Making Laundry Soap and Window Cleaner

Today I ran out of our homemade laundry soap so I needed to make another batch.  We have been using this laundry soap for close to 4 years now - I will never go back to the store bought variety!  This works great and best of all, there are no harsh chemicals, no added perfumes and dyes.

We have tried several different types of soap for the recipe but we always seem to go back to Fels Naptha.  We used Zote a few times (I kind of liked the mild scent and the fact that it would produce some soap suds - something the Fels-Naptha recipe DOES NOT do).  We found that Zote does not dissolve well and creates huge clumps of soap - even when we shaved the soap into very fine flakes.  I have never tried Ivory (even though I have over 100 bars of it sitting in my overstock cabinet) - but you CAN use Ivory soap, it is often much easier to find than Fels-Naptha.

Here is the recipe that we use:


Makes 10 Gallons:
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
1 Bar of Fels-Naptha (or soap bar of your choice)
5 Gallon Bucket with lid

You need to shave the bar of soap into soap flakes.  Many people use a handheld cheese grater.  Depending on how much time I have, I will too - but many times I just grind up the bar in our food processor.  It saves me a ton of time and I have never had any of our food taste "soapy" after using it.  Just throw the food processor parts in the dishwasher when you are done.  Once you have "soap flakes",  dissolve them into about 4 cups of water heating in a sauce pan on your stovetop.  Heat and stir until flakes have completely dissovled - DO NOT LET THIS MIXTURE BOIL - trust me - it causes a HUGE mess.  Once dissolved, dump the mixture into the 5 gallon bucket.  Add in the 1 cup of Borax and 1 cup of Washing Soda.  (Tip: leave the bucket on the floor and use your kitchen sink sprayer for the next step.)  Fill the bucket (stirring occassionally) with hot tap water.  Stir it all up - MIX WELL.  Put the lid on the bucket and leave it for 24 hours. 

After 24 hours you will find it has turned into a gel.  Mix the gel up WELL with your hands - you will need to reach all the way in to mix it well so wear a short sleeved shirt.  (Tip: let the kids do this step, they love it!)   I bought a long 24 inch spoon from lehmans.com to use for this and it works great it just takes a bit of muscle at first.  Once the gel has gone (almost) back to a liquid, fill your old Tide (or whatever you have) bottle HALF WAY with the soap mixture - fill the other half with hot water.  That is how you turn this recipe into 10 gallons, by diluting the mixture in your laundry bottle.  To measure out the soap for your wash, just use the laundry cap that is on the old Tide bottle you are using.  If you are using an old plastic pitcher like we do, just use 1 cup.

The only thing you will have to get adjusted to is that there is no soap suds with this recipe.  Trust me, it really works great.  If you just can't live without the perfumes, add about 10-15 drops of your favorite essential oil scent to your 5 gallon bucket.  We like that there are no perfumes, it helps us when we are working the beehives........but more on that later.

While we are on the subject of homemade cleaner recipes, I thought I would share the one I use for window cleaner.  It is really simple and not to mention cheap.

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon liquid soap or dish detergent

2 cups water

Put it all in a spray bottle, give it a shake right before you spray it. 

If you have ever tried using just vinegar for a glass cleaner before, you might have been very frustrated by the results because of the streaks that were left. Unfortunately, the commercial glass cleaning products that you used before left a wax buildup on your mirrors and glass and vinegar alone is unable to remove the residue.
The good news though: The recipe above will work for you because adding a dab of dish soap to the vinegar and water removes the buildup.

 

Be Careful What You Wish For......

I have been begging Ted to buy me a dairy cow.  My dream was to get one so we can hand milk her at the same time we are milking the goats.  I could picture cheese, yogurt, ice cream, butter...all the wonderful things that we could make.  Well, we answered a craigslist ad for a "very tame, healthy Jersey heifer. Hand milked.".  We went out last Friday to look her over.  She was a beauty - and if we bought her we had to get her 3 month old heifer calf as well.  Also, she had been bred to a Beefmaster bull.  So I guess it was like getting 3 cows for the price of one.  The farmer was nice enough to deliver her (them) to the farm the next day since we had no way of transporting a full grown cow.

It has been 3 days and I am over my "hand milking a cow" dream.  UGH!  She won't let me near her - oh, I can get close, and even reach down a milk her a bit but if I want to come near that cow with a bucket.....forgetaboutit!  She bucks around like something possessed.  I'll be honest - I am terrified of her.  She is HUGE and she really throws her weight around if I am making her do something she is not interested in doing.  Not to mention, she must have said some bad things about me to her calf because there is no way that little girl will come within 10 feet of me.

Well, this is a very expensive lesson learned.  I guess I will see how things go over the next couple of days.

Welcome to Heaven!

Welcome to Seventh Heaven Farm's newest edition - our very own blog!  You will now be able to follow along with us on our journey as we learn and grow on our beautiful 7 acres.