mushrooms!

 Val and I went to Opal Creek for a pretty amazing mushroom workshop.  It was a blast!  Opal Creek is the highest diversity of some pretty awesome coral mushrooms that were popping up all over the place!  It was a pretty busy weekend, jam packed with all sorts of new mushroom knowledge!  My brain is totally happily full of waaay more than I thought I would ever know about mushrooms.  Owen is so jealous.

 It was a gorgeous weekend full of sunshine, waterfalls, mushrooms, friendly people, and great food.

 Plates and plates of golden chanterelles

 Val and I found some pretty awesome dyer's polypores that we used later in the weekend to dye scarves bright yellow.

 huge Russulas (gilled, white spores, stem breaks like chalk)

 Many Boletes (Pored mushroom)

 Cortinarious (rust spores, can often see remnants of a spiderwebby veil)  and above our chanterelles l-r black, white, gold.

 Emerging gomphus... pigs ear... see the white spores on the ground around it!

 Bloletus

Hygrocibe witch's cap

 and beautiful Opal Creek!

 Dyeing scarves with mushrooms!  The beautiful gold was from the Dyers polypore!  Mushrooms were just chunked up, and simmered for at least an hour.

Myra added alum (1-2 tsp per gallon) to them (I think)  The above are polypore, but we also tried wooly chanterelles, which were a very pale tan at best, but there was a pretty pink (that she had in her stash), and shoot I forget which other ones... Anyhow you rinse out your fabric (must be a protein based fabric... silk or wool, cotton doesn't seem to work well) in warm water, and then simply soak it in the dye!  When you are happy with the color (up to 5 min) rinse it out with cool water and voila, don't need to heat set or anything.

and fun mushroom gals!  Sally, Val,

darn hippie

So, to add onto the list of weird things that I am trying out....

Salve:  So I have made some solid lotions, and I actually like them quite a bit... about 50% beeswax and 50% oils (usually some shea, oliveoil, etc...) and some e.o.  They are great, but sometimes (esp in the winter) run a hard so I decided to try a salve.

http://campwander.blogspot.com/2012/08/10-ways-to-use-all-purpose-healing.html

recipe was modified slightly:  first-off I just did a half recipe, about 2tbs of beezwax, 1/2 c coconut oil, very nearly 1/2 c olive oil topped off with almond oil, I just heated everything in the microwave (not quite 2 minutes) I added a good 2 tbs of shea butter at the very end.  Into some tins I put a few different e.o.  About 18 drops for a 2oz tin and more for larger.  One of my big tins had some of the thieves oil I put together last year (can't find the recipe exactly but I like it... cinnamon, clove, ginger etc...)  Other blends:
Lemon, lavander, Tea-tree (healing)
Lemon, Peppermint, Frankincense (soothing)
Cinnamon leaf, ginger, peppermint, lemon, orange (dreamy)
more or less copied with some modifications given what I had handy from the above site.

Here's my review:  love them, my hands look really great after using it, the kids love it.  Not an even consistency though... I think when I melted them I didn't stirr it up really well, just sort of swirled it around, two of the tins were really liquidy and the other two are just fine.  I think a wee bit more beeswax and to stir much better.  I"m thinking christmas gifts maybe.  Now, I am not really super convinced that e.o. does much for your health, but it does smell lovely and I'll buy into the antibacterial properties a bit, but sometimes I feel like grasping at straws to keep illness at bay, so I'll buy in a little.

Here's my other hippie tendencies and admission:
I also made deodorant this weekend and tried it through a rigorous Yoga class and walk about town, as well as on a really sloth like day :).  Amazing, actually better than the my conventional dove deodorant that I also like.  Here's what I did:  1 tbs arrowroot, 1tbs baking powder and even amounts of shea butter and coconut oil, about 1 tbs each, several drops of lime e.o. (10?) and tea-tree (one big drop).  I would like to add some hop extract as inspired by the schmidt deodorant.  I smushed it all together until it was a smooth paste and just put it on like lotion in the morning.  I swear, it is surprisingly effective, smells lovely... it is good I swear! 24 hrs before I even notice even mild b.o.  We'll see how it holds up over time, but with winter ahead of me, thought it sounded okay.

(update:  ran out of first batch and everything went well, so I tried it again, but was a little low on coconut oil (less than 1 tbs but soldiered on.  So, this mix (which made a ton... I must have actually done teaspoons last time).  almost 1 tbs coconut oil (melted) 1 tbs cocobutter (melted) 1 tbs shea butter (not melted because I thought it would be grainy) 1.5 tbs arrowroot, 1.5tbs baking soda 30 drops of lime e.o. and a slug of tea-tree oil. and a few drops of rosemary... off hand it makes a full container (old lotion container).  It is creamier feeling yet also grainy.  Last time I didn't melt anything, I mushed the oils all up then mushed in the powder.  You kinda of have to melt the cocoa butter and I wanted to get out every bit of the coconut oil, so that probably actually accentuated the graininess of the shea butter.  However it seems to work just fine, just the texture of the first attempt was much nicer).

OCM:  I wash my face at night with coconut oil.  I have tried olive oil, and an olive oil-castor oil mix... sucked.  I broke out like crazy, but with coconut oil (I even sometimes put a drop of frankincense in it)... works great.  I only use it at night and keep using my regular cleanser during the morning, though when I feel dry I do the coconut oil both morning and evening.  Here's how.  I take a wee bit (less than a pea, maybe 2 lentils worth? ) in my hand and rub it all over my face.  Then I get a washcloth as hot as I can without feeling like I am wasting water warming things up (If I do it during the kids baths/showers I get nice very hot water quickly) and just gently wipe the stuff off.  Voila. I would say my skin never looked better, and that would have been true for the first 10 months I did this, but this summer I started breaking out a little bit more again and the trend though isn't as bad... continues.  alas.

Last admission (ah, diy personal care products)  I have hardly used shampoo in almost two years.  Yep, you heard me, I've gone no-poo.  So, what do I do?  When I had long hair, I only did this maybe twice a week, but with shorter hair, I wake up with all sorts of exciting hairdoos, so do it most every day.  I dump a few tbs of baking powder in my hand, step into the shower, dampen hair and rub it in, focus on hairline.  I rinse it out.  In a squeeze bottle I have some apple cider vinegar, mixed evenly with water and a few drops of rosemary e.o..  I shake it up, squirt it on my hair, uses about a 1/4c or so of the mix.  My hair is looks and feels great!


Why do I do this?  Avoid complicated compounds preservatives, lathering agents, other ingredients that I cannot vouch for (or am too lazy to look up EVERYTHING), sure, but I can't even really convince my kids this is a good idea... once in a while G. will submit to a apple cider vinegar rinse, but rarely and with great suspicion.  They will use the soap, and they really love all forms of lotion, so that's easy.  Anyhow, because I am a hippie, maybe a little bit. Saves money?  It does!  This stuff does require a little investment (e.o., beeswax, oils) but really not too bad., plus I now just tend to have a lot of the relevant ingredients around 'cause I don't make a ton at once.  I will say that salves, handmade soaps that I really prefer and would be totally willing to spend on, are spendy for what they are, but even though I would spend the money on it, they are so easy to make yourself, that it feels much more like an indulgence.    I mostly do it because it is fun (and it feels like pampering), it really is. It also WORKS BETTER, it is EASIER!  Seriously, I wouldn't do it if I didn't think it works better.... homemade deodorant... I'm less stinky, homemade soap... not drying at all, lux lather... homemade salves... noticeably smoother hands that have seen a lot of sun, mud, dirt, seawater that lasts all day! (could be because I actually enjoy slathering the stuff on).   not everything works so I don't work everything I have tried into my practice. For example I have tried putting all sorts of stuff on my face... fail (either works but is to complicated / messy or doesn't really do anything) so I stick with conventional face lotion and sunscreen (well, the coconut oil cleansing method for the night time is very nice).  It is so cool to make things that you didn't really think that folks could cook up in their own homes!