It's possible that I'm a hippie...probably

My dad and I went on a little trip to town today. Trips to town are big deal around here. We can't just run to Starbucks or Walmart when the mood hits us or because we forgot an ingredient for a casserole. It's planned out and usually two or more parties go to combine as many errands as possible before we head back to the farm. Today it was an eye-doctor appointment and buying feed for me, a gun-smith visit for my dad, and the inevitable trip to Walmart.

When we got to Walmart, I parted ways with Dad and went to gather all the ingredients on my list to make homemade laundry detergent. I just got the recipe from a friend and was beside myself with excitement to make it. The cost is only about $4 to make 5 gallons. I will post the recipe at the bottom of this blog. After I gathered my ingredients, I started making my way back to the front to get a few more items and saw my dad talking with somebody (not surprisingly). It was the guy that carries the mail from the hub in Hot Springs to the Post offices in this area. Since I worked at the post office for a couple years, I knew him fairly well. I waved from across the store and made my way over to talk to him too.

The first thing he said was, "what's up with the tattoo? You turning into a hippie?" I chuckled and said I guess I was. Then it dawned on me that I did, in fact, have ingredients in my basket to make homemade laundry detergent. Maybe I am a hippy? Is that my identifier?

When we were done visiting, the question was still lingering in the back of my brain. Dad and I stopped by the deli to get some sandwich stuff for lunch. While he was telling the lady what he wanted, I was browsing around and saw a package of goat cheese. $3.89 for 4 oz of goat cheese! My thoughts turned to my goats at home and how blessed I was to have all the goat milk and goat cheese a person could want. Then a voice inside me said, "yep, you're a homemade-soap-making, goat-milking, cheese-making, nature-loving, tattooed, yoga-practicing, dog-rescuing, peace and love... beatnik hippie". Besides the hallucinogens and the bell-bottoms, I'm pretty spot on. I prefer to be called a free spirit, but it's all the same thing...whatever "it" is. I'd just never really thought about it before. And now that I know this about myself, I think it's pretty cool...man.

Here is the recipe for the laundry detergent.

(all of these ingredients can be found in the detergent section at Walmart)

1 bar Fels-Naptha soap

1 cup WASHING soda

1/2 cup Borax (20 mule team)

1.Use a grater and grate the whole bar of soap. Melt in hot water over medium heat.

2. Add soda and borax to a 5 gallon bucket...add hot water to disolve

3. add melted soap and fill the bucket with hot tap water, stirring.

4. Let sit overnight, it will gel.

Use 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup per load of laundry depending on how soiled the clothes are. You can reuse old detergent bottles or any other creative dispensing solution you can think of. It smells really good and cleans as good or better than Tide (so I've heard)

I can't wait to see it all gelled up in the morning and start using it.

1 cup