2014 Meets Days of Yore

Before the girls arrived for their STEM science lesson in soap making, I told my friend I was thinking I'd like to be a Girl Scout leader.

Three-hours later, I was admitting that I may have been mistaken.

Don't get me wrong, I had a great time with them. But, gosh, they were energetic and hard to keep focused, and it seems I've lost my sense of communication with young people. At least they weren't glued to cell phones or tablets. It was a technology-free day.

In their defense, though, we held the class at my friend's house, where three, maybe four, dogs and four or five cats greet you at the front door as you walk in. Then there are horses and pigs in the back yard, all of which are rescued.

My friend and I worked hard on our plans to teach the girls all of the science behind soap making - with real, and dangerous, lye. But each of the seven girls' hearts were stolen when they laid eyes and hands on the menagerie of pets. And they were anxious for the opportunity to ride the horses.
On top of that, we had a nice spread of homemade pizza pinwheels, cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies laying out on the counter top, tempting the girls away from their science lesson and badge requirements.

Soap making seemed to be the furthest thing from their minds. So, we needed to kick things into high gear and start the cold process soap making. But first things first - my friend extolled the importance of rescuing unwanted cats and dogs from the many shelters in our community.

My friend, whom in her inner most soul believes she is Amish, makes her own soap, so she had all the needed tools and ingredients, and she had some already made so the girls would be able to take a bar of soap home with them.

Making soap is not real time consuming, but it is a lengthy process to write about. So, rather than take up all this space with instructions, you can go to:
http://www.soap-making-resource.com/cold-process-soap-making.html

In fact, you can find recipes and supplies there.

Here is my friend carefully adding the lye to the recipe.

Some background:
Back in the days of yore, lye was made by dripping water through burning ashes. Then soap was made with that lye. The lard came from pig fat.
Of course, soap making doesn't have to be that complicated. Today you can buy your lye, lard and other ingredients online.
Homemade soap lathers up real bubbly and is filled with glycerine, which is removed from most commercial soaps today so makers can sell it to you separately in lotions. (Better for them to make more money off of you.) Homemade soap is so gentle on your skin.

Once we began the process of making the soap, we had the girls' attention, and they helped with accurate measuring of the ingredients. As the lye mixture and lard mixture cooled, the girls ate some lunch and then took turns riding the horse. And as they waited, we set up a craft table, and they used decorative paper and ribbon to wrap their bars of soap my friend had made in advance for each of them to take home.

Each of the girls took home a specially decorated bar of homemade soap.

 

Here I am showing the girls' leader how to wrap the soap.

 

Throughout the afternoon, my friend and I lost the girls' attention, over and over, again, but the end result was that the girls were able to check off some badge requirements, and I had a great time. I really miss scouting, but wondered throughout the day if it was that hard to keep my attention when I was that young. I suppose it was.

Here we all are, the girls, troop leader and my friend and I - and you can see, the girls love the pets.

I'm never afforded the opportunity to spend time with young girls, so this was a real treat for me.

It also gave me some insight into how my mother kept our attention as she led my scout troop for so long. She'd have loved the soap-making lesson; the soap smells like Jergens lotion, which Mother was faithful to for decades, and the girls had lessons in pet rescue, soap making, crafting and communicating with adults. A win, win, win, win.

Maybe I can talk my friend into donating her time and talent again sometime. Perhaps you'd like to join us?

I love you, Mom.