The Next Project Waiting in the Wings

After a colder than normal winter in which we burned a whole lot of firewood, I cleaned out the fireplace. This is a job that I put off because it takes a while to do. First you scoop the ashes out and put them in a bucket, then you remove the andirons and sweep the remaining ashes in a pile and scoop them out.  Ashes fly all over the place no matter how careful you are and a fine layer of ashes coats everything in the den.

Our fireplace was full and when I finished with the task, I had almost filled up the 30 gallon container shown below.  This container is one that was originally filled with molasses and minerals for the cows, but I now use it to catch rainwater from the drip line along the roof in the back, for putting hay in to carry to the hens' nesting boxes, for putting pecans in, and also for tasks like this.

A whole lot of ashes

These are all hardwood ashes, mostly water oak and pecan and that is a good thing because my project requires hardwood ashes.  The project I'm speaking of is making lye.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust...

I ain't gonna lye (pardon the play on words), we've never done this before, but there's a first time for everything.  Our goal is to make lye from our fireplace ashes and then make our own lye soap.  Now that I've gotten the raw ingredient for making lye, the work is mostly done.

Who knew that soap started from ashes?

All I need to do now is transfer this into a different container, run rainwater over the ashes, let it sit for a few days, and drain the water out and run it through again.  The result will be a liquid called caustic potash or potassium hydroxide, also known as lye and it will be the base for making lye soap.  We'll show you step by step how we do it as we have time to get this project going.