The Art of Antiquing, Come Out To The Country Living Fair

Let’s face it shopping is fun. It’s even better when you find that one of a kind item that fits your style. We have an antique corn sheller in our dining room and love it. What farmer years back would have thought it would be a focal point in someone’s home?

You don’t have to be an expert picker to know what you like. I’m not an antique specialist. It’s exciting finding an item that makes you smile.

The Country Living Fair is one of those events where you can find really cool items. They have shows in Georgia, Ohio and New York. We attend and set up a booth at the Ohio show, selling our goat milk soap and body products. We don’t sell antiques but it is always enjoyable walking around and finding special items.  We set up at all kinds of shows in the Ohio area but this is one we highly recommend.

It’s not just the antiques that make this one special. It’s like flipping through your favorite Country Living magazine, watching the Food Network and HGTV all at once. It’s educational, fun and don’t forget all the good food.

We’ll keep you up to date with the coming event for 2013. Happy Shopping!  http://www.chickenmashfarm.com/event_2013_country_living_fair.htm

DIY Avocado Facial

This recipe is easy enough to do at home. Once a week it's a good idea to give your pores a deeper cleaning to unclog and condition. Avocado nourishes and conditions, ground almonds gently remove dead skin cells, olive oil and honey improves skin's elasticity and helps protect against moisture loss and citrus refreshes your skin. 

All you'll need for one face mask:

-1/4 cup mashed ripe avocado 

-1/2 teaspoon honey

-1 teaspoon finely ground almonds

1/2 teaspoon olive oil

-1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

-6 drops sweet orange essential oil

In a bowl, combine the avocado and honey, blend together. Stir in almonds and olive oil. Add the lemon juice and the orange essential oil. Mix to a creamy consistency. Use immediately. 

Spread thickly onto dry skin, avoiding the sensitive area around your eyes. Leave on 10 minutes, then rinse off with warm water, massaging as you rinse. Finish by splashing your face with cold water, to close the pores and pat dry. 

Great Gardening Tips For Growing Herbs

We grow our own herbs here at Chickenmash Farm. It’s pretty easy and nothing tastes better than fresh herbs. You can tuck herbs anywhere. We grow herbs in our flower beds, garden and containers.

Let’s talk about growing herbs in containers. You want to use containers that drain well and you can use anything from a wicker basket to clay pots and even an old boot. An advantage to growing herbs in containers is you can move them around to the best location for sun or shade when needed on scotching summer days. You need to remember to water when drying out. Plants in containers dry out faster in the heat the plants grown directly in the ground. The great thing about growing most herbs is you can keep trimming the herbs and harvest the whole season.

Growing herbs in the garden has great advantages for you vegetable plants. We like to grow basil near our tomato plants. Basil helps tomatoes with insect control and improves flavor. Bee Balm is another great herb to grow with tomatoes. It helps improve health and flavor. Not to mention it’s a beautiful herb.

Rosemary is great to grow with you carrots as it helps repel the carrot fly. Rosemary is one of my favorites! We grow it in the garden, containers and flower beds. This is one herb we use not only for cooking but also in our Rosemary Mango Goat Milk Soap. It holds its flavor and fragrance even when dried. You can use the woody stems as a kabob skewer. While we’re talking carrot, chives are also a good herb to grow with carrots.

 Dill is a good plant to grow with cabbage to help with health and growth but doesn’t like to be near carrots. Honeybees like dill also. And we all know honeybees are a gardener’s best friend.

Flax is good to grow near potatoes to help repel Colorado potato beetle.

Now let’s talk flower beds. We grow herbs in our flower beds and use clay pots to contain herbs like mint. And it just gives the flower bed a decorative edge. We take clay pots and break the bottoms out. We then” plant the pot” so to speak. We leave the top half the pot sticking out of the ground and bury the bottom half. I leave the pot in the ground all year long.

We grow lots of lavender for our Legendary Lavender Goat Milk Soap and in the flower bed it adds color and a can be used as a hedge. You don’t have to use the same clay pot method we do in our flower beds but it is great for the mint family. Mints like to spread and take over so the pot helps hold them in place and it makes it easy to give the mint a haircut. Just trim the mint spilling outside the rim of your pot and you dry for later use. We all know it’s good in tea but you can also use dried mint to repel clothes moths. The dried leaves repel rats and mice too.
We can’t end without at least mentioning parsley. Parsley is one of those herbs we use all three methods, in the garden, in the flower bed and in containers. We love this one for our goats. Sometimes after giving birth goats will have a congested utter. Keep in mind a congested utter is different than a goat with mastitis. We have had amazing results by feeding parsley which is a natural diuretic.  It should not be used in excess with pregnant women as it has been shown to stimulate uterine contractions. Happy planting and exploring all the options herbs have to offer! 

Soap Making: What's In Your Soap?

Are all soaps the same?  No. There are many different soaps out there.

 So how do you know what you’re getting? Read the ingredients. Know what you’re putting on your skin.

There are a few different ways to make homemade bar soaps. There’s Cold Process, Hot Process and Melt & Pour. We use the Cold Process method.  To make cold process or hot process bars of soap you need Sodium Hydroxide. Without it you cannot make bar soap. Then there’s melt & pour, which is typically in a block form you can buy at craft stores or online. You melt and pour in your own molds and add your own scents and herbs.

Then there’s the question of ingredients. We feel ingredients are very important! Which is why we use Non-GMO oils and feed our goats Non-GMO grains so the milk in our products are produced from goats whose diet is carefully monitored.

Here’s a list of our ingredients:  Goats milk, olive oil, coconut oil, babassu oil, safflower oil, castor oil, organic flax oil, *sodium hydroxide, organic cane sugar and some soaps may contain the following , essential oil, fragrance oil, rose petals, lavender flowers, rosemary, spearmint, oatmeal, mango butter, cocoa butter, shea butter, aloe juice, honey, eggshells. *Sodium hydroxide is not in the finished product. We cure our soaps at least six weeks which cures the sodium hydroxide (lye) out of the soap. We source Non-GMO oils for all our products.

The average cold process and hot process soaps contain: Water, a variety of vegetable oils, and can contain a variety of butters, herbs, essential oil and/or fragrance oil and sodium hydroxide.

The average ingredients list from melt & pour: Propylene Glycol, Sorbitol, Water, Sodium Stearate, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Laurate, Glycerin, Goat Milk, Triethanolamine, Titanium Dioxide.

The typical ingredients in commercial soaps: Sodium cocoyl isethionate, stearic acid, coconut acid, sodium tallowate (animal fat), water, sodium isethionate, sodium stearate, cocamidopropyl bentaine, sodium cocoate and/or sodium palm kernelate, fragrance, sodium chloride, tetrasodium EDTA, trisodium etidronate, BHT, titanium dioxide, sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate

There are a lot of great soaps out there and some that don’t meet our standards or other soap maker standards. You just have to decide what’s right for you. If you want to stay away from Non-GMO ingredients be sure what vegetable oils are being used in your soap. Some people use tallow in their soaps. We’re not knocking the use of tallow that’s what the pioneers used for fats in their soap. One thing I would caution is where did the fat come from? Was it from animals fed a diet on Non-GMO grains? When it comes to commercial soap many use tallow and given the cheap price I would worry that the tallow came from overcrowded feed lots not fed exactly healthy. Don’t be fooled with the commercial soaps that say now 20% larger. Often they fill their soap with air to make a bigger bar. It doesn’t make the bar last longer.

We hope when you’re out there shopping for soaps we’ve helped inspire you to read the ingredients and know what you’re putting on your skin.  
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Vegetarian Shepherds Pie

Ingredients:

4- Amy's Organic Veggie Burgers

2 Cups Steamed Carrots

2 Cups Smashed Sweet Potatoes

1 Cup Steamed Peas

1 Cup Organic Frozen Corn, Thawed

1 Cup Sliced Mushrooms

8 ounces Shredded Cheddar Cheese 

Veggie Broth 

Chopped Onion

Organic Corn Starch

Salt & Pepper

Thaw veggie burgers and crumble. Salute onion and mushrooms in a pan with broth and cornstarch mixed with a little water to thicken and make a gravy.Salt & Pepper. Add steamed carrots, peas, corn and veggie burger crumbles. 

Put in a casserole dish, spread smashed sweet potatoes on top. Sprinkle with cheddar cheese and bake in the over until the cheese is melted on top. 

I used Amy's Organic Veggie Burgers as a meat substitute. You can use any variety you like. Instead of traditional mashed potatoes I used smashed sweet potatoes (no butter, no milk). I use organic corn starch to stay away from genetically engineered corn starch. If you have a hard time finding Non-GMO corn starch I found it at Whole Foods. I used cheddar cheese on top but it's easy enough to leave it off if you want a Vegan Recipe.

Lavender Products from Chickenmash Farm

We love lavender at Chickenmash Farm. We grow a lot of our own lavender that we use in our soaps. For all things lavender be sure to check at our website. We use lavender in our Goat Milk Soap, Body Sprays, Candles, and Cream.

Featured Ingredient- Lavender

From time to time we like to feature some of the ingredients we use in our body care products. We’d like to reintroduce you to the timeless scent and benefits of Lavender.

Using herbs in your body care products is a satisfying way to indulge your skin with natural wholesome ingredients.

Origin of Lavender                                                                                                                                           Lavender is an old world plant or shrub belonging to the genus Lavandula, having spikes of fragrant, purple flowers.  Lavender has been known for its gentle and soothing fragrance since ancient times. Used by Greeks and Romans in the public baths, the word lavender is derived from the Latin word lavare, or to wash.

Lavender has many uses from culinary to medicinal to cosmetic.

Let’s talk about culinary. You can use Lavender to flavor ice cream, jams and vinegar to name a few. I’m not sure about the health benefits of cooking with it but it sure sounds fancy.

There are many medicinal benefits for using Lavender from calming nerves, to soothing headaches. Try putting Lavender flowers in a sachet and tuck it in your pillow. You’d be surprised how it can help a troubled sleeper relax and get some rest.

Now let’s talk about why and how we use Lavender in our products. We use both Lavender essential oil and Lavender flowers.

 We add Lavender flowers and Lavender essential oil to our Legendary Lavender Goat Milk Soap to make a great bar that is gentle and delicate for sensitive skin.

 We use Lavender essential oil in our Legendary Lavender body spray. Not only for the timeless scent of Lavender but for the calming benefits of Lavender in the air. Our sprays can be used as a body spray, room spray or linen spray.

 When we started our foot and body cream Lavender was a must. You can rub a little on your temples to help sooth a headache or on your hands at night to help you sleep.

 Summer Daze is our natural bug repellent body spray that has a combination of five different essential oils known to help repel bugs and lavender is one of them. We include Lavender in our Summer Daze spray to help repel ticks.

You can grow your own Lavender. We do! Here in Ohio it’s easy to grow in our flower and herb beds. We harvest the flowers and use them in our soap. It’s a beautiful plant and easy to cut and dry and add to flower arrangements or wreaths. Make your own Lavender & wild flower wreath for yourself or as a handmade gift for someone special.