Tangerine Dawn

sometimes I wish dawn would last all day

Photos, Unrelated

dropshot

late summer berry basket

fire guys

mountain longing

tools

rose hips, choke cherries, juniper berries

extricate

mountain longing II

hibiscus tea

Hunks Of Love

Hunks of love.
That’s what bulls are, to me, at least.

I was cleaning out my hard drive and found this picture from a year ago.
This is Rocky, one of the older bulls on the place. He loves a good scratch and some attention. I lie on him, too, but Baby is the only one I ride.

SOPA gets personal

A lot of sites are going dark today in protest of SOPA and PIPA.

The Daily Coyote as we know it would not exist if SOPA had been in effect five years ago. The Daily Coyote book, which so many of you have loved, would never have been written under SOPA.

What do I mean? How can I make these declarations? Easy. Because I still so vividly remember those strange days in late 2007 when my blog went from obscurity to its opposite overnight. Dooce linked to The Daily Coyote with one picture and a blurb. Then Reddit, Digg, Notcot, and more. My editor-to-be at Simon & Schuster heard about The Daily Coyote at a dinner party in New York
and emailed me the next day with a book offer.

This would not happen under SOPA. This would be illegal under SOPA.

If you’re glad you found Charlie ~ and Eli and Daisy and the rest of the crew ~ please add your voice to those in opposition of SOPA and PIPA. Learn more HERE. Act HERE.

BO Balm

Such a hippie. I know. But, if you hate spending cash for deodorant that is filled with synthetics, aluminum (or is “all natural” and does not work), and comes in disproportionate amounts of plastic packaging, read on!

I’ve been making and using this for a year and it’s incredible. It works better than regular deodorant, in my experience, even during extreme activity and stress, like an ambulance call. And it’s so easy to make.

I use a slight variation of Angry Chicken’s recipe. I have followed her recipe precisely and it’s fantastic but somewhat soft and needs to be applied with the fingertips. No biggie, but using a stick is faster and easier. My ratio alterations are noted below, and I use jojoba oil instead of Vitamin E oil because it’s what I have around.

Shea butter in a stainless measuring cup, in which I make the entire concoction:

I hold it near the edge of my woodstove to melt the butters ~ you can use a burner on the stove as well, but I would hold it over the heat rather than setting it on the burner ~ you want to warm it, not cook it.

Adding cocoa butter:

For a firmer BO balm that works as a stick, I use 3 parts baking soda + cornstarch to 5 parts shea + cocoa butters rather than 5 to 5 as in the original recipe. I do keep the same ratios of shea butter to cocoa butter and baking soda to cornstarch as the original recipe. The cornstarch is important; the final mixture will be a bit grainy if you leave it out.

Baking soda + cornstarch:

Stirring the baking soda + cornstarch into the melted butters:

This is also where I add jojoba oil ~ I used about 1/2 teaspoon; I started with 2 ounces of shea butter and measured all other ingredients against that starting point ~ and essential oil for scent.

I have always used organic sweet orange essential oil and find it so lovely, especially combined with the slight chocolately scent of the cocoa butter. The smell is nice alone but doesn’t dominate or “get in the way” on days I wear fragrance.

My mix goes into a deodorant stick thing I saved ~ this was an all natural brand that didn’t do its job whatsoever. I just rolled the original deodorant all the way up and threw it away, saving the container which I can reuse to infinity.

The melted mixture poured all the way to the brim! It cools and hardens in a matter of hours. It can be hard to roll up at first, but a quick run under hot water or a second near the woodstove softens the edges ever so slightly and it rolls up easily from there.

Simple! Cheap! And you smell nice all the time!
I get the ingredients from Mountain Rose Herbs.
Original recipe: Angry Chicken’s homemade deodorant.

UPDATE: if reusing commercial deodorant tubes, do check for holes in the base before pouring your liquid mix in! If you’re looking for an appropriate tube to use, try HERE. I’ve not purchased from this site but it looks like the tube I used and there doesn’t appear to be a minimum order.