenge.  Best Friends Forever!

There's no such thing as perfection here on earth,  but today was a really good day.  Roger and I and all the children will go to sleep tonight with pleasantly worn-out muscles and sun-reddened faces and the faint fragrance of pollen and moist dirt...Spring's lullaby for us.