One Small Change: Shampoo, Conditioner and Weeds

My goal for One Small Change in May was to migrate from my existing shampoo and conditioner to something that was more earth friendly.

I finished off the Conditioner and Leave-In Conditioner and replaced them with more natural products. I like both of the new products and the bottle designs.  I still have a lot of my old shampoo left. So I will finish it up and move to the new shampoo when it's gone.  Of course, as I'm writing this I'm wondering why I have both conditioner and leave-in conditioner.  I know why I started using both products, but now I am wondering why there are two products instead of one for two purposes.  Something to ponder...

Anyway, when I realized that I would still have old shampoo left at the end of the month, I decided to compare the ingredients between my existing and new shampoos.  I must say that I'm glad that I have decided to move to more natural products.  The outgoing shampoo has a long list of scary sounding ingredients.  The incoming shampoo still has long list, but at least of essential oils and extracts.

It does make me wonder though, why there is such a long list on either product.  Shouldn't it just be soap, conditioner and water?  So, I think this shampoo/conditioner migration might take a long and curvy path.

As for June - The combination of warmer weather and abundant moisture means we are learning about lawn care and weed control.

We haven't used chemical weed killers in years and don't intend to start. 

But, there are so many weeds, that the thought of digging and pulling all of them is... well, it's just something I don't want to think about.

I've recently come across the idea of killing weeds with boiling water and did a test last week...

Before:

24 hours later:

3 days later:

It appears we will have some clean up to do after, but I think we can call this test successful.

The boiling water (or bleach or vinegar or salt or rubbing alcohol) is supposed to kill basically everything it touches, so it's recommended to use in areas where broad plant destruction is intended.  Which means we will continue with the dig and pull method in the grassy and garden areas.

Chasing Rabbits part 2

I mentioned last winter that our dog loves to chase rabbits.

He hasn't caught one, as far as I know.

He sits at the front window and the back porch looking for rabbits.  He chases them into our neighbor's yard.  When we turn into our neighborhood after a car ride, he jumps up and starts searching for the bunnies.  As we reach our house, he's chosen one, jumps out of the car as soon as soon as he can and darts across the yard.

This picture cracks me up... if he only knew the rabbit was sitting right behind him.

He did notice one later... I bet you've never seen a Shar-pei mix point before... me neither.

He is learning to be more patient and is getting closer every day...

... but the rabbits are safe for now.

Alpaca Shearing - Suris

This morning, I helped a friend shear some of her suri alpacas.
We set up at her place basically the same as at our place the week before.

Here are a couple of the big boys before we sheared them...

and one of her young-ens after his first haircut.

Their fiber is just lovely and the luster was really beautiful, especially on the white ones.

I haven't sheared many suris before today, so it was interesting to see how the fiber behaved differently, especially since I just sheared huacayas last weekend.  The suri fiber was easier to fold out of the way of the clippers but was much more affected by gravity than the huacaya fiber.

Fiber Arts Friday - Duck Feet part 2

With shearing last weekend and the BolderBoulder on Monday, I've only had a few hours to work on the duck feet this week.

Once I got past the wide part of the foot, the double-pointed needles have been easy to use.  I've just started working on the gusset.  The heal will be next... eek.

Please head over to Fiber Arts Friday and heck in on our Wonder Why Gal and the other amazing Fiber Artisans.

My First Guest Post at One Small Change

I wrote my first guest post ever at One Small Change.  It's about our path to maintaining an organic lawn.

If Only He Knew...

Shearing Day - 2010

We sheared our alpacas last weekend.

We had a great crew of volunteers.

Most of our alpacas, including Charlie, took a break after we were finished.

Bandit was feeling pretty good about his new do.  He called to the girls most of the afternoon.

This is Captain Jack's last moment of full fleece...

... and then not so sure if his legs would work the same after we were done.

The ladies look pretty good, and are most likely checking out Bandit's new do.  ;-)

We collected two bags for Matter of Trust.

Lessons Learned:

1.  Saturday, was a difficult day. Alpacas have a pretty fine fiber, which makes the yarn very lovely, but more difficult to shear. I emailed with my shearing mentor overnight about the issues I was having. I had not been starting with enough tension on the combs and cutters. As a result of his coaching, Sunday was a much better and more efficient day of shearing.

2.  While we have been practicing walking on halters with the alpacas, most of them were not interested in going into the hay barn where the shearing was set up. There were a couple of surface changes... grass to concrete to rubber mat.  It appeared very dark in the barn from outside.  So, over the next year, we will practice walking into the hay barn with each of the alpacas.

3.  Keyla, my teacher, strikes again. She was the only alpaca who got stressed out during the shearing process. A couple of the other alpacas were vocal, but Keyla screamed, spat, drooled, peed, pooped and prolapsed during the process. We only had her down for a few minutes.  I was able to shear off her blanket, but nothing else. So she nearly got a llama cut this year. I will call our vet to see if there's something we can do to help her be more relaxed. She is ok, but saved a special spit just for me. She wanted to make sure I knew she wasn't happy about being sheared.

My next project is to build a skirting table so I can begin to process our harvest.