The Lord works in mysterious ways. His timing can’t be beat. When I was home alone — the kids in California and Jeff also out of town — Piper went into labor. She is the goat who we never saw go into heat. We felt she must be pregnant but we had no idea when she would give birth.

At the evening milking and feeding on Tuesday, I noticed her udder was full. Also, she wasn’t interested in food. A few hours later, when I was locking up the ducks for the night, I found Piper all alone in the barn, backed into a corner, arching her back and looking uncomfortable.

Pipe was doing just what Buttercup did last week, whose labor produced a (stillborn) kid. I recognized Piper in labor because we had been through it before. God had prepared me, I now recognize.

I was nervous about being alone with a birthing kid, yes, but I leaned hard on the Lord. I knew that Piper was a strong goat and should birth easily. I hoped anyway.

I put Piper in the birthing stall with a bed of straw, plenty of alfalfa for munching, and water. I got a lawn chair, my camera, my phone (to call Jeff), a water bottle, and towels, and camped out. The contractions came sporadically, and she labored standing up for the most part. She moaned just softly and was not nearly as vocal as Buttercup had been.

Then she laid down and kept falling asleep. I would see contractions maybe every 10 minutes. It seemed like she was progressing, but it also seemed like it was going to be a long time.

I went to bed and left her sleeping. It was about 11:30 pm. I woke up at 4:30 am, very confused. I couldn’t remember why I was supposed to get up. God reminded me. I got out of bed so fast and went to the barn in my pjs and a sweatshirt…

…to find Piper standing and screaming her head off and two newborn kids on the ground, under the warm heating lamp. One (who I later found out to be a male) was trying to stand up. The other (a female) was probably just barely out of the womb; she wasn’t trying to do anything. I figured I’d help her, as Piper was not interested in her kids yet and the little boy seemed to be doing just fine on his own. Piper was still screaming for her herd or from the drama.

I rubbed the little doeling and wiped some goop from her face so she could breathe freely, and I nudged her to stand. She started working on it. Too cute! The little buckling was up and on his feet by now, though unsteady. I brought Piper to the babies; she didn’t want anything to do with them. I tried putting them to nurse. She brushed them away and moved away every time.

I had no choice; I chained Piper up. I put the hobble on her. I showed the babies where to nurse and they grabbed on. As soon as they did, Piper’s maternal instinct kicked it. I could feel it. She turned her head to them and started licking the buckling. I unchained and unhobbled Piper. When she finished getting to know and cleaning up the buckling, she got to know her daughter. The kids nursed off and on, and she kept licking and loving them. So miraculous!

When I thought things were going well and sat back, I noticed two things. First, the kids were shivering. They were still quite wet and goopy. I dried them more and put towels over them off and on. Our barn is quite breezy. Piper kept licking and cleaning them.

Second, the straw underneath where the buckling was standing was bright red. He was bleeding! His cord was going drip-drip-drip. I applied pressure and it wouldn’t stop.

I came inside to look up on the internet what to do. Suggestions were to tie it off with dental floss. I got some floss, but before I went back, I tweeted @Nika7k for advice. She knows goats. She eased my mind by and confirmed the steps I should take.

Back at the barn, I tied off his umbilical cord. The bleeding slowed, but still the cord dripped for an hour before the blood dried up.

Both kids were pretty wobbly on their feet for the rest of the day, and I felt the buckling took a downturn. He was not as energetic or active as his sister, even though he started the day with more strength than she. I am guessing that he lost enough blood  to zap his strength. They slept alot yesterday.

When Jeff got home yesterday evening, we took stock together. Just like a kid (human), Jeff couldn’t wait to get home to see them. Our visit to the barn left us feeling that they were doing well. Piper is a great mom. They nurse often and well, as far as I can tell.

And the twins love each other!

Now, today, the twins are just over a day old. The buckling has so much more strength today — I am glad! The little doeling is just the cutest thing ever. I can tell she’s mischievous. Stubborn, too; she does not want any help nursing and finding the nipple. And, she’s friendly. She follows me and wants to leave the birthing stall when I do. She calls for me when I leave.

The buckling has had the stickiest first poops. It was like hard candy stuck all over him. I had to bathe him this morning to unclog that mess. All better now.

My kids will be home tomorrow to find these cute gifts from God waiting for them! Even though they’re not here, my girls have already blogged about this event with the pictures I emailed them: Haniya’s post and Naomi’s post.

I am alternately baffled, overwhelmed and thrilled by the events of the past day. I think I know some of what God wanted to teach me: to trust in His design. His creations  birth and raise their young successfully because He made them to do it. I know I helped Piper’s birth, but I think can’t help thinking that it all would have been fine if I hadn’t been there, too.

I feel privileged to have witness a miracle of birth on our own little farm. God is good and His works are beautiful.

I’m sharing this post in “Simple Lives Thursday,” a blog carnival which I co-host at GNOWFGLINS. “Consume less, produce more.”

When I started making soap, I learned from the book Handcrafted Soap, by Dolores Boone. It is well worn – though I don’t follow the recipes, I follow the technique. I love the hot process soap method because it is fast and pretty hands-off. My style. My soap can be in the molds in about an hour and half, with only 15 minutes of hands-on time. Then the next day, it takes about 15 minutes to cut up the bars. Half hour soap!

I call my soap castile soap, though it is not true castile soap (100% olive oil). The olive oil makes a very hard bar of soap, but it takes sooooo long to bring to trace (you’ll see what that is) and to harden, that I prefer to use half coconut oil and half olive oil for the major oils. I use castor oil for conditioning, just a bit of it. And I add stearic acid, just a bit, for hardening. You can also use beeswax for hardening. I have done both. Beeswax tends to boil over more in the crockpot than stearic acid. Been there, done that. (When soap gets too hot.)

My recipe has been run through the Lye Calculator at MMS Sage. This is a fantastic tool – so thorough and so easy! You put in your oils and it pushes out the proper amount of caustic (in this case, sodium hydroxide or lye). When I make soap, I want there to be a bit more oil — this is called super-fatting. The oil and the lye are going to chemically react to produce soap, but there’s no way we can count all the molecules and make sure this chemical reaction is totally even. We don’t want to end up with lye unreacted! By super-fatting, we ensure that extra fat is left unreacted (instead of extra lye unreacted).

On the Lye Calculator, MMS Sage gives you amounts of lye to use depending on the percentage of super-fatting. I choose 5% super-fatting. This means there’s 5% excess fat and ensures all the lye is reacted/turned into soap. Make sense?

Take a look at this: a PDF of the results of running my amounts of oil through the lye calculator at MMS Sage. On that you can see the various percentages of super-fatting in my recipe.

In this post is my adaptation of the method in Handcrafted Soap by Dolores Boone. I see her book is out of print on Amazon? I don’t have time to chase it down, but just in case you can’t find it, I’ll also include a paraphrase of her method that I typed up a few years ago for a friend. I haven’t edited it or looked at it since. Here it is.

Safety Equipment

• Protective clothing
• Disposable plastic gloves
• Long-sleeve Shirt
• Safety glasses or face shield

Equipment (not all may be used in this recipe)

• Cookware — stainless steel pot for melting oils
• Crockpot — older models don’t heat as hot, which is a benefit
• Digital scale
• Stick blender
• Glass measuring cups
• Small glass bowls (for smaller measurements)
• Long-handled plastic spoon
• Rubber spatula
• Metal ice cream spade
• Funnel (filling molds)
• Pitcher filled with soapy vinegar mixture

Ingredients (by weight, unless noted)

• 26 ounces pomace olive oil
• 26 ounces coconut oil
• 2 ounces castor oil
• 1.2 ounces stearic acid (optional, for hardening)
• 8.38 ounces sodium hydroxide (lye)
• 14 to 20 ounces distilled water — not by weight (I use 18 ounces)

Note: if you omit the stearic acid or change any oil kinds or amounts, rerun the lye calculator at MMS Sage. If you use beeswax instead of stearic acid, use 1.5 ounces (and run it all through the calculator).

Method

Measure the solid oils using a scale (tared to eliminate the weight of the glass measuring cups). Pictured: coconut oil and stearic acid.

Put in a pot on low heat to melt slowly – don’t let them get too hot! I usually remove from heat when there are still tiny bits of unmelted oil.

Measure the liquid oils and put in the crockpot. Turn on to low to let the oils heat gently. Once again, don’t let it get too hot! I use an old crockpot that doesn’t get that hot. Cover while heating (not pictured).

When the solid oils are just about melted, add to the liquid oils in the crockpot and cover.

Measure the distilled water in a 4-cup measuring cup (not pictured). Measure the sodium hydroxide (lye) by weight into a separate, smaller measuring cup. Wear protective clothing and safety equipment when working with lye.

Carefully, while stirring, pour the lye into the water. I like to do this underneath the stove’s vent, so the fumes go outside. Stir until all crystals are dissolved. It will get very, very hot, so don’t touch the glass container. Leave under the hood, with the fan on, for about 5 to 10 minutes to cool down.

Again while stirring, and pouring carefully (impossible to do while photographing), add the lye/water solution to the oils in the crockpot. Use a soapy/vinegar/water mixture in the sink to rinse the containers and utensils that touched lye to neutralize this caustic.

Stir briefly, then switch to using a stick blender and blend until the mixture reaches “trace” — which is when it thickens. It will go from clear to opaque, and resembles vanilla pudding when done. The mixture, when dripped off the stick blender, will stay in visible ridges, rather than the mixture collapsing back into a smooth top. With this soap, it takes about 2 to 3 minutes. With pure olive oil soap, it can take 5 minutes or more to achieve trace.

Cover and let “cook” for about an hour.

During the cooking time, the mixture will change back to translucent. It will raise up at the sides, like waves. This is after about 15-20 minutes in my picture.

By the end of the cooking, the whole mixture will be translucent and the center of the mixture will be collapsed with the “waves” rolled into the center. (My picture of this stage is not very good, but it does happen.)

Also, there may or may not be liquid pooled in the center low point. This is glycerin, a natural byproduct of saponfication (the soap-making chemical reaction). Just stir this back in – it is very good for your skin!

Turn off the crockpot. During the cooking time, prepare your molds. I use two plastic drawer trays lined with freezer paper. Usually, I use freezer paper (shiny side up). During this soap making, I was out of that, so I used parchment paper that I greased with coconut oil; worked fine.

Fill the mold(s) with the hot soap mixture. Tap up and down on the counter or a floor to evenly distribute the mixture. You can use your hands, but be careful and touch lightly as the mixture is very hot! (And you need it to be hot to fill the mold properly.)

Now the soap in the mold(s) need to cool/harden, at least overnight. The crock can be scraped clean for instant delight – soap that’s ready to use!

When hardened and cooled, lift the paper to pull the soap out of the mold(s).

Peel the paper off the soap block. Put the block on a cutting board and use a big knife to cut into bars.

The bars still need to harden significantly and will do this over time. Keep them in a cool location with good airflow. I keep a tray of upright bars in my bathroom. We use one, the rest age, we use another, the rest keep aging… If upright, more air can flow and they’ll harden more evenly and faster. Rotate them infrequently if you’d like.

So I think that is it! If I missed anything, please ask, and I’ll try to clarify. Enjoy!

In my kitchen ……. I had a busy Mother’s Day weekend, with lots of yummy eats!

On my mind today …… researching getting a Jersey cow.

Something that makes me feel rather touchy …….. making mistakes, ah, if only I didn’t.

One goal for this week is ….. to cut back on chocolate.

What I’m reading …… nothing, and trying to keep it that way! When I read, I don’t get my work done! But my mother-in-love Judy gave me some books that are calling my name…

One individual I am praying for ….. a friend who is newly pregnant.

I am looking forward to …… being done with the eCourse and starting it all over again!

On the Back Burner of my mind …… wanting to put together an emergency herb/medicine kit for people and animals but I don’t know where to start.

I see God moving ……. in my family, on our homestead, and with our business. God is good and His blessings are great, and His love even more massive!

The third day we had the Muscovies, one of the hens disappeared. No idea where she went, or if she was taken.

The Drake was just plain mean, stalking us, and very possessive of his hens. When the two hens which were left started setting on eggs, he went ballistic. Poor guy was lonely, I know. But it is hard to feel sympathetic when he was so mean. When we milked in the barn, we’d have to cage him up or carry a stick. He would get so mad we were in his territory he would literally shake with rage.

Did you notice I said “The Drake was just plain mean”? Yes. The Drake is a Was. He has gone bye-bye.

Here’s the story. The sweet little hens hatched out seven of the cutest ducklings you ever saw.

The Drake ate three of them. We didn’t realize he was our culprit until Mikah caught him red-handed (or red-beaked) eating the third one.

Lest you wonder – yes, we did keep the ducklings and hens separate from The Drake. But, the ducklings would get out and The Drake would be waiting to gobble them up. They must have provided a substantial meal because he only ate every couple of days.

We found out about his strange diet last Thursday. (No, we don’t think he ate the first hen who disappeared.) Jeff left work early to come home and butcher The Drake. It was bloody and tiring and hopefully we will get better at processing ducks. Yes, I’m reminding myself, we are raising these ducks for meat. So we better get good at it.

So now The Drake is in the freezer. I have to figure out how to cook him.

The remaining four ducklings and the two hens are still the sweetest. One of the little ducklings, Angel, is smaller than the others, and she seems cold. We hope she makes it. We decided not to nurture her inside the house because we want the ducks to raise themselves. If she doesn’t make it, that’s a sad fact of life. Yes, we will cry. But it will be okay.

Next up: Khaki Campbell ducks for eggs. They’re on order…

How was your Mother’s Day? Ours was wonderful! Jeff’s parents surprised us with a visit; Jerry (Jeff’s dad) was in Oregon for business so they extended their trip to stay with us for a few days.

Judy and I both had an agenda – pictures. She wanted updated pictures of us for Jerry’s new office. And I wanted pictures… just because.

I realize that there’s alot to catch up on Such Treasures. But because I can’t possibly catch up, I am just going to jump in, and try to fill in the blanks as I go.

On Saturday morning, Judy (Jeff’s mom) took me and the kids out for breakfast. There was a motel with beautiful landscaping near the restaurant and we took advantage.

Yesterday, Sunday, we took some pictures on our property.

Some of the pictures ended up with the goats, because they followed us around … especially Pegs!

We are definitely dressed for the country, but that’s okay!

And here are the kids with their grandparents.

We had a wonderful visit – too short! But sweet.

What’s happening in my home……?

In my kitchen… Pretty much I covered what my kitchen has seen in My Tuesday Twister post.

With the family… Mikah and Naomi have both had a mild cold this week. Naomi has some poison oak rash, too. But everyone is doing very well. Mikah is excited because he and Jeff got a small 4″ survival knife. Naomi got some stick bugs at the library last week. Haniya and Naomi have been great helps to me in filming for my eCourse. They operate the camera and are endlessly patient with all my “takes.” Jeff’s been able to get home early on some days – he still works a full day because he goes in so early. He also took a day off last week when it was sunny to work in the barn.

Around the homestead… The big news is we got a buck – Cosmo. He is almost 2 and just beginning to get the buck smell. For the time being he’s sharing the barn with the does, but as soon as Jeff puts up a simple shelter in the buck pasture, Cosmo and Starle (a Nigerian dwarf wether) will go in there. We are watching the milk, hoping it doesn’t take on the buck odor. So far, so good. We read that the rule is, if you walk in the milking area and it smells like buck, the odor will get in your milk. So far, there’s no odor where we milk. But could be soon as it gets more concentrated – Cosmo’s area of the barn is adjacent to the milking area. I am eager to get him in his own shelter, but we have to wait until there’s time on the weekend to make that shelter.

I forgot to mention last week that we cut down several old madrone trees that were hanging threateningly over the barn. That has left a big mess to clean up, and Jeff is working on it. Poor Jeff. He’s always got some kind of mess outside to clean up. Have I mentioned lately how everything is MUD outside?

What’s happening in my home……?

In my kitchen… I’m experimenting with different sourdough breads – no knead and minimal knead. The results are very promising! Keeping up with everything keeps me busy. I’ve been videoing myself like crazy, finishing up all the eCourse lessons for the new GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals eCourse I will launch in February. I’m really excited about it and hope it will help many people transform their kitchens and their habits. A side benefit of always having to video is that the kitchen stays clean. I like that.

With the family… We visited friends this weekend and that was fun. I enjoyed seeing another kitchen full of growing things – sprouts and cultures. I took my friend a kefir grain. My children are amazing. Every day I love them more – is that possible? They keep me smiling and enjoying life, not to mention how helpful they are in day to day tasks that need doing, and cheerfully.

Around the homestead… Jeff and Mikah made a work table for the barn. It is so nice. We are storing all our feed bins underneath it, and that works great to conserve space in the barn. We are shopping for a Nubian buck and will keep him at a friend’s house with their bucks (they mainly raise meat goats). We want to have our does bred sometime in February, so I am praying that the Lord would provide a buck, and also solve the issue of transporting the does (or buck) when a doe cycles into heat. We are gearing up to get chickens, but first must solve the big question – what kind of coop? and where?

I did some rearranging yesterday. My desk is in the family room, which also contains the drying rack for wool next to the fireplace (pellet stove), and the other side of the room is my sewing area.

I turned my desk so it would be oriented parallel to the wall, with the computer facing the wall. I also have a bookcase now – it is one of those cheap compressed sawdust bookcases that fits together because of slots cut into each piece. You can see it there creating a boundary between my office and the drying rack.

This is how my “office” used to be, just for comparison. That’s my cute son, Mikah. When we took the picture, we were still waiting for my Mac to arrive.

I needed to rethink the arrangement of my office so I could rig a better background for recording myself during gnowfglins.com video recordings. I’m not sure what I’ll do on the wall behind me.

The rearranging saved me from buying a screen/partition. The view behind me (before) was the fireplace and drying rack. Now it is a wall, which I will work on making pretty. Any ideas? On the wall now are abstract paintings done by the kids a few years ago. I really like them, but I’m not sure how they go with food, which is what I’ll be discussing when I do a video recording.

When I finish tidying the sewing area, I’ll take some pictures and show you that area of the family room. It is almost done. Just a few loose ends to pick up.

By the way, how was your Christmas? Ours was restful. Jeff was ill the whole vacation, so we did alot of sitting around and watching movies and talking and resting. Jeff’s mom gave him the complete MacGuyver season #1 for Christmas, which really came in handy for the downtime. In the quiet weekend, I was able to finish a big video project I’ve been working on for gnowfglins.com, which I’ll be announcing and sharing sometime this week. I also pre-dyed (black) 6 yards of merino wool interlock, which I’ll use for wool pjs, shirts, and hats for all of us. I need to dye more of it; that 6 yards won’t get us that far.

This photo was taken by Jeff’s sister when the kids were in California in the summer of 2009.