Mullein Flower Ear Drops

Last year I discovered how wonderful the mullein plant really is.   I harvested the flowers as they opened up along the stock, and made a very effective drop for earaches.  I was amazed at how well it worked.  Normally, we have always had to go to the Dr. because anything we tried to kick an earache on the first day, never was effective enough.  

This is what the mullein plant looks like.  The leaf looks very similar to lamb's ear, but the plant grows very large.  The leaves are very soft.  It begins blooming in summer, and the flowers creep up the stock and more open daily until they have all bloomed.

I harvested the flowers as they bloomed this year, as well as some of the leaves.  The leaves can be dried, and made into a tea or infused tincture to be used as an expectorant.

The flowers I added to the olive oil, and other mullein flowers I had been harvesting in the previous days.

When it was filled with flowers, and oil, I closed the lid tight and shock it up.  Then set it in a warm spot for two weeks, to infuse.  After two weeks I will strain the flowers out, and put the oil into a dropper bottle to be used whenever someone gets an ear infection or earache.*  I love herbs.

~Suzanne


*This blog is for educational purposes only, and not intended to be medical advise.

Around the Kitchen at Lost Creek Soaps

Our apple trees are loaded with apples this year.  We have had to begin removing apples in hopes that the weight from them all won't break the branches of our trees. 

  

 So we have been enjoying apples already.  Some are a bit under ripe, but many taste really good.

Oh, Tomatoes!  I love them!  We are haling in a bunch of them right now, and I am gobbling up as many as I can.

The Surprise Lilly's are in bloom.  They smell so amazing, and they certainly are beautiful.

Finally, we got to making some cultured butter.  It is so fantastic.  Everyone should make some.  The culture makes it the best homemade butter I have ever had.  It smells so sweet, and tastes so amazing!

Here it is in the butter churn, ready to be washed and salted.  The girls made cornbread from the buttermilk today.  It is wonderful!  Can you tell I love butter, and eating?  :)

Lost Creek Soaps will soon be offering a liquid hand soap.  It has been cooked and gelled and now it must be left to sequester for a week, before being made into liquid soap.  I love the brown color of our luxury body wash, and shampoo.  I think the brown makes it look luxurious, but some wanted a more white soap.  So I made some.  This liquid hand soap will be part of our classic everyday collection.

I love the new Lemongrass Deodorant.  It smells so fresh, and the baking soda keeps me odor free.  Although, I do smell like lemongrass, and one of my friends kept telling how much she loved how I smelled.  It was my deodorant.  Lol.



























We have been hard at work on a new logo (and packaging, and labeling).  Here it is in black and white since 3 of our printers had problems this last week, and we could only get one to partially work.  It would only print in black and white, and we needed labels right away.  What do you think of black and white labels?


~Suzanne

Lost Creek Soaps~ Logan Moving The Highlands

We started doing rotational grazing with our animals.  We have Scottish Highland Cattle, and Scottish Highland crosses mixed with dairy breeds for milking.  The crosses are Jersey/Highland Crosses, or some other dairy breed/Jersey/Highland crosses.

We adore our Scottish Highland Cattle.  I mean, I love them!  They are beautiful, majestic animals, and oh so hardy!!!  When we first moved to the country, and started accumulating a plethora of animals, we learned very quickly how important HARDY animals are.  They taste amazing too.  

We knew we wanted to raise our own food, as naturally as possible.  We learned that cattle were made to eat grass.  That what we really needed to be was grass farmers.  Farmers that grew amazing grass, and had amazing diversity of other species of plants.  We learned that cattle can heal the land, not just destroy it.  Wow!  We wanted in on that.

I love watching these amazing animals.  If you love watching animals, and listening to the sounds of summer.  I have two videos of Logan moving the fence to let the cattle into their new paddock with fresh grass for them to eat.
 

I decided not to talk during the videos.  It is so peaceful just to listen to the sounds of the country.

Our bull had been in a different pen.  You can hear him start to beller as he moves closer to his cows.  He is a wonderful bull.  So calm and gentle.  He has been such a great bull for us.

After I finished filming, Logan and I called him to the gate to let him in with "his" girls. :)  "Here Blackie".  "Here Blackie".  "Come here boy".  And slowly he started walking to the gate.  With a little bit of encouragement he was back in with his girls again.

~Suzanne

Around The Farm at Lost Creek Soaps! ~New Baby Girl Born!

We had a new baby heifer calf born on Friday morning.   Lukas sent me a message that said, "It's a Girl", with a picture of her and her mom attached to it. 

Oh, how I love those messages.  We all had to go out and see the new baby.  Then her beautiful mom, Rose, a Jersey heifer/cow had to be brought to the barn for milking.

What a cutie she is!  Half Jersey/Half Scottish Highland.  We all ahhhed over her.  I love God's beautiful creatures that we get to enjoy.

Many of our other animals gathered around to meet the new little one as well.  Logan's horse, Stretch, would try to get in real close, and then go galloping and kicking away.

That is how excited I was about her birth too!


~Suzanne

~Packaging Luxury Soap~

We wrap our Luxury soaps with a biodegradable perforated shrink wrap.  Our goat milk soaps need to have the wrap with perforations so they can breath.  Logan has been working hard at getting them all wrapped up and ready to be shipped out.

Luxury Citrus Charcoal, and Luxury Milk Chocolate Peppermint packaged and ready to be sold.  Some of these Luxury soaps are headed over to Skyview Farm and Creamery  tonight.


~Suzanne

~Welcome to Lost Creek Soaps Customer Appreciation Sale~

 Welcome to Lost Creek Soaps!!

 
It has been a lot of work, and so much more to do, but we are so happy that we have gotten this far.  

In Celebration of our new business and in appreciation of our customers we are offering a 15% off coupon good for your whole order starting February 11th through February 17th.   Coupon code is WELCOMETOLOSTCREEK

Come Celebrate with us at Lost Creek Soaps, and get a little off of your purchase as well.  We love our customers, and the huge support we have gotten through the start up of our business.  We are not perfect, and we will have many more hiccups as we get going, but everyone has been so amazing and understanding.  Thank you all!!!

~Suzanne and Logan at Lost Creek Soaps

~Soapin' Aftermath~

We got our new molds so we've been busy reworking our batches to fit our new molds.  Lots of math!  Then we had to decide what to make.  We decided on a 100% Olive Oil (also known as Castile) Unscented Goat Milk Soap,  a Chocolate Silk and Peppermint Goat Milk Soap, a Lavender Silk and Lemon Goat Milk Soap, and an Unscented Honey Silk Goat Milk Soap. 

Tomorrow we get to cut them up.  They will be new bigger sizes, a bit chunkier and a bit taller, but I still want them to fit nicely in your hand. We will be making final decisions on the exact dimensions as we cut them up tomorrow.  Can't wait to see how they turned out. 

I also ordered a Shrink Wrapping system for my soaps and other products, and I paid the premium price to get shrink wrap that is perforated so my soaps can breath, and a wrap that is biodegradable. 

With all our new business purchases my bank cancelled my bank card because they thought someone else was using my card.  Good thing I got most of what I needed before they did.

Well I have a Soapin' Aftermath to clean up now so I better get to it. 

~Suzanne 

~Makin' Pancakes On Our Amish Cook Stove~

Oh how I love our wood cook-stove.  It has so many uses, including keeping us warm during the cold winter days like today.  I also love it's large flat top surface that has three different temperatures, so we can heat up or cook something fast, can keep something warm or somewhere in between.  It also always has hot water ready for tea and hot chocolate.

With a large family to cook for it easily accommodates our 6 or 10 gallon pots and our 20" skillet.  We can even cook food directly on the surface of the stove like tortillas, flat bread, pizza, and pancakes.  The best part is that it can get the job done fast too, so we can spend time doing other things we love doing too, like making soap.  

Keep Warm! ~Suzanne

New Baby Born This Morning~

We welcome the arrival of our newest baby here at the farm.  Her name is Jubilee. 

                       

She was born to our milk cow Annabelle.  Jubilee is 1/4 Jersey, 1/4 Holstein, and 1/2 Scottish Highland.  Jubilee is the 6th heifer dairy cross calf born in the last 4 months that was sired by our Scottish Highland Bull.  I still can't believe she was another girl!  I'm not complaining though.

Welcome to the world little one.  We are so excited you are here!

~Suzanne

Currently Taking Orders for Our Soaps That Are Almost Cured:)

We have started taking orders for our new soaps that are curing. They should be finished curing in a week or so, and then we would be able to ship them out. This is what we have available......

~Vanilla Orange Dreamsicle~

Saponified Oils of Coconut, Olive, Shea, Castor, Goat Milk, Blood Orange Essential Oil, Vanilla Essential Oil, Orange Zest $3 

~Vanilla Coffee Latte ~

Saponified Oils of Tallow, Coconut, Lard, Castor, Shea, and Coffee Butter, Goat Milk, Coffee Grounds, Vanilla Essential Oil, 

Coffee Essential Oil $4 

~Lemon Limeade~

Saponified Oils of Coconut, Palm, Olive, Cocoa Butter, Shea, Goat Milk, Spirulina, 

Lemon Essential Oil, Lime Essential Oil $3 

~Citrus Passion Charcoal~

Saponified Oils of Coconut, Palm, Olive, Aloe Butter, Shea, Avocado and Castor, Goat Milk, Activated Charcoal, 

Essential Oils of Orange, Lemon, Lime and Tangerine $4 

~Cocoa Vanilla Chai~

Saponified Oils of Tallow, Coconut , Lard, Castor, Shea, and Cocoa Butter, Goat Milk, 

Cocoa powder, Vanilla Essential Oil, Chai Essential Oil Blend $3

To order you can either contact us through the contact link on the side bar of this blog or message us through Lost Creek Soaps facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/lostcreeksoaps .

Thanks!