Life on the farm

It’s been a little over a week now since I’ve been using the homemade deodorant,  and I must say that I’m kinda impressed. Even though it does take some getting used to when it’s put on because it almost seems a little wet, I’ve gotten used to that. So this whole week I’ve been trying to put it to the test to see if it does help stop wetness and most importantly if you don’t stink when you sweat. How have I been putting it to the test? Well I’ve been using it when I’ve gone to the gym and even though my underarms haven’t stayed completely dry, they also weren’t like sopping rags or anything like that. I thought I had come to a conclusion that the homemade stuff does actually work after the last time I went running and literally stuck my nose in my underarms of my t shirt to see how bad they stunk. (You think I should maybe find a different hobby?) Well I couldn’t smell anything and I went proudly back to work to report that it does work! Then someone told me that you can’t actually smell your own sweat. What? That sounds crazy, so I Google’d it to see if maybe she was telling a lie or something and guess what? She was right! There are a lot of articles on how you can not smell yourself when others can smell you. Totally weird and maybe even a little scarey right? So tonight after I went running for about 45 minutes I asked Daryl if he would do a favor for me. He said ‘sure’.. I said whoa and to wait until he knew just exactly what I was going to ask. I wanted to know if he would help me out to find out if the homemade deodorant really worked and I needed someone to get close and give me a whiff. With some reluctance he did agree and said that it didn’t smell. Now either I wore off the stink on the way home or it actually worked. Who knows. But it’s enough research for me to finally pass on the recipe that I made back on January 10th. So here it is:

3 Tbsp coconut oil, 2 Tbsp shea butter, 3 Tbsp baking soda, 3 Tbsp cornstarch, and a couple of drops of vitamin E. Yup, that’s all that’s in it. Follow the blog with pictures on Jan 10th and you’ll have your own homemade deodorant sitting in your cupboard in no time. Now my container isn’t pretty and the girl at work put her’s in an empty deodorant container and that’s how I’d like to do my next batch. But for now? Well, my old mason jar will do just fine. And guess what? The best part of the whole recipe thing is that I found this one on the web site called…. “Treehugger”.

I’ve been trying to get to a turtle soup/stew outing for maybe a couple of years now. It’s not that common to have them, but it’s also not that uncommon also. I know that probably doesn’t make sense, but what I’m trying to say is that you can find someone having one in our area at least once a year. So there was a Turtle Feed going on Saturday night not that far from where we live. It sounded like the perfect chance to finally get to one of these meals. The advertisement was for a Turtle Feed and I wasn’t sure what that meant. We weren’t that up on the turtle lingo. So I guess tonight was the night that we were about to find out. After church and working at the soup supper we were having for the parishioners (no turtle soup – only beef and barley & chili) off we went to pick up my brother and sister in law and head north. I was sure hoping that they didn’t run out of whatever they were cooking with the turtle before we got there,  and Daryl said with more excitement than I was thinking he should have, that we could really easily go to the restaurant in town and grab some sandwiches. I’m getting the feeling that eating turtle wasn’t on his bucket list 🙂  Once we found where the meal was taking place, they were still serving turtle. They said in the past they served turtle soup, but the turtle stew was more of a favorite and they were serving that tonight. When I was standing in line for the bowl of turtle stew, I asked where they get their turtle from. Well they trap some of them and the group brings that meat in to put towards the supper. And then she asked me if I saw the big snapper turtle at the fair this past summer? She said it was huge!  When I said ‘it was’ huge, she said yea he’s part of  the supper tonight. Now I’m all for this, but I kind of felt bad for the turtle. Well just maybe for a second and then I had my bowl full and was looking for a good spot to sit down and try this.

Turtle Stew and deep fried turtle

It did taste kind of like clam chowder or something, I’m not sure. But it was good and I would eat it again if I had a chance. Then one of the workers came around with a plate of deep fried turtle. I had two and both of them were really dark meat and very tender. Some of the other ones that were tried at our table were white meat. One of the workers said that there is 7 places off a turtle that you can eat. Now some of these places were obvious ones.. feet, belly, tail, neck, but the comment that he said that surprised me was about where the ‘best’ meat was. He said that there were two small nuggets that you get from the head and they were like the prize jewel or something. OK, I won’t go any further than this. Living on a farm you know that if you are raising food for others you shouldn’t waste it, but I’m just saying that I don’t think that I’ve ever thought of eating some nuggets from a head of a turtle before. But guess what? We did eat some smaller pieces of deep fried turtle last night. Who knows right? 

So now I can finally check this off my Bucket List. I wonder what else I have on that list?