Love Giveaway!

Red dirt is red,

the sky is blue

and I want to say

thank you to you!

Thank you for sharing this space with me. It wouldn’t be the same without you!
And blessing you with my incredible poetry is…. not enough.

So, I’m making an awesome Valentine care package and I’m going to send it to someone. Someone who enters this giveaway! Just leave a comment
(only one please; I might not know if you enter more than once but you will)
and I’ll have Mike randomly pick a number on February 7th, leaving enough time for the Pony Express to deliver by Valentine’s Day.
Thanks, you.

ALSO, if your lady love is not the diamonds type, I’ve put a few Valentiney items in the SHOP. And some arrowheads I snagged off Cupid!

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.

Sexy Beast

Every day is like Christmas when I open this box.

I included myself {and Mushy!} in this picture as a size reference, to show how huge this equipment is, but it didn’t work – it just makes me look short.
In reality, I’m 5’9″ and this stuff is as big as I am.

Behold, the 4×5.
I’ll share more about this awesome camera in later posts.

True love.

Memory Lane

At one point during my woeful computer zonking last month, I dug out a rarely-used external hard drive and found treasure on it!
Scans from my cross-country Vespa ride (during which I shot only film).
Many photos have been posted, over the years, on Vespa Vagabond,
but here are some new ones….