How to De-Skunk Your Dog; A Remedy that Really Works

Yes, Shorty got Skunked again.

 If any of you live out in the country...  and you have dogs.... and you have skunks, you will more than likely have need of a good de-skunking recipe at one time or another...  

Well, this is a good one.  It is very easy,  and it really works.   I have tried quite a few of them in the past, including the old "Tomato Juice Remedy", none of which work very well.  But this one, this one is amazing. I have used this one on Shorty many times, and I have to say it does the trick... almost 100%.

Scroll to the bottom for the Recipe.

 Do we really have to go through this... I mean I don't really see what the problem is.

 You aren't really gonna do this to me are you?

I can get this stuff off of my face myself.

See?

"Oh Rats!"

" I guess that doesn't feel too bad."

" I like the way you're rubbing under my chin."

 "Yes I know I am a good dog but why did every body get so upset?"

"Can I get out now?"

 "Com'on, give me a little break."

 "Did you say I would get a treat when we're done."

 "Let me think about it."

 "Ya, okay,  that sounds pretty good."

Shorty's Deskunking Recipe

Ingredients:

1 quart of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide

1/4 Cup Baking Soda

2 Teaspoons Liquid Soap

Instructions:

1.  Mix all three ingredients together in a plastic, ceramic, or glass container (apparently metal causes a wrong chemical reaction, so don't use a metal container)

2.   Sponge onto pet, working it into doggies hair thoroughly.  Let set 5 minutes (or more if  it seems necessary).  Be careful to avoid eyes (not an easy task, since most of the time  Peppe L' Pew's missile is aimed, fired and  executed right between the eyes of poor helpless and defenseless "Shorty" type doggies. Okay, helpless and defenseless is probably taking it a little too far... we might need to inquire after the skunk).

3.   Rinse thoroughly with warm water.    

I hope you won't need this recipe, but if you do I am so glad to share it with you.

As an update, I have used this recipe several times…. because well, Shorty gets skunked a lot…. it works every time.  The key is leaving the mixture on your pet for 3-5 minutes; which gives the formula time to work.   

A Little Bit of This and That

I decided I would post a little glimpse of our life this week.   Here is our weather report: We have been getting  snow  every 3 or 4 days.  I keep thinking  perhaps there will be enough to pull us out of this drought this time, and we can get on with spring.  We get 3 or 4 inches each time.  We probably need a couple of good snows of 1 or 2 feet to begin making a dent in the dried up ground.  But this looks pretty doesn't it, and every little bit helps to be sure.  We've been keeping a nice fire burning in the wood stove and making plenty of soup.

Our house.  I love snow pictures don't you?

Shorty got skunked again this week.  She averages 2 a year.  Here she is in the tub; unhappily awaiting her bath.  I have  a good remedy that gets 99% of the skunk smell out.  I will share it next post.

I've been making lots of jewelry for the Etsy shop.

I'm loving the Spring Colors 

I love creating....sometimes I get started  making jewelry or painting a picture, or sewing a project, and it is hard to quit.  But everyone always wants dinner... imagine that.

This is my little work table with all my piles of beads; I clean it up and then out it all comes again; what is up with that?  You can see all my reds (Valentines inspired my reds).

Here's Steve and Shorty... and guess who is driving?

Its Eddie... everyone clear the road.

Love that smile of his.

They are fetching and moving big water tanks (can you see them in the background behind the truck?They tower over the garden shed and the chicken house)

It is part of one of our business projects.  They are driving in R.G.  What is R.G. you say? R.G. is this trucks name.  It is short for  "Rojo Grande" or "Big Red" as we would say in English.  Every truck needs a name... that's our theory anyway.  

Dog's love trucks.

Here's my friend Roxy (livingfromglorytoglory.blogspot.com.

I went over to her house on Saturday to help her sew some drapes for her bedroom.

She's remodeling her bedroom, and making new curtains to go with the new look.

They sure looked pretty once we got them up.  You will have to pop over to her blog for the "before and afters".

Roxy's daughter in law's mother...  (that was a mouthful/fingerful... get it.... I'm typing), cleaned out a lot of her clothes and gave them to Amy.  After Roxy and Amy got to go through them and find plenty of wonderful, goodies,  guess who else got to enjoy the goodies?  You guessed it... yours truly.  I was so blessed by those clothes.  I completely cleaned out my clothes and got rid of a large percent of mine (I sure was tired of looking at mine... some things I had had for a very long time.)  I am giving the left overs and my cleaned out things to some other friends of mine.  I think these clothes have been a little like the loaves and fishes.   There were more bags of clothes left over than I started with.  They just keep multiplying, and  we are all getting a portion.

I was so blessed with the new clothes, that I even color coordinated my closest.  Can you believe that?  I have never done that before, but it seemed like such a good idea when it came into my head, because it will be easy to put things together now.  I won't have to hunt through looking for and trying to find something to go with something else.  

What do you think?  Fun ha?  Look at all the pretty colors.

These are just tanks, t-shirts, turtlenecks and jeans.

Whites, creams, browns, greys, blacks, greens, blues, purples, pinks, reds, maroons, and golds.

Amy tell your Mama she was a real blessing to us all.

I hope you all have a wonderful week.  May you be warm and cozy, with wood fires and good home cooking.  May your Spring come quickly, but your drought be gone for good and may you be blessed in all that you do.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I have been reading a lot about homemade laundry soap in the last couple of years. I wanted to give it a try.  The thought of using ingredients I can pronounce  and being able to control what goes into my laundry soap, greatly appeals to me.  I read quite a few recipes, and read quite a bit about the various ingredients, and what their cleaning role is in laundry soap.  The following is a recipe that I ended up using, and also a few facts about the ingredients.

Grate your soap using a cheese grater.

The Fels Naphta is a dryer soap, and grates finer, resulting in less volume. The Pink Zote soap above is a big, moist bar and grates a larger volume. I used both bars...since I had gotten them both and couldn't choose one or the other. Some people suggested letting your bars of soap dry out for a certain amount of days before grating, to get a finer grated result... some even blended in blender or food processor. I am sure that those are great ideas, but I had no patience to dry out my soap, and got such great pleasure in grating it up with a cheese grater. It looked, felt and smelled beautiful. I thoroughly enjoyed myself doing it. I know, I'm a little weird.

Mix the dry ingredients with the grated soap.

Store in a pretty Container. Use a pretty scooper to scoop it up.

Home Made Laundry Detergent

Powder Formula

3 -4 Bars grated soap (Fels Naptha, Castille, Zote or Ivory)
1 Box Washing Soda(3 lb, 7oz ): This not baking soda
1 Box Borax (4 lbs, 12 oz)
1 Box Baking Soda (the larger size... 4 lbs)
Oxy Clean (you can get it inexpensively at the Dollar Store). I put this in separately as needed for heavily stained clothes, or loads... but many people mixed it in with their laundry detergent. Do as you like.


Mix all ingredients Together. I used my biggest mixing bowl... someone suggested mixing it in a trash bag... it sounded like a good idea.

Use 2 Tb per load (I double that, because we have very hard water). Pour soap into washing machine as it is filling (I have found that, although using hot water adds to your costs somewhat, it is best to start with hot water, to dissolve and activate the soap and Borax and is usually best all around in removing dirt and stains.


Here are a few tidbits that I learned when I did a little study and decided to share them with you.


Bar Soap
Fels Naphta: My daughter, Marie was given a bar of this for her first baby shower. I had never heard of it before that (where have I been?). I loved the idea of it, and have since used it. I also love the smell of it. It is a laundry bar soap intended for the pre-treatment of stains by rubbing the dampened product on a soiled area prior to laundering. The manufacturer claims it to be most effective in removing chocolate, baby formula, perspiration, and make-up.

Castile Soap is named so because it originated in the Kingdom of Castilla, a part of the country that we know today as Spain. The name Castilla (or in English, Castile) means land or region of castles. It was a region that was first to use olive oil instead of lard or tallow in their soap making because of their abundant olive trees. The word Castile is now used generically when referring to a vegetable oil based soap. Coconut oil often falls in this category. Incidentally, coconut oil based soap adds a natural softener to the laundry.

Zote Soap is from Mexico and is bar soap as well as a laundry bar soap. I have also seen Zote soap flakes at the grocery store, and have tried them and liked them. It is the least expensive per its size that I have found, and I love the smell of it.

Ivory soap is descriptive of your basic bar of soap with no special additives. Any hard bar soap like it works well.


Washing Soda
Washing Soda is not the same thing as Baking soda, although one of its manufacturers is Arm and Hammer... the makers of Baking soda. They are a slightly different chemical make up and have different functions in the washing machine. Washing soda is a common base ingredient in many laundry soaps and works as a water softener and stain remover.

Borax
Borax is a laundry booster, and works a little like a bleach. Apparently, when combined with hot water, it converts to hydrogen pyroxide.


Baking Soda
Baking soda can be very effective at removing stains formed by age. Because it is a natural cleaner, your older linens can be trusted to be whitened and brightened by its effects. It is also a good odor remover and is good for neutralizing acid based stains, such as vomit and urine.



Vinegar
Vinegar is an acid. It can be used in a clothes washer as a laundry booster / fabric softener / water conditioner . In other words, it is wonderful for removing stains, mildew (I love it for towels that have gotten that mildewy stinky smell... bleach is the only other thing I know to get that out, (and that's not usually the best option), it is also great for breaking down hard water, and leaves your clothes soft (no need for a fabric softener). Don't use it directly on your delicate fabrics, because it is acidic and can be hard on them.

For cleaning and deodorizing laundry: I usually use 2-3 cups added to the laundry before the detergent, to pre-soak a stinky dirty load.  Use a pre-soak cycle, or soak as long as you feel necessary, then  drain and wash as usual.


For Fabric Softener: Add about 1/2 to 1 cup to your final rinse for a fabric softener and freshener. That is what I use depending on the load size. I have seen every variation of suggested use, I know that so much of it depends on the hardness of your water, and the size of your load. Experiment.


Powder or Liquid? Hot, warm or cold? Agitation, soak or rinse? Chemistry? Do you have hard water or soft; these are all questions to consider; so here are a few tips that might give you an answer:

1. Vinegar together with Baking Soda will neutralize each other. so consider the timing of what you are using For example: if you are soaking something in Baking Soda, its best to hold off on the vinegar until the rinse load; if you are soaking something in vinegar, do it first, drain, and then add your soap (if it has baking soda) afterwards
2. Increase the temperature of the wash water. Grease and oil based grime don’t come out as easily in cold water.
3. Put your soap in first, it will distribute and disolve better this way.
4. Put less clothes in the wash so they agitate/tumble better.
5. Use more detergent for hard water, and less for soft.
6. Soak the load before you run it.
7. Liquid detergent is more easily dissolved and evenly distributed in cold water washes.

Happy Laundering Everyone!

Our First Little Granddaughter

          I had announced to you about the arrival of our little Granddaughter here and now I wanted to share a couple precious pictures of her.  We haven't gotten  

       to get  out  to North Carolina to see her yet, but are working on a plan. These are e-mail pictures. 

 I still  can't get over the fact that we have a little granddaughter.  It feels like a dream really.

 Is she sweet or what?  

"Elyse Adelaide  We can't wait to see you."

A Few of My Favorite Things

A favorite word that my girls and I seem to use often, is the word "cozy".  To us it is a word that describes peaceful, safe, warm, lovely, happy contentment.  It usually includes those we love, comfortable spots, lovely china, pretty things, books, tea  and of course a little chocolate, or sweet treat. I am sure you get the picture.  I have been  missing my faraway kids and my grand babies.  I miss our "cozy" times together.   I decided to take Julie Andrew's advice in "The Sound of Music" by thinking of a few of "My Favorite Things" as a remedy of when I am feeling sad.  Well, I'm not really feeling sad.. its just a longing for them that I can't seem to get over.  So tonight I will share a few of my favorite things with you, and take pleasure in your company.

Old Glass

 I love old glass, beautifully blown or cut glass always draws my attention.  I got these at a second hand store.

I took pictures of these two little pitchers out of the blue several days back, because I thought they were so pretty with the light coming in and hitting them just as the sun was going down. 

 I keep them on my work table next to my desk, because they are so pretty to me, and I am thinking of where I want to use them.  I already have a couple of nice vinegar and oil bottles... so perhaps something in my bathroom.  I have been wanting to make  some Rosewater; it is on my "List".

 Old Glass and Silver

 I love to collect old glass especially with silver tops.

 I found this one years ago at a little antique store.  I love the silver top.  One day I would love to learn Silver smithing,  to work with silver and create things like this.  It is on my "List".

You probably didn't know some of these "off the wall" things about me, but now you do.

I keep special little pieces of jewelry in this one.

I also like old glass containers for what ever concoctions I have going.  Marie and Elizabeth gave me the two silver topped pieces for Christmas this year.  I put "Witch Hazel" in the one on the left, and use it for a skin toner. Its the perfect container for that, because it has holes in the top, and I just turn it over and sprinkle it into the cotton;  I don't like the bottle the Witch Hazel comes in.. its plastic and ugly.  The one in the center has my blush in it; it is one of my concoctions.  I take old powders and blushes when they have broken or crumbled, and put them in a bowl and break them up  nicely and mix them up together, then use a powder brush to apply.  I love mixing stuff up... and then putting it into something pretty.  This month I made up some homemade tooth paste (Marie and Elizabeth told me about it, and I looked it up and made it... We like it.  It is in the jar with the spoon sticking out of it three pictures above.

I should probably polish these up.

Perhaps I will real soon.  In the meantime they are being used.

 I love Silver.   Here is one of my favorite teapots.  Steve got this one for me several years ago... my Mom got another for me that same Christmas.  Neither of them knew the other had gotten one for me.  They both blessed me... I sure enjoy them.

I had this picture, because I took it for my Etsy shop, for the necklace I just made.  Perhaps another time I will post a little more on Silver, because I have several other pieces I would love to show you.

Books

I can't resist books... especially old ones... or with pretty covers or leather binding.  And of course they have to be good books; not just any books, but that is part of the fun of the hunt.

 I can't resist little books either...  I just love those little books.

 These are all the size of my hand or smaller.  The Charles Dickens Book is a treasure.

Beatrix Potter...  love her little books.

I also love Winnie the Pooh.  Nathan and Himilce got me a sweet little Winnie the Pooh book of tea several years ago and I love it.   Little mice, little rabbits, little illustrations and water colors are still magical to me.

 There is always a stack of books and magazines on the side of my bed.

 These are in our bedroom.  I didn't get downstairs to take pictures of those... but there are more.. much more.  They are like old friends.  I really haven't finished a good book in a while (perhaps I have read one or two).  Ever since we got the kids...(our last three kids). I can't seem to get a book read.  I do read  every night just before bed; but I fall asleep before I get very far;  I read a chapter here and there, and pull out what I need when I need it.  I haven't read a novel in a long time.   I am longing for a D.E. Stevenson; she is one of my favorites. I think blogging uses up more of that time that I used to read, and I am tireder at night than I used to be.  When I was young, I used to get into trouble for reading late at night when I was supposed to be sleeping.  I was one of those flashlight readers.  I got in trouble at school sometimes too, because I would read when I wasn't supposed to.   So that is my story on books 

The Big Chair

 I got this chair at the second hand store right after Steve's accident. It was practically new, and I got it very cheap.  I even took the truck to town by myself and picked it up (because I was the only one available at that time) and I am not too fond of driving the truck, because it is such a big beast.  I got the chair for Steve, because it is a big chair, and he could sit in it comfortably and prop his foot up.  It has become a favorite to both of us.  Steve likes it because of its size and shape and comfort.  I love it for its  beautiful rose print, and comfort.  We had it in our little mobile home when we were there after the accident, and now it is up in our bedroom.  I got the little stool at the same time... same store. It is an ugly orangey, tomato red, so I covered it with a piece of material I could tolerate a little better.  We affectionately call it the Tomato soup stool.

 I guess you could say these are a couple of my favorite things too.  There is never a dull moment when they are around... and they are good for my heart.

Thanks for looking at a few of my favorite things.  I have a few more favorite things, but I will save them for another time. 

Blessings to you all.