The weather has turned cold here in Virginia, and with the cold comes dry hands and skin. Several years ago I was introduced to Nature's Common Scents, a small business located in Front Royal Virginia. What I found was a very knowledgeable women who started working with herbs to create lotions and potions for own family. What I liked the most about her products was that she created things that didn't just look and smell good, they were also good for you. An example? She calls her bars of soap "therapy bars" due to their therapeutic properties. She mentions that if her soaps smell nice, that's great, but the scent is a biproduct of her real goal, and that is to produce high quality bars that have healing properties. Our family has tried several of her Therapy Bars, Creams, and Oils over the years, but the favorites are her Comfrey Cream which has been a blessing for cracked, dry garden hands, sunburns, and feet. Her Big Jims Cream leaves a wonderful warm feeling behind that is great on cold winter days and my grandmother (who is 93 and taken care of by our aunt) uses the Skin Replenishing/Anti-wrinkle Oil daily and has soft smooth skin because of it.
If you have a skin ailment her website is chock full of great products to help and she also has a newsletter you can sign up for that is generally loaded with the latest in skin and health discoveries.
Lastly, every time I have called with a skin problem a friend has had, she has been wonderful at recommending something. At my last job, one of the ladies in the office had a dog who had developed open sores all over its body that vets had no idea how to heal... no drugs or medicines helped. She bought some cream from NCS and a couple of weeks later came in an informed me that the sores had all healed up and gone away. Now? She uses the cream on her own skin!
Check out the website at:
www.naturescommonscents.com
Monday, November 17, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
A New Addition!
4 cats were already living on our farm when we first moved here... Sugarfoot, Duncan, Goldie & Belle. We brought several more from our previous homes (all strays in the neighborhoods)... Mel, Piggy, Junebug, Jack, & Hank. Sometime later we were discovered by a stray named Harley. Harley showed up just in time to have two babies of her own, Muggs and Lucy Lu. Now on our recent visit to Georgia to see our Aunt, Uncle, Grandmother, and Cousin we found a little kitten malnourished and barely alive. So..... he is now a new resident of Boola Boola Land! Max Monkey Man Barny Huddleston. Trust us, his personality is as big as his name. In the past week he's gone from barely being able to stay awake and stand to being able to climb up my leg as I sit here and type this. He's cute, he's furry, and he's sweet as cherry pie. So far only Lucy Lu and Junebug have been even slightly receptive to the newcomer, but in time we're sure the rest of the clan (the McCleoud Clan) will reluctantly welcome him to the crew as they have everyone else.... Ooops, please excuse me again! Monkey Man is hitting all of the buttons on the printer..... Monday, November 10, 2008
Lessons Learned- Part 1
First lesson learned... do not drive your riding lawnmower over the grass beneath a walnut tree towards the end of the summer season. Let me rephrase that, don't think that by putting the blade setting on high, it will give you the necessary clearance you need to avoid turning your lawnmower into a missile-launching weapon of brown juice staining balls. It will not.
This first lesson leads us to the second BIG lesson... laziness is expensive. If, for example, you were to ride your mower over dangerously tall grass, weeds, and brambles before doing a walkthrough to remove large rocks and tree branches you will end up creating the perfect piece of tractor lawn art. Which leads to the next lesson... changing the blades on the mower- a "How to".
First, the blades. Just a few simple steps... let's get cracking. The directions clearly demonstrate how to remove the blade housing from the belly of the tractor.. we got that, you will too. Follow this with carefully removing the belts.. no problemo. Now turn the blade housing unit upside down and simply unscrew the bolt holding the dulled, bent, and mutilated blade.. right.
Oomph, uggg, **&^%$@, ok... you try, *&^$$@@, what the?..... here, let me try again eeeeee, crap! I just broke the damn socket wrench!!!!!
It is then and there that we realize a little warning label should have been printed saying something like this:
Tractor blades are tightened at the factory using an industrial, super powered, extra-torqued air ratchet by a guy named Popeye which, in turn, will make removing them manually virtually impossible.... thanks for playing.
After a trip to the store for another $15.00 socket, Jul and I continue to fight the beast. We refuse to show up at the local farm store sporting bloody knuckles and a trunk full of tractor parts asking for help. We ARE capable women. We ARE powerful women. We ARE strong women! KICK IT! KICK THE DAMN THING!
What do you know? Tractors respond to violence. Later we learned, from our good friend Rodney, that what we were doing was "Getting Redneck" with the ratchet- a survival method of tool wielding that is the cornerstone of farming construction and maintenance.
So, one blade off... one to go......................
Our attempt at loosening the other blade bolt, even with our Getting Redneck skill, fails. Luckily this blade, although dull, was not bent in the shape of T-square like the other one was. So, after much debate, we decided that we could live with dull. We put the tractor back together and before long, voila... our baby Troy was good to go. Success, no matter how marginal, is sweet.
Tidbits of information for riding lawnmowers:
- blades can be sharpened at local farm stores for a nominal fee (around $8.00) or replaced (ours cost $15.00). We learned the hard way though that bent or warped blades cannot be straightened or sharpened for use again, so try to avoid riding over large projections.
- if you go out and try to start your mower and nothing happens... no lights, no sound, no nothing, then the problem could be the fuse. Ours was a simple two-pronged little thing that was a snap to replace, after, of course, we removed the gas tank to be able to get to it (nice tractor design), and cheap (.86 cents).
- our airless tires that went flat (all four of them right after the thing was brought home) can be fixed with something called Slime. It's a green speckled liquid that forms a coating on the inside of the tire and seals the holes. It worked great except for one minor snag. A special key comes with the bottle to allow you to remove the inner part of the inflation valve stem, something you have to do to be able to pump the Slime into the tire. CHECK FIRST before you leave the store to make sure some jerk didn't steal the key out of the very bottle you buy and take home to save you from lots of cussing and a trip back to the hardware store!
- if you think you're going to outsmart the tubeless tire by putting a tube in it, think again. We tried it and ended up having to slime the tire anyway...uggg.
This first lesson leads us to the second BIG lesson... laziness is expensive. If, for example, you were to ride your mower over dangerously tall grass, weeds, and brambles before doing a walkthrough to remove large rocks and tree branches you will end up creating the perfect piece of tractor lawn art. Which leads to the next lesson... changing the blades on the mower- a "How to".
First, the blades. Just a few simple steps... let's get cracking. The directions clearly demonstrate how to remove the blade housing from the belly of the tractor.. we got that, you will too. Follow this with carefully removing the belts.. no problemo. Now turn the blade housing unit upside down and simply unscrew the bolt holding the dulled, bent, and mutilated blade.. right.
Oomph, uggg, **&^%$@, ok... you try, *&^$$@@, what the?..... here, let me try again eeeeee, crap! I just broke the damn socket wrench!!!!!
It is then and there that we realize a little warning label should have been printed saying something like this:
Tractor blades are tightened at the factory using an industrial, super powered, extra-torqued air ratchet by a guy named Popeye which, in turn, will make removing them manually virtually impossible.... thanks for playing.
After a trip to the store for another $15.00 socket, Jul and I continue to fight the beast. We refuse to show up at the local farm store sporting bloody knuckles and a trunk full of tractor parts asking for help. We ARE capable women. We ARE powerful women. We ARE strong women! KICK IT! KICK THE DAMN THING!
What do you know? Tractors respond to violence. Later we learned, from our good friend Rodney, that what we were doing was "Getting Redneck" with the ratchet- a survival method of tool wielding that is the cornerstone of farming construction and maintenance.
So, one blade off... one to go......................
Our attempt at loosening the other blade bolt, even with our Getting Redneck skill, fails. Luckily this blade, although dull, was not bent in the shape of T-square like the other one was. So, after much debate, we decided that we could live with dull. We put the tractor back together and before long, voila... our baby Troy was good to go. Success, no matter how marginal, is sweet.
Tidbits of information for riding lawnmowers:
- blades can be sharpened at local farm stores for a nominal fee (around $8.00) or replaced (ours cost $15.00). We learned the hard way though that bent or warped blades cannot be straightened or sharpened for use again, so try to avoid riding over large projections.
- if you go out and try to start your mower and nothing happens... no lights, no sound, no nothing, then the problem could be the fuse. Ours was a simple two-pronged little thing that was a snap to replace, after, of course, we removed the gas tank to be able to get to it (nice tractor design), and cheap (.86 cents).
- our airless tires that went flat (all four of them right after the thing was brought home) can be fixed with something called Slime. It's a green speckled liquid that forms a coating on the inside of the tire and seals the holes. It worked great except for one minor snag. A special key comes with the bottle to allow you to remove the inner part of the inflation valve stem, something you have to do to be able to pump the Slime into the tire. CHECK FIRST before you leave the store to make sure some jerk didn't steal the key out of the very bottle you buy and take home to save you from lots of cussing and a trip back to the hardware store!
- if you think you're going to outsmart the tubeless tire by putting a tube in it, think again. We tried it and ended up having to slime the tire anyway...uggg.
The Beginning...
Boola Boola Land is a family farm located in Bedford, Virginia. Our goal? To have an operational farm where we can support ourselves while doing something that we love. Our farming experience? Virtually non-existent. Which means? Most of what we discover about this down-to-earth living involves lots of cussing, sore backs, and overwhelming piles of chores. Yup, it's about learning our lessons the hard way, and we've gotten pretty damn good at it.
This blog is our way of sharing what we learn with you. We hope that if you choose to walk a similar path of wanton garden lust, our experiences will provide invaluable insight into the world you are about to enter. Owning a farm is not easy, but then we realize it's in tackling the difficult that we truly discover what we're all about... so bring it on!
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