Beekeeping Hive type

We've been doing a lot of research lately on the type of bee hive we want to start. The Langstroth hives, big white boxes that most people are familiar with when you think "bee hive" are on the expensive side to start up. With boxes, supers for honey, frames and possibly frame foundation (guides for bees to build on) the price tag for us to start 2 hives was getting into the $700 range, not including the bees!

I searched the Warre` hives, they look similar to a Lang hive accept the bees build there own comb. No frames or foundation. Some truly beautiful hive material, however they get heavy. For the Lang method if you need more room (generally speaking) a new hive box is added on top. But I guess that's now really how bees work, they like to work from the top down. This is how the Warre hives work, when you need a new box for more bee room it gets added to the bottom. A lot of heavy lifting to get the boxes on top moved or a special lift must be built. Nope..... not gonna happen.

We've settled on Top Bar Hives or TBH. There's two types Kenyan and Tanzanian. One box is "V" shaped the other is square. Other than that they are very similar. The idea is a box that runs horizontally not vertically like the previous two hives I mentioned. We will be easily able to make our hives by hand, rather than having someone craft them for us. By doing our beekeeping this way and building the hives ourselves we can get into the hobby for well under $400. That is a very high number, assuming we use VERY high quality wood, purchased new. If we can scrounge up some pallets we might be able to make it for even cheeper! We'll see.

Here's a link to a beautiful top bar hive and bees.

Cloth wipes for #1

Back in September crunchy chicken had a cloth wipes chalenge. I purchased the supplies to make cloth wipes way back then, but it has taken me until mid January to put it into action. For girls at least, we wipe the most for #1 since we go #1 way more than #2. So it makes sense to me to start with that. I purchased, at our local thrift store, 1 queen sized flannel sheet for $3. When I got around to it I cut about half of it into long strips and then into squares. Each square being about 4x5. After trying to use just the cut cloth and realizing it frays horribly after one washing I needed to sew them. So I matched 2 squares together, sewed the edges accept for about 1.5" gap, then I turned it inside out. Thus the sewn edges were now on the inside of the 2 squares, and I sewed the last 1.5" gap to make a rough square. "Really," I told myself, "it doesn't need to be perfect.... it's a pee pad."

I am surprised how easy it really is. I keep the clean pads in a beautiful cloth cube my mother in law sewed for me right on the counter by the toilet. The dirties go in a small wicker basket I got at the aforementioned thrift sore for a whopping .69 cents.    

I wash the used pads with my regular laundry once a week. I am not sure why but this grosses some people out. It's not like I am throwing cups and cups of pee in my wash, for reals, you are supposed to stop peeing before you wipe! Does TP come away soaking wet? Well.... um..... then why would a cloth pad? The other issue I thought might be and issue is smell. I've been down dark alleyways in the summer, you feel me? But since there is so little on the pad and I wash them once a week I haven't had any issues. I suppose if it was left for a LONG time...... but eww gross!

Not including the time it took me to sew the pads my cost as been miniscule. Adding maybe $1 for the thread used I am up to $4.69, ok maybe $5 after tax. Now considering I have barely used 1/2 of the original queen sized sheet, I am going to get a lot of life out of that original $3 purchase. I am not sure how much TP I will save but I can already tell it's going to be tons. Since I purchase the 100% recycled TP the cost can get pretty high. Not that I would suggest this as a money saver but it will probably save me around $200 per year in TP costs.

Now about #2..... maybe later.

Soap Making, first attempts

My first attempt at soap making didn't go quite as planned. I substituted and oil but mostly followed the directions exactly. The soap wouldn't thicken up or 'trace' so I poured it anyway and let the runny soap set up over night. Of course it didn't cure into soap.... so I did some internet searching and decided to re-heat the glop. It had thickened up over night but not to a 'bar of soap' stage, more like thick grainy yogurt. After reheating the mixture to 120* I re-moulded it and left it to firm up.  By 6pm last night I had reasonably firm soap bars. Still to caustic to use, they must air cure for awhile. But still not a total loss, on the plus side I have tons of soap!

The process I did was called cold process soap. What I plan to do next with this soap is hand mill it. Basically, I shred the soap add water and essential oils, herbs, colors (not likely), and re-mould it. This makes for a firmer bar of soap that doesn't just disintegrate in water. I can do this process after the soap has cured for at least 1 week.

I followed the soap recipe from down---to---earth, I changed the rice bran oil to safflower oil because I couldn't find the rice bran oil. Other than that it was pretty easy, scary but cool. I plan to make spiffier soaps but for now just a basic soap mix sounds good to me!

No Shampoo

I've been trying out this "no-poo" or no shampoo method for about 2 months now. The decision to try this method stems from lots of purchased shampoo and major scalp upsets because of it. I would get MAJOR dandruff, itchy scalp, frizzy hair etc.... I started buying shampoo in the bulk section of our green grocer so I could get smaller samples of them. Trying to go green and use only earth friendly shampoos started to become and issue with my scalp.

After doing some research I stumbled upon the "no-poo" method. Using only baking soda and apple cider vinegar. I did that for about 1 month. Same dandruff issues, no itchy scalp, but extremely fuzzy hair. The baking soda was too much for my already dry hair. For the last month I've been using a weekly apple cider vinegar/water mix,  2 tsp ACV/4 cups water and a once every two weeks dosage of 50/50 white vinegar/water mix. Usually 1 cup of each. This is curbing the dandruff issues. Not sure why but the acid in the vinegar seems to be doing wonders for my scalp.

But, I am getting into the stages where most people quit and go back to shampoo. My hair feels really greasy from my scalp to about 3 inches down. This is because my scalp is over reacting, detoxing if you will. See our hair is supposed to have an oil coating. Not slimy, greasy, oily but an oil coating on our hair. When I use shampoo all of that oil is stripped away, and our bodies ever in search of balance over produce that oil until it realizes that it doesn't have to any more. Since I can't use the baking soda without the dandruff disaster I have to wait it out. But it's not all bad. I take a comb to my hair (difficult with all these curls) and brush the oils down and away from my scalp. Then I hop in the shower and do my 50/50 vinegar rinse and it's much better. I've noticed my curls are tighter, less fuzzy. The only thing I use as a "styling" product is coconut oil for the last 6" of my hair. This is the dry, brittle part that needs some extra help.

Some people use a conditioner without silicones in them. Silicones bind to your hair and need shampoo to remove them. Using the conditioner as a "shampoo" in a similar vinegar mixture of 50/50 conditioner/water. I am considering this... but only half heartedly. I really don't want the extra chemicals in the conditioner.

The cost of the "no-poo" method is much cheeper than conventional shampoos. Plus I like how my shower isn't lined with plastic bottles of randomness any more.

In other greening news,  we've given up use of q-tips having done research that they aren't really good for you anyway. We'll keep them around for random cleaning of small things. But no longer are putting them in our ears daily. Also I am going to try making our own toothpaste and soap. I attempted the soap but it was a failure I am in the process of trying to save the ingredients.... we'll see.

Move Your Money

Shocking and very well put together. Discusses moving your money to smaller local branches to take $$ out of the big guys hands. Thanks to Ravenrocks for showing me this!

More info at Move Your Money.

Soap Making and Emergency Kit

In keeping with one of my goals for this coming year I checked out soap making books from the library. I know it's pretty easy but one must be careful and move slowly. I have a list of some supplies to scope out from our local thrift store. Things like a few mixing bowls and a stainless steel pot or two. I'd like to use all glass since some bad plastics bind to fat cells and that is essentially what soap is. Fat and Lye. I don't want my soap to be fat, lye and plastic.... mmmm moisturizing. I think I am going to follow down-to-earth's soap making tutorial.  It seems easy enough with out a lot of fussy extras, a good beginner soap.

I've also checked out some books about emergency preparedness and what it's going to take. I have a rather extensive first aid kit list. Which although daunting shouldn't take me too long to put together.  After our first aid kit is done I'd like to work on water storage. I am not sure what to use to store water, so I have to do some more research.

Emergency supplies

So the Haiti earthquake has got me thinking about emergencies. How would my house hold up in a 7+ earthquake? What would I need if we did have a disaster? I don't want to go all survivalist, but I'm thinking I need to get some precautionary stuff down.

At the very least a first aid kit for humans and animals. Maybe drinking water for a few days. I have all the food because of my canning. I can eat cold beans and dried fruit thank you if it comes down to it. Just some stuff to think about. I am going work on putting together an emergency corner of the basement full of gear. Better to have and not need....

Bread and Transformation

A video from TED about bread and transformation. This is Peter Reinhart a bread master!

Back to Blogger

Having been at wordpress for about 3 months we've jumped back to blogger. The address is the same www.oxrayfarm.com just the platform is different. Wordpress wants to charge you for every little thing. I like how much nicer the blogger community feels. The forums @WP are full of not nice people. Oh well live and learn. Blogger added new features in 2010 and some of those features were the reason I left in the first place. Although with this "template" we loose our About Us/Chickens tabs at the top of the page. We may go out and find some one to design a website then upload the HTML to get those things back. Blogger will even allow you to do that... for free. :o)

Honey Jar and Crochet hook case

We decided we didn't need to squeeze honey from a plastic jar. This is so much sexier! The artist from etsy is Mississippi Mud Potter.

My first crochet project, a crochet hook case. I haven't done all of it yet but I am almost there. From the book Chicks with Sticks guide to crochet.

Path to freedom has many steps

Butter making

I didn't get a picture of the process because I didn't know if it would work. But I was amazed how really easy butter making is. I got a pint sized container of organic cream at the grocery store. I plan to separate the cream from local raw milk next time, but for now this is how it went. I poured the cream in the kitchen mixer with the whisk attachment and turned on to high. After about 10 minutes the butter fat separated from the "buttermilk" it's not true buttermilk because it isn't cultured, but that's beside the point. The butter turns yellow like magic and you pour off the butter milk, then add ice water to wash the butter. This removes any leftover buttermilk in the butter and keeps it from going rancid. Keep adding water, mixing and pouring it off until the water runs clean and no longer milky. Salt if you choose and store in the fridge for a week, if longer freeze. I found this website complete with pictures detailing the process. Making Butter at Cooking for Engineers.

The microwave and living without it.

It all started with pizza. Pizza just never tastes the same microwaved, the crust isn't as crisp the cheese as perfectly melty. Yesterday afternoon over our leftover pizza, Jake and I got to talking about the microwave. I had seen somewhere that they aren't very safe, but I put that thought out of my mind because I love my microwave! I told Jake about the unsafe issues and he said: "well it makes sense, the microwave mess's up the phone and it's in the other room." Intrigued we wanted more information. This is what we were able to come up with:  


1. They don't know the long term effects. Which we took as, slow poisoning might not kill you.... but it sure isn't good! (According to Norbert Hankin of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s Center for Science and Risk Assessment, "We don't have a solid position on the possible health risks from exposure to microwaves due to inconclusive research." He concludes, "The real question remains whether there could be cumulative effects.")  


2. Microwaves alter the chemistry of the food. Some reports say it alter's the food so drastically that our bodies absorb very little of the nutrients in the food. "In the late 1980s scientists Hans Hertel and Bernard Blanc of the Swiss Institute of Technology tested blood from subjects both before and after eating microwave-cooked food. They reported that the subjects had a decrease in all hemoglobin values as well as increases in white blood cells and cholesterol."  


We stopped there, and didn't need to go any further. Our microwave is cleaned, pictures taken and being placed "for sale" on craigslist today. All excerpts and a worthy article to read Here.

image from mercola.com