Marmalading Tonight
I'm sure by now you're sick of hearing about my bergamot oranges, but I have a few words to say about them -- I'm making marmalade tonight! I only wish I had some rose petals to include in the mix to give the bergamot marmalade a rosy tonality. Imagine that on your toast.
It's rainy and soggy today, as it has been off and on since the first of January. It's weird. In the two years I've lived here, I haven't experienced this. It rains differently near the coast than it does in the valley. I remark on it often and I'm sure everyone around me is sick of how much I have to say about it. In the valley, when it rains, it pours, and often for an hour or more at a time; during the last big El Nino, it rained for days on end. But here in the wee mountains near the sea, it rains for a minute or two, then it mists, then the sun is out for an hour, and then it pours for a couple of minutes, and then it's foggy, and then it's something else -- sideways rain, hail, the sun again -- I've never experienced anything so odd in my life in terms of weather. Well, maybe except for the time I lived in San Antonio, Texas, and hail the size of a golf ball knocked Tommy Greene in the head and sent him tumbling down a muddy hill into a swampy ravine with his shirt half torn off and one of his shoes gone missing. That was different. I kind of like the weather here. The hubs mentioned it reminded him of Connecticut weather, where a common saying is, "Don't like the weather? Wait five minutes." Well, I woke this morning to steady rainfall, now the sun is blaring through the windows, but in the sky, just a bit off into the horizon, are the darkest, meanest looking rain clouds I've seen in a while. So I'm waiting. Exactly five minutes.
I pulled the Tuberose & Coffee Oil from the Apothecary. I have used some in my hair, on my hands, up my arms a bit as part of the testing process. I didn't recommend it being used on the face because my intuition said it wasn't a good idea. Something about the rawness of enfleurage pommades and direct plant infusions that give me pause. Anyway, I decided yesterday to use a bit of the oil on my face and neck and I got a rash. I have super sensitive skin, so it might have been the change in product on my face, or it could have been exposure to direct sunlight (I did sit in a car with the window down and the sun on my face, and exactly where the sun was directly hitting my skin is where the rash formed -- there was no rash on my neck where I had also applied the oil). I washed my face with a little soapy water and the rash cleared within an hour, but I'm not risking my clients having something like that happen to them, so the oil has been pulled. Experiment and learn.
I still have some oil dense tuberose enfleurage leftovers that I froze for distilling, so that's gonna happen soon. We'll see what we get there.
A friend of mine, Ane Walsh, who lives in Brazil, recently posted a ton of soap pictures on her Facebook feed, and now I'm jonesing to make soap again. But I'm stuck. Whether it be the retrograde or the HP closet that's holding me back, I don't know, but I have a strong intuitive feeling to just let things sit for a while.
So we sit, me and the things, waiting for the right time.
It's rainy and soggy today, as it has been off and on since the first of January. It's weird. In the two years I've lived here, I haven't experienced this. It rains differently near the coast than it does in the valley. I remark on it often and I'm sure everyone around me is sick of how much I have to say about it. In the valley, when it rains, it pours, and often for an hour or more at a time; during the last big El Nino, it rained for days on end. But here in the wee mountains near the sea, it rains for a minute or two, then it mists, then the sun is out for an hour, and then it pours for a couple of minutes, and then it's foggy, and then it's something else -- sideways rain, hail, the sun again -- I've never experienced anything so odd in my life in terms of weather. Well, maybe except for the time I lived in San Antonio, Texas, and hail the size of a golf ball knocked Tommy Greene in the head and sent him tumbling down a muddy hill into a swampy ravine with his shirt half torn off and one of his shoes gone missing. That was different. I kind of like the weather here. The hubs mentioned it reminded him of Connecticut weather, where a common saying is, "Don't like the weather? Wait five minutes." Well, I woke this morning to steady rainfall, now the sun is blaring through the windows, but in the sky, just a bit off into the horizon, are the darkest, meanest looking rain clouds I've seen in a while. So I'm waiting. Exactly five minutes.
I pulled the Tuberose & Coffee Oil from the Apothecary. I have used some in my hair, on my hands, up my arms a bit as part of the testing process. I didn't recommend it being used on the face because my intuition said it wasn't a good idea. Something about the rawness of enfleurage pommades and direct plant infusions that give me pause. Anyway, I decided yesterday to use a bit of the oil on my face and neck and I got a rash. I have super sensitive skin, so it might have been the change in product on my face, or it could have been exposure to direct sunlight (I did sit in a car with the window down and the sun on my face, and exactly where the sun was directly hitting my skin is where the rash formed -- there was no rash on my neck where I had also applied the oil). I washed my face with a little soapy water and the rash cleared within an hour, but I'm not risking my clients having something like that happen to them, so the oil has been pulled. Experiment and learn.
I still have some oil dense tuberose enfleurage leftovers that I froze for distilling, so that's gonna happen soon. We'll see what we get there.
A friend of mine, Ane Walsh, who lives in Brazil, recently posted a ton of soap pictures on her Facebook feed, and now I'm jonesing to make soap again. But I'm stuck. Whether it be the retrograde or the HP closet that's holding me back, I don't know, but I have a strong intuitive feeling to just let things sit for a while.
So we sit, me and the things, waiting for the right time.
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