Candle making update

Oops! Huston we have a problem. I was suppose to hold some wax to fill in the "well" around the wick. I totally forgot to do so. As you can see they are cracking. We will see what happens when I pull them out of the molds. If they are too bad, I will melt them down and start over.

Candle Making

I was gonna try and make candles tomorrow, but I couldn't wait. I'm like a kid with a new toy.

We bought a kit, that had this pouring container, a thermometer, paraffin wax,3 molds and some wicks. I used bees wax instead of the paraffin wax.

Instructions said to melt bees wax to 150 to 160degrees. It was on the stove for more than a hour and never went over 145. I thought I would try it. It always can be re-melted right?

Yes I know I am using store bought bees wax. I just wanted to make sure I was doing right, before I wasted my girls beeswax.

Poured, wicks put in and cooling. I will post more pix when I pull them out of the molds.

Melting bees wax

I have a ton of wax from when I harvested the honey, and I decided to melt it down today.

These are all the cappings and scrapings from when I harvested honey.

I fashioned a double boiler with an old bowl. Make sure you use an old bowl, it will never come clean again.

The wax is starting to melt.

Cheese cloth over a cottage cheese container.

All the impurities that were in the wax

Finished product cooling down.

This one I did a while ago. Time to make some candles.

Melting Honey

I have a bucket of honey drippings from the wax when I harvested honey a month ago. The honey crystalized in the bucket. My wife got the idea to use the heat from the wood stove to warm up the honey to strain it. She created a double using a large pot, that the bucket would fit in. She put some water in the pot, put in on the stove and a little bit later we have some nice golden honey.

My wife's homemade double boiler.

The crystalized honey, with Steve the stink bug, and Betsy the bee in it.

Starting to melt!

Poring the honey threw some cheese cloth!

The finished product!

Introducing Dakota

This is Dakota, she is not our dog, she belongs to our son Michael. But I call her our granddaughter, since she comes over for visits and we don't have grandkids yet.

Not a very good picture of Dakota, its the only one I have right now. That's David playing with her, and that's me sitting to the right. Charlie wants to play too!

Intoducing Charlie

This is Charlie, he is really not our dog, he belongs to our son Michael, but he comes over for visits, so I call him my grandson we don't have any grandkids.

Aww, isn't he cute!

Introducing Monty

I am more of a dog lover than cats, but I would not give up the cat. Here is Monty, he is about 11 years old, we saved him from the dog pound when he was a puppy.

Monty and our son David

Monty keeping a ear out for chipmunks while I split wood. You never know when a chipmunk might sneak up and attack you. Good thing I have my guard dog!

Time for a nap!

One of his nap spots, unless the fire is making popping noises!

More Ki Ki pics

Honestly I am not some creepy guy with a cat, but here are some more pics of Ki Ki.

Ki Ki and her catch of the day

Ki Ki worked hard the other day. I think she wore herself out. She never did finish the job.

Introducing Ki Ki the cat.

I'm sitting here looking at my old blogs and noticed, I don't have hardly any blogs on our pets. Well let me introduce Ki Ki. She is about 5years old, we got her from the APL, hoping she would become our great chipmunk killer. Well that's not working out to well, cats are kind of nocturnal and chipmunks are not. Anyway, Ki Ki loves to go outside except when its cold or snowy. When the weather is bad she refuses to go out and is completely bored out of her mind. She also has to be led to her food bowl several times a day. She will come to you and meow and meow until you take her to her food bowl. Now I could see if her bowl was empty and she came and got us to say "hey I need food". But no her bowl is over flowing and she still has to be shown.
This empty box is sitting on its side on top of another empty box sitting on its edge, she jumped from the back of the couch and landed inside the box without knocking it over. The box was only there for about 10 minutes before she decided to check it out.

A Ruff Day!

The dog is having a very tough and tiring day! NOT!

Eggs,eggs and more eggs!

So its been a week since I installed the heat lamp in the coop, all of a sudden we are having an egg explosion. This is a week worth of eggs. I haven't seen white or green eggs from the girls in over a month, now we are getting all colors!

Fire wood Shed

I am always carrying firewood in the dark, since I was messing with lights with the chickens, I figured I am going to get me some light in the wood shed. Now I can see what I am doing instead of carrying firewood by the way of flash light.

I also ran into a problem with the firewood. I got alot of my firewood already cut, I just had to split it, haul it home, and stack it. My wood stove takes logs up to 18" long. I noticed some of the wood is longer than it should be. I thought I threw that in a different pile, and chopped it all in half. Boy was I wrong, I am finding out alot of the wood is 2 to 4 inches too long. I now have 2 stacks like this that need recut. Damn I thought I was done cutting wood for the year!

coop ready for winter

I finally had time to work on the coop to get it ready for winter, right before the snow storm.

When it comes to cleaning the coop, I use what I call the lazy man method, or in other words the deep litter method.

This is suppose to be a frizzle, I don't think he is though. That is one of my Easter eggers behind him, giving me the evil chicken eye!😊

Here is most of he girls and boys getting ready for bed!

I use dual heat lamps in my 8x14 coop. I cant stress enough if you use these kind of heat lamps make sure that they are well anchored to the wall. They will get knocked down! They will cause a fire!

I just use straw on the floor and nest boxes. I also throw straw out in the run, the girls love to scratch in it.

winter wonder land

We got our first snow storm a couple days ago. We got about 3 to 4 inches.