Gearing Up For Soaping Season

The Goldendale Farmers Market Holiday Bazaar is held the first or second weekend of December. My cold process soap needs a minimum of 8 weeks to fully cure and be at it's best. So I need to be wrapping up my soaping by the first week of October. That means I have 1 month to get all of my soaping done. 

Yikes. 

Sammy went and got our supply of beef fat from some local friends a week ago. Then, over the course of a few days, he and Timothy spent hours cutting, grinding, and rendering the fat down, then straining and getting it in the fridge to harden.

The end result was multiple, beautiful tallow cakes! All totaled, I think I have about 50-55 pounds of tallow. Which is great, because each batch of soap I do is comprised of 50% tallow, which comes out to 1 pound in each batch. So I have plenty of tallow to do all the soaping I need.

Over this past weekend, I spent some time planning out my soaps. All totaled, I'll be doing 16 different Essential Oil soaps for my Natural Line, but will be doing double batches of 7 of them as I want to be sure to have plenty of my best sellers. I will also be doing 17 different Fragrance Oil soaps for my Non-Natural Line, with I think a few of them being double batches. When all those loaves are done, I'll probably do a few batches of massage bar soap, and a few batches of hand and foot scrub soap. So hopefully I'll have enough tallow for all of that! 

I've had my table all set up and ready to go for a few days now, haha. 

Finally time to start soaping!!! 

And check out my new pull-out soap curing shelves Sammy built me! They are in my laundry room. It was getting really difficult to have all the soap curing on my bookshelf and desk in my bedroom, so this will help a lot. I won't be able to fit ALL the soap here, so I'll still have to cure some elsewhere, but it'll be nice to not have tons of soap curing in my room. 

Wish me luck. If I soap a few times a week this month, and get 6-7 loaves done each time I do, I can do it! 

With love,

Mama Hauck

Hello, Drivers Ed!

EEKKK!! Molly is driving!! 

I mean, she has been, up and down our dirt road, for over a year now, lol, but I mean, she can officially drive now! 

We had the Parent's Drivers Ed meeting last Friday evening. The instructor submitted all the info, and she was able to get her learner's permit Saturday. By Sunday evening she did her very first drive to town and back with her Papa! This is a super big deal, seeing as we live 20 minutes from town. It's not just a quick zip and back. To go from driving on our own dirt road, to driving 14 miles on the real road to town, is super cool. 

Yesterday evening she drove me home from town after a dr. appointment. She is literally a pro already. Adjusting seat and mirrors, putting on seatbelt, using blinker, going the speed limit, paying attention to road signs, checking her mirrors. Yeah....she's got this shit. 

Her Drivers Ed class starts on the 16th. It'll be every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evening from 6-8pm for I think 5 weeks. Then she'll take her written test and her driving test. 

It'll be a busy month and a half for the Hauck household, but it's time to start checking things of the to-do list. So lets get this done! 

With love,                                                                                                      Mama Hauck

Hauck Boys In Cross Country

Now that Timothy is in 7th grade, he can finally join cross country for our school! This is Anthony's 3rd year. I'm really excited because they are 5 years apart, and I never imagined they'd be able to do anything together.....but here they are, both in cross country. And in the Spring they'll both do track. I am loving that they'll be able to share this experience for 1 year. 

I was afraid Timothy ruined his season before it even started! A little over a week before practice was to start, he badly sprained his ankle. That was a fun ER visit at 11 at night! NOT!! We were afraid he had a hairline fracture in his growth plate, but thankfully two sets of x-rays proved it was just a bad sprain. He was suppose to miss the whole first week of practice, but he insisted he was in no pain and could start mid-week, having only missed a few days. 

 

Now, I don't know if it's because he should have waited longer and he didn't allow his ankle to fully heal, or if it's just because the stress and strain of running so much for cross country is new for Tim's body and he has to work out the muscle tightness kinks in his body....but he's been having pain in his foot and it hasn't been fun for him. He's soaking, ice packing, stretching, putting muscle rub on....and still pain. So we'll see if he just needs some more time to adjust, if his shoes are a bad fit, or what. He was going to talk to his coach and apparently they have a sports physical therapist that comes to the HS he can go see. So that would be good. 

Anyway, yesterday the boys had their first cross country meet. It wasn't anything truly official, it was more of an opening fun event for the various schools who attended. They had an open 1.5 mile run where everyone could participate, and then a few other 5 person team runs. 

Anthony and Timothy both ran in the open run. The top 10 ribboned. Out of over 100 + people, Anthony came in 7th. So that was super awesome! Timothy didn't ribbon, but he was happy with how he ran for his first meet, given his foot pain. At one point he said a boy passed him and called him a slow poke (totally not cool to be so mean and unsportsman like....), but once they got into the water (waist high on Timothy!), Timothy was able to pass the boy and the look on the boys face, he said, was priceless. So suck it mean boy! Haha

I am loving this photo someone took of the Goldendale team at their meet. Anthony and Timothy are on the far left. We hope to be able to go to the home meet they will have here in Goldendale in mid October. 

With love,

Mama Hauck

My Naughty Nibblers

It's been some time since I've posted fun photos of the goats! 

Life feels so busy sometimes, with so much constantly going on, I don't often get to just sit and hang out with them as much as I'd like to. However, yesterday was such a beautiful morning, and I was feeling great, and the boys were acting goofy, so I knew I had to put on hold my long to-do list and play with them for a while and try to get some silly selfies. 

Any time spent with the boys is time well spent! They never fail to make me laugh!

 

 

 

 

 

With love,

Mama Hauck