When I was very young - probably not more than 4 - I used to look forward to the days of the mass chicken killings. My grandmother had this black woman named Essie that would come work for her for a day or two and they'd cull the flock and stock our freezer with fresh chicken. I remember they'd snare the chickens around the feet and hang them upside down from the clothesline then go down the line dispatching them one by one then start processing them. I remember seeing them gutting the hens and finding unshelled egg yolks in the reproductive organs and how fascinating I found that to be. When I grew tired of the yolk discoveries I played with the chicken feet, making them move by pulling on the tendons then peeling the scaly, yellow skin off and marveling at the paper thinness of it. If I tell most people about those memories they get squeamish and start telling me how morbid I am and what a perverted taste of entertainment I had but I don't see it that way at all. I grew up with a love of the sciences and especially biology and that, combined with my knowledge of the body processes via chicken A&P, helped me excel in nursing school. Little did I know that 25 years later I'd be retired from nursing and enjoying a life of homesteading and survivalism. If it hadn't been for my grandmother letting me help in the chicken killing, I wouldn't be able to raise an animal and process it and be able to put food on the table. That wasn't gross, that was a gift from my grandmother.
Whenever she and Essie would break for lunch, my grandmother and I would eat in the kitchen and Essie ate outside at the picnic table, with us watching her. I used to ask my grandmother why she didn't come inside and she answered "She's welcome to come in but she won't because she wasn't raised that way". Even then, I understood that. Essie wasn't a slave but her parents and grandparents probably were and they raised her to be respectful. Don't get offended about that statement because even back in the early 1960's in small towns, whether you want to believe it or agree with it or not, that's how it was. Nobody was offended or slighted by it, it's just the way things were. Then, at then of a long day of processing, we drove Essie home, paid her and gave her some of the chickens.
Sometimes Essie would bring us some lye soap she had made. I was always so excited about it, especially the way it smelled of lard and heritage. It always did remind me of old timey-ness and I could imagine Essie standing at a cast iron pot stirring the soap with a wooden spoon behind that old wooden house she lived in. I never saw my grandmother make lye soap but I've heard her tell about helping on soap making day with Mama Bell (her mother-in-law) so many times that I felt like I had been there too and felt like I knew just how to make it. After I retired and moved out to the country I made my first batch of soap. I know you can buy soap for .50 to $1 a bar at the store but it's so much more rewarding to make your own and it's easy - I haven't purchased soap in 3 years.
Homemade soap is quite simple to make and pretty much fool proof. If you do make a mistake and it doesn't harden, you just use the liquid as hand soap or shampoo so there's no such thing as a waste. It does require Lye and that can be bought in small cans at local hardware stores or you can do like I did for a while and buy it in 1 lb bags from Amazon until I came across an article on how to make your own lye from wood ashes. I thought, when the SHTF I won't be able to buy lye so I need to know how to make it. Turns out it takes a few days but it's simple.
Homemade Lye Water From Hardwood Ash
1 Five gallon plastic bucket with a few small drain holes in the bottom
Old cotton tea towel
Hay
Hardwood ashes to fill a 5 gallon bucket halfway
1 smaller plastic bucket for the 5 gallon drain bucket to rest in
Soft water (distilled or rain)
Cover the bottom of the 5 gal bucket (with drain holes) with the towel then a 1" thick layer of hay, scoop ashes into the bucket atop the hay until the bucket is about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Nest the 5 gallon bucket into the smaller bucket. (The goal is to have the bottom of the larger bucket fit just inside the top of the smaller one. You want space inside the smaller bucket to hold the lye drippings.) Gently add water to the top of the ashes. Let this sit and drain overnight or until it is no longer dripping through.
The amber to brown liquid collected in the bottom bucket is the lye water. The lye has to be the proper strength to cause the saponification process so you'll need to check it. The easiest way is to use a fresh egg in the shell or a potato and place it in the lye water and it needs to float high enough on top of the liquid to have a quarter sized piece of the object completely unsubmerged, this is the correct strength for soap making. If the lye water is too strong the egg will float much higher, you can add a little water until the egg floats correctly. If the egg or potato sinks, it's too weak: add some fresh ashes to the old ones and pour the weak lye water back through, let it drain and recheck. You may have to do this 2 or 3 times. Be careful when handling lye because it can burn your skin. Once the egg floats correctly, you are ready to make soap. Prepare a soap mold too...I use a straight-sided 12x16 pan as well as a purchased loaf soap mold. If you don't have one of those, you can use a small cat litter pan.
Mama Bell's Lye Soap
6 oz homemade lye water
13 oz soft water
2 lb fat (lard, fat or bacon grease)
Essential oils or fragrances, if desired
in a stainless steel or glass bowl, pour the water into the lye water (never lye water into water), check temp and allow to reach 85 degrees. In a stainless steel pot, heat fat to 85 degrees and very slowly drizzle lye water into fat in pot and over low heat, cook and whisk until it becomes thick like sour cream and the soap leaves trails on the surface. If you want to add essential oils or fragrances, do that at this point, Pour into soap molds and cover with a towel. It can take anywhere from 24 hrs to 1 month for soap to harden enough to handle. Be patient, each batch is different. Once it has hardened, cut it into pieces and arrange in a single layer on a large sheet pan, uncovered and allow to age for 1 month. This allows any excess lye to neutralize so you avoid skin irritation.
If you master this basic recipe you can go on to more exotic soaps like Goats Milk, Castile, Olive Oil and other specialty soaps. I add chamomile blossoms, herbs or oatmeal and honey to my soaps but the sky's the limit. Give this a try and learn an important survival skill, you'll be glad you did someday!
