Rose By Any Other Name....Would Be Called Something Different

Good morning!

When we were in Alaska, one of my favorite things was collecting wild rose petals for the two weeks that they were in bloom.  I would then dry them and use them as scent holders in oatmeal milk bath.

We are extremely blessed that Lemonrock (our little farm) also has roses, but these are cultivar roses from a long time ago.  They do not have a scent :( but they are gorgeous.

Our church had a ladies event where we made various bath products, including oatmeal bath!  I was so grateful that I had roses to gather and dry!

This is the pail I gathered the petals in <3

Here they are on the cookie sheet.  I dried them at the lowest setting my oven will go (170F).  They made the house smell wonderful!

This is how they look after drying.  The picture shows them a little more purple than they really turned out.  You want to make sure they are thoroughly dry so they don't mold in the jar.

We did not use all the rose petals for the ladies night, so I took some of the left overs and am making rose extract!  I will hopefully be posting about my new foray into homemade extracts soon :)

Mudbug Traps Part Deux

Good Morning Sweet friend!  It always makes me happy when you stop by :)

That might seem odd....how would I know if you stopped by?  But in fact, you reading this makes me happy.  I might not know when you read it, but if you are here, that gives me great joy indeed :)

Are you wondering what happened to the crawfish trap I made?  Let me show you

Sooper and I rowing out to set the trap.  We baited it with a can of cat food that I had punched multiple holes in.

 

Carefully lowering the trap in the water.  We tied cord to it and towed the end of the cord to Precious.

 

And now we wait.....

 

The next morning.  I was so excited, I could hardly wait til the kids were ready to go with me to see!

 

Drawing the trap in and....

 

Fish.

No worries!  I rebaited the trap with the fish and the cat food and toted the trap to the upper pond.

 

Got a bit of a snarl.  Since this pond is much smaller, I just towed the trap kitty-corner across the pond to get it past the reeds.

Closing the end of the trap with the heavy paper clip.

 

 

Then the next morning....

 

YAY!  Three crawdads!  Now, these are not big enough to eat, however, it lets me know that a)my trap is sound :) and b)the upper pond anyway will support crawdads.  Now I need to see if these are as big as they get, or if I need to stock a different type.  I think there is less predation in the upper pond as there are no bass and catfish.

 

Don't make me go all Cajun on you, cher! :)

 

Mudbug (crawfish) Traps

Good Morning, hon!!!

I am glad to be awake this morning, how about you?  I had a very fine rest with lots of adventurous dreams, so I am glad to be awake in the cool quiet morning and spend a nice peaceful.

I wanted to show you the crawfish trap I built!!  I used this website:

http://in-this-life-like-weeds.blogspot.com/2008/10/diy-how-to-make-crawfish-trap.html

I wanted to build a crawfish trap for several reasons:  to stay in touch with my heritage, as a possible income source (crawfish), to see if I could, and as a survival skill.

It is prudent, I think, to learn skills as often as may be.  First of all, it keeps your wits sharp and provides an excellent example for your children.  Even if you fail at something, that just provides a nice opportunity for a chuckle (I fully expect that, when I try to learn cast netting, I will be posting photos of me hopelessly tangled up in the net).  I have found that the more skills I learn, the more gumption I have, and that is what I want to pass down to my children.

Here is what I did...

These are the supplies I used:  small gauge fencing, wire cutters, pliers, wire, and the internet :)

I rolled out the fencing and made it as flat as possible.

With the wire cutters, I cut across the bottom edge.  I did not use precise measurements--no need.  I just used the wire as wide as it was (36 inches) and cut off about a 4 foot piece.  Watch out, those little edges are SHARP!

I tried to cut long lengths of the wire to "sew" the long edges (or the selvage edges for the sewers out there) together, but the wire I was using was too stiff, so instead I decided to "twist tie" the edges together.  Much easier.

 

This is a twist tie I cut.  It is about the size of a hair pin.  The sharp bend in it helps to make it be tighter when twisted together.

 

In order to make the cone, I had to find out how wide the trap was.  I did not need a measurement, just a length, if that makes sense (it will in the following photo :) ).  I tied a string to a pen, then just stretched a string across to the other side to "measure".

Then I drew a semi circle onto a piece of newspaper to make a template and cut it out.

Then I traced the outline of what I cut out of the newspaper.

 

Then I cut out the semi circle.  I cut out two, but only ended up using one.  Cutting the wire is much easier if you hold the wire like a ski pole instead of like scissors. 

I carefully (!) trimmed off the pointy ends and made sure that I collected each one.  These would be really bad if someone stepped on one or if a child or pet ate one!

I formed the cone by making a fold in the middle of the STRAIGHT edge of the semi-circle then bringing the straight edges together.  I then twist tied the straight edges ALMOST all the way to the top.  Stop at about 2 inches from the top or so because you will be.....

 

Cutting off the tip of the cone.  This is where the crawdads enter.  I folded the edge back to make a smoother, larger opening.

I then fitted the cone into the trap and then twist tying them together.  As you can see, I had a much bigger cone than the trap needed, but that actually worked out wonderfully because then I knew my cone would not be too small AND because I was able to fold down that sharp edge so it would not snag me as I carried it. 

And there you have it!  One REALLY large trap (you can make it shorter, but I would not make it smaller in diameter).  Instead of putting a cone on the other end, I just folded it over and used one of those large clips that you use to hold lots of papers together.  This makes it easy for me to open and dump my catch out :).

I will add a part two--baiting and setting the traps--soon :)