October 2022 – Gallifrey Forest Farm

Lost Skills: Soapmaking

2022/10/26 Danielle 0

Soapmaking, as a hobby, tends to get either the enthusiastic interest of people who are into homesteading and do-it-yourself make-your-own hobbies, or half-amused references to the 1994 Fight Club scenes about stealing medical waste from liposuction operations and turning the fat into soap to then sell back to the wealthy customers of those same cosmetic surgery clinics. That is possible, by the way. The making of soap from human (or, more usually) other animal fat. Lard (beef fat) and tallow (sheep or lamb fat) are traditional ingredients for soapmaking, and make a nice, hard soap with a good lather. One […]

Pedro Ximénez Grapevines 2022-09-30

2022/10/10 Danielle 0

[2022-08-27] Today I learned how to callus grapevine cuttings, from a very helpful and friendly gentleman at Harris Organic Wines in the Swan Valley. The same helpful and friendly gentleman who very kindly gave me some cuttings from his Pedro Ximenez vines, and talked to me about his vinyard and wine-making process (including, for example, that they make their own organic brandy there, to use in the fortified wines they produce). Previously, I’ve simply dipped the end of a grapevine cutting into rooting hormone powder and stuck it in a pot, and I’ve had about an 80% strike rate doing […]