Has She Lost Her Mind?

That is the question that my husband is asking himself.  I can tell just by looking at him.  Lately I have been trying natural or traditional (meaning from a long, long time ago - before the mass marketing crap that is considered traditional today) beauty products. Jerry:  "What - you're going to put oil on your face - to clean it?"  Me:  "Yes."  Jerry:  Looks at me as if I have lost my marbles.

I found this blog.  An amazing blog - this gal is phenomenal.  Crunchy Betty is the name and you can check it out here.  She talks about getting rid of all the chemical laden products in our lives and replacing them with natural items we can eat if we so choose.  Sounds great to me.  So I tried her oil cleansing face cleaner method.  Love it!  Then I found another post titled No 'Poo For You, Too!!!  Basically the idea is to give up conventional shampoo and conditioner and opt for more natural options - in this case baking soda and apple cider vinegar.  What an interesting idea.  The benefits seemed fabulous.  My hair is weird, in-between hair.  It is not straight by any means, accept one spot behind my right ear, and it is by no means curly - oh no.  Weird - half wavy, half frizzy mess.  That's what I have.  Maybe the chemicals are what is doing it.... maybe just maybe.  I sure hope so anyways. 

I have been on my no shampoo journey for nearly 4 weeks now and could not be happier.  I don't really have anything bad to say about it.  My hair feels different.  It isn't the beautiful, natural wavy hair that I was hoping for (just not in the stars for me) - but it is healthier hair and that is what is important. 

Two positives for me:  I had been losing ridiculous amounts of hair every time I washed my hair with regular shampoo - I mean enough hair that it would clog the bath tub.  This has stopped.  I had psoriasis on my scalp and have struggled for years to find something that would stop the flaking that everyone thought was dandruff.  Gone.  Those two things make it worth while for me along with the fact that I am using less chemicals on my body.

Me:  No 'poo = love.  Jerry:  No 'poo = hippie wife!  Whatever!  There are a lot of old hippies walking around - maybe they have it right after all....

So what is my goal - well, I want to slowly weed out the chemical cosmetics and beauty products that I normally use and replace them with natural alternatives (should they really even be called alternatives - they were here before the chemically laden crap!).  I think the most difficult thing for me to weed out will be hair color (I don't like people to see my not blonde strands of hair).  Luckily, my momma is a beautician and knows some about henna color.  Love you mom!

The Hog Hut

On almost all occasions I am the one who calls Jerry to say that I have decided to bring home a baby animal of some type or the other.  As I have said before, this is what I do.  So you can imagine my surprise when Jerry called me late last week and said "Honey, I'm getting two baby pigs."  No argument from me - he had me at baby.  I am such a sucker for babies of any type.

Friday rolled around and Jerry announced that we would be working on a home for the pigs over the weekend because we had an appointment to pick them up on Sunday afternoon.  I hadn't thought about this....  I mean of course they needed a safe place to live - but really - I had to spend my weekend working on it too??  I had big plans to decorate for Halloween.....  I talked to my very wise mother and she said I should help Jerry with the home and pen for the piggies because Jerry always builds me whatever I want for the animals I decide to bring home.  Darn it!  I hate it when she's right!

Reluctantly, I got dressed in my work clothes to go out and help Jerry with the pen.  By the time I made it out, he had several post holes for the pen dug and had brought the hog panels up from the shop.  Jerry informed me that my job would be to run the tractor - going back and forth to the shop for materials.  The very cool thing about this - Jerry bought NO materials for any of this - everything you will see we either had on hand, recycled it or re-purposed it.  I love it!

The Framework

I made several trips back and forth to the shop for materials, but once Jerry had all the post holes dug, I got to level the posts, fill the holes and tamp them down.  Fun stuff indeed....  While I worked on the pen, Jerry worked on the home for the piggies.  He got all the framing up and then it was time to put the "siding" on.  We re-purposed old cedar fence panels.  This gave the little building a very quaint feel (which I was just sure the piggies would appreciate).  Day One ended and we had the posts in and the building framed and mostly sided.

The End of Day One

We decided that Day Two should start with getting the hog panels up and getting the gate secured.  Done.  Next we (being Jerry) decided the next thing to tackle was the roof.  I brought up the roof wrap (I think that's what it is called - it's like tar paper but isn't) and helped Jerry to get it up on the roof.  (Not an easy feat for me because I am short and the part of the roof was tall - 6 ft.  So here I was, hands above my head with the roll that had to weigh at least 2 tons trying to get it up high enough so Jerry could reach down and pull it the rest of the way up.  My arms were shaking, lots of grunting and moaning and then whew - I got it up high enough for Jerry to reach down to the 4ft level and pull it the rest of the way up.)  Jerry rolled the roof wrap out and tacked it on the roof.  Next - on to the metal.  But wait - it was appointment time - off to get the piggies!

We picked up the two little guys and put them in our large dog kennel.  And I am telling you now - you have never heard such squealing and screaming in your life as those two little pigs made.  We had to drive a whole 2.6 miles back to the farm and this went on the whole way.  At this point I was thinking how thankful I was we decided to put the pen for the piggies behind the chicken coop - hopefully that would help block some sound!

One of the Piggies

Once we got back to the farm, we released the piggies into their new home.  First thing, they meticulously checked the perimeter of their pen for any weak spots - so far so good.  It was back to the roof for Jerry and I.  We used some old metal roofing that we had laying around for the roofing.  Jerry got the metal all laid out and put a few screws in to hold it in place and then announced I would be the one to put the rest of the screws in.  Whoa!  I wasn't too sure about that....  But Jerry explained that if I did the screws he could get the trim for the roof and work on some other things that I couldn't do by myself.  Dag nabbit!  I did the screws.  One very interesting thing about working on a roof - and let me first point out that the slope of this roof is not steep by any means - is that while you are up there, bent over, putting screws in the metal - your legs feel fine.  It is when you step on the ladder to get down that things get interesting.  So I put all the screws in the metal (and only missed the wood underneath with two screws!) which took be approximately an hour.  Jerry got the ladder over close to the roof for me to climb down.  One foot on the ladder, two feet on the ladder.  At this point I started to notice that my legs were not feeling quite like themselves.  Step down, step down, step down.  Ground.  Whew!  My legs were most definitely shaky!  Me:  "Wow!  Being on a roof like that really makes you legs weak, doesn't it?  Mine are feeling all shaky!"  Jerry:  "Now you know why I just want to sit in the chair when I get home and don't want to get up and go outside and do things with you after I have worked on a roof all day."  Me:  Suddenly feeling much better for obvious reasons.  Moving on.

During my time on the roof, Jerry had gotten the trim completed and done a bunch of other necessary things that I could not tell you because at that point in the weekend I was quite zombie-like.  It was nearly dark on Sunday evening and I was exhausted.  Everything wasn't completely done - but it was done enough to keep those little piggies safe.

The Hog Hut - Nearly Complete

Ooh-la-la - A man in a tool belt
 

I like to name all the buildings on our farm and thus the title of the article:  The Hog Hut!

I am sharing this post at the Homestead Barn Hop.