The Ivory Soap Experiment

 I've been looking at the Internet to find fun kid science experiments and found the magical Ivory soap experiment. It's at a lot of sites, but the ones I saw it at first were in this cool science booklet that you can download for free from While He Was Napping and Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas. (I have to admit, I hadn't done that much surfing of other blogs till this year, and I can't believe how many good ones are out there!)

Back to the experiment. Ivory soap is different than other soaps because they infuse air into the soap. In fact, it has enough air in it that it floats! (Give it a try and then test other bars of soap.)

 First we took one bar of soap and cut it into quarters.

 Then we got out the magnifying glass and took a good look at it to see the structure of the soap. We didn't see any noticeable air pockets.

 We put one quarter of the soap onto a paper plate (a regular plate would work just fine, too--I was concerned about the mess, but it's just soap!). Our plan was to put it into the microwave and heat it. We heard that something special would happen...

 We set the microwave for 2 minutes, but it took less than that to see an amazing transformation:

 The little quarter bar of soap had overflowed the paper plate with a massive white foamy substance.

It was lots of fun to play with!

So, why did this happen? The air in the soap expands as it is heated. This is an example of Charles' Law, which states that as a temperature of a gas increases, so does it volume.

Try microwaving another bar soap. What happens? (Spoiler alert) Most melt, because they don't have air whipped into the soap. Apparently P&G's founder's son, James Gamble, created the formula with air in it, and the public has loved it ever since Ivory soap has been sold since 1879.

Now, what do you do with all that foamy soap? Stay tuned--we've got a productive way to use it coming soon! **Updated: Here's the link for Part 2**

Outside Time

 We're in a thawing period, which is a nice change from the bitter cold of January. One afternoon I took the kids and some of their friends out on the ranch to look for cattails. After digging up roots for a little while, the kids spotted ice nearby and wanted to go play. So off we went. The water under the ice had been absorbed by the land, so the ice cracked and crunched as we walked on it. It was pretty awesome.

 We had to go through a little mud to get to it, and go under a barbed wire fence. The bigger kids were off in a flash, and I stayed with the little kids.
 
Isaac was off after the big kids in no time.

 My little princess (apparently you are a princess if you have the right hairstyle), was a little more cautious.

 I spotted Ava running in the willows. Willows are such a fun place for the kids to go and play. Although I'm always glad to have our dog Henry along so he can sniff out any animals in the willows and keep us from surprises.

 As Ava was running, she reached a particularly slick spot of ice and down she went.


It didn't faze her at all, and next thing she was checking out some ice close up. (Sorry for all the mud that day, Jenny! Hopefully it came out!)

 The boys trailed Ava, but eventually emerged from the willows. Then it was time for another adventure--searching for bones. They found some, but I made them to adhere to our rule: if the bones still have hair on them, then they need to leave them till another time. And all the ones we found were a little too fresh.


They had their sticks, though, and that meant plenty of adventures ahead.

 Off they headed, toward those big mountains.

Oh my, this makes me want to be five again!

The Great Homemade Yogurt Taste Test

 We recently got some raw milk from a friend, and I decided to try my hand at making yogurt. I found so many recipes on the Internet that I didn't know where to start. So I decided I would try a few and compare so I would know what my favorite was.

The first recipe I used was out of the Fannie Farmer cookbook. It was basically to heat one quart of milk to 200 degrees, then let cool to 110 degrees, add two tablespoons of plain yogurt, stir, put in crockery bowl, and keep warm for several hours. I realized that the high temperature was pasteurizing the yogurt and killing some of the enzymes and other great benefits of the raw milk, but that was okay, as this was just one of several recipes.

The yogurt set up quickly in the bowl and looked like store-bought yogurt.

The next recipe I used was from An Organic Wife. She used a gallon milk to make 5 quarts of yogurt, but I didn't want that much so I scaled it down to 2 pints. I poured the raw milk into the jars, put them in a pot of water, and heated the water up to 105 degrees, removed the jars, added 3 tablespoons yogurt.

Then I closed the jars and put them and 110 degree water into a mini cooler. They stayed there for about 12 hours and then went into the refrigerator for 24 hours.

 They had a nice consistency when done. Apparently raw milk can produce some very runny yogurt.

Here I am tipping the jars to see how runny or firm the yogurt was.

The final recipe from eHow was very similar to what An Organic Wife used: heat milk to 110 degrees, pour in jar, add in yogurt, and keep warm (at 110 degrees) for 8 hours. Unfortunately I didn't keep a close enough eye on the milk (I was trying to multitask and do some other cooking), and very quickly the milk got too hot:

 And then it got too hot again in the jar, as I had left it on top of the stove with the oven on, and apparently that is not a warm environment, but a hot environment! So the yogurt was pasteurized, but in this case came out looking kind of funny:

I tried the same recipe again, but this time put it in the oven with just the oven light on, and that was a much more consistent environment.

Then it was time for the taste test! We had the Dannon plain yogurt, which had been our starter, Yogurt #1-pasteurized, Fannie Farmer recipe; Yogurt #2-raw, An Organic Wife recipe with cooler method; Yogurt #3-WikiHow recipe but accidentally pasteurized; and Yogurt #4--raw-WikiHow recipe at correct temperature.

I enlisted additional taste testers. It wasn't a blind taste test, everyone knew which was which (if they could read). And what was our favorite? (Drum roll, please)

The favorite of both my husband and I was Yogurt #1, the pasteurized yogurt. That surprised us. It had a slightly sour taste that was actually quite pleasing, giving it a little more flavor than the plain yogurt. Yogurt #3, which had been accidentally pasteurized, had a similar flavor but a really weird consistency that wasn't pleasant. Yogurts #2 and #4 were good, but, well, just very plain. I was hoping to like the raw yogurt better, as I know it's full of wonderful things that get taken out by pasteurization. The kids didn't really have a favorite, they just thought it was a really fun thing to do taste testing.

We've been eating our yogurt, mixing in homemade jam to give it some extra oomph. Maybe next year we'll have another yogurt taste test. In the meantime, I'm ready to keep experimenting. Do you have a favorite yogurt recipe?

A Quick Horse Ride

We've had a lot of activity at the ranch lately, as it's time to ship some of the one-year old calves. They weigh about 800 pounds now. Wow! I am always amazed by how fast they grow. And a little grateful we don't grow that fast. I sure enjoy having little kids around for multiple years!

We headed down to see some of the activity surrounding moving the calves, and the kids were fascinated with the horses. Who wouldn't be? Seeing a bona fide cowboy galloping is the quintessential image of the West.

As we were wandering about, I noticed some metal artwork that captured the Wild West flavor. Hanging on the scale building was a cowboy roping.


I took two photos because it stretched around the corner and one part was in the shade and another part in the sun. But then I tried to capture the whole thing.


I'm not sure who put it up, but it sure is clever. And what cowboy wouldn't like to be able to lasso all those cows that are just out of sight!


Next we were very lucky to have Tierannie share her horse with us. Desert Girl took the first ride. She wasn't too certain about being up on a horse, but she really wanted to do it. It was interesting reading all the expressions going across her face.

She held on tight and enjoyed being up so high.

Then it was Desert Boy's turn. He sure was ready!

His most exciting part was when he got to hold the reins. Tierannie gave him a two-minute rundown on how to ride a horse, and Matthew declared that now he was a cowboy because he knew how to control a horse.

My little cowboy. He even was wearing his cowboy boots for the occasion.

As soon as he got down (all by himself, just like a real cowboy!) he declared he wanted his own horse. I guess he and his friend Ava now have something more to talk about!

Desert Survival: Eating Cattails in Winter

I've heard it said that cattails are one of the most important plants for people in the wild to know. They signify that water is present, provide a great fire starter, make a good shelter, and even can be eaten. My husband knew where some were on the ranch, so he went out and collected some tubers and brought them back. They didn't exactly look like I thought they would:

I tried eating it and found it a little starchy without much taste. It wouldn't be great, but I guess if I were starving, I'd be willing to dig some up.

 Above is a view of the tuber spread out. It's kind of stringy, not so much like a potato, which is what I expected.

A few days later I decided I wanted to go see the cattails and try some other survival things with them, such as making cord and possibly making shelter. Desert Boy led us to them. Again, I was surprised by what I saw.

 
The cattails had been eaten by the cows and deer and were only knee high! I had to readjust my expectations.
 
Nevertheless, I was able to make a little cord. I need to practice more, and it would be fun to try to weave several strands together to make a stronger rope.

 We'll be back in the spring and summer and give the cattails another try. Still, I'm glad we went so that I know what they look like in winter!