Farm Happenings

Eight Ways to Age Our Skin Faster

This week we are focusing on getting the toxins out of our skin care items that can be harmful to our health and can age us faster. Because I believe what we eat is just as important as what we put on our skin, I have added a few of those too. While none of us want to appear older than we are (I was doing just that and didn’t even realize it), we often don’t fully understand how detrimental these added ingredients to our products along with not getting the proper nourishment are to our skin and health. I have noticed a big difference in my skin since I started using real soap with quality ingredients, moisturizing with basic oils and herbs without the harmful components added, and using facial cream without the poisonous toxins. I have also had many other people report similar results. We can’t stop the aging process, but we can sure speed it up by following this list of eight things.

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Wisdom Wednesday

When crooks expand the money supply, this is called counterfeiting. When governments do it, it is called “monetary policy,’ but it is the same thing, inflation. In both cases it causes falling money and rising prices.

Richard J. Maybury

One of the books the kids and I are reading at this time is Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? This quote comes from that book. We have found it very useful to understand economics. I highly recommend this great read!

Week 29: Get the Toxins Out and Consider Natural Bar Soap

Liquid soaps have become very popular over the years. Unfortunately, in order to keep liquid soaps from going bad and growing harmful bacteria, they must contain preservatives that are known to be harmful to our health.  They also contain other toxic ingredients and require more energy to produce and create more waste. Bar soap is just as effective as liquid soap (even antibacterial soap) according to several studies, and since there’s no extra water added, they don’t have to contain preservatives (although many still do). While bar soap will have fewer toxic ingredients than liquid soap, it’s still very important to read labels on those bars of soap. Most of the cheap bars of soap that are sold in the store contain several cheap, toxic ingredients, and most of the glycerin (a natural skin softener) has been removed. The glycerin can be used to make lotions or other products which one will need to purchase after using this cheap soap. I wouldn’t even know how to remove the glycerin (nor would I want to!).

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Caleb’s Rat Report to Mentink Family Farms

I shared in a recent post about how we almost used rat poison on our organic farm over five years ago. When we moved to our farm I saw my first rat and I was panicked! My husband bought rat poison and my son gave us this report right before we were ready to stick it in the barn. We never did use that poison and we are both really thankful for Caleb’s wisdom. I asked him to share this as a blog post. We are certainly not experts in this area and just becasue this has worked really for us, doesn’t mean it will produce the same results for everyone. Here is Caleb’s report below.

“Eek! A rat!” Its iconic. They’re small. They’re furry. They’re such ugly-dirty-disgusting-mean-insolent-little-churls! I get it, rats definitely are one of the most despised animals on a farm. If rabbits reproduce fast, rats are faster. If weasels can slip through small openings, rats can fit through smaller ones. Racoons are destructive, rats are more. You get the point. Rats will eat anything they can fit in their mouth. They will chew through almost anything that’s in their way and kill anything they can over power. It’s no wonder we do whatever we can to get rid of them! Well, almost anything.

                I’m not here to “Save the rats”. Yes, I do get paid to hunt rats so maybe I’m a little bit biased. All that aside however, the debate whether or not to use poison to control rats will probably never be completely settled.

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If I Can’t Eat It I Don’t Put It On My Skin

We should never put anything on our skin that we wouldn’t eat. Recent studies have shown that all the chemicals that you find in skin care items will go directly to the bloodstream, lymph nodes, and other parts of the body. What we apply to our skin has even greater dangers according to a professor of biology at North Carolina State University than what we ingest. According to him, “When you eat something, it’s broken down by your liver and digestive system. But when you put something on your skin, there are times when it can enter your bloodstream without being metabolized.”

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Wisdom Wednesday: Are There Pied Pipers in My Life?

Did you know that the Pied Piper fairytale was likely based on a true story? When I asked my own family members if they had heard about the Pied Piper, they each shared that it was a fairytale about a man dressed in “pied clothing” that went to the village of Hamelin, Germany to rid the town of rats by luring them into a lake to drown. They were lured with music played on a magical pipe. After the town refused to pay him, he led the children to a cave and they were never seen again. Each story varies a little, but it’s basically the same. My family members were as surprised as I was to learn that this story was more than likely based off a true story. Even my husband who is very knowledgeable had not heard this.

The evidence that this really happened is written on a plaque at what is believed to be the Pied Piper house dating to 1602 and it says “A.D. 1284 – on the 26th of June – the day of St John and St Paul – 130 children – born in Hamelin – were led out of the town by a piper wearing multicoloured clothes. After passing the Calvary near the Koppenberg they disappeared forever.”

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Week 28 Get the Toxins Out and Improve Your Skin Moisture

Do you have dry skin? Did you know that the products you are using on your skin along with your diet could be causing this issue? Often, we don’t think about why our skin is dry, instead we just reach for a bottle of lotion without thinking about the ingredients. That was me, but I rarely deal with dry skin any more.

After changing to a more traditional diet and making my own natural skin care products, we all noticed that our skin was more moisturized. Using good quality soap without the glycerin removed (a trick of the industry), getting plenty of good quality fats, and using basic ingredients to create moisturizers for our skin that didn’t contain harmful preservatives, toxins, hormone disruptors, fragrances (which many ingredients can be hidden under), and colorants has made a significant difference.

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Wisdom Wednesday: Freedom of Speech is a True Blessing


We are witnessing a time of increasing censorship. I have discovered that some of the people that have opened my eyes to healing have had their websites taken down or somehow had their traffic decreased significantly in recent times. They have been shamed, accused of being quacks, or worse, despite the fact that it doesn’t appear that anyone has complained about them. My immediate thoughts are, “I need to know more about what they are doing, because it must be working well for people.” When people are being healed naturally and others see it, who wouldn’t want to join them? How do you compete with that, especially when they are standing in the way of your profits? Well, you shame them and shut them down. I am praying daily that all of this would be exposed, and we would have the freedom to share all information again. I’m very thankful I still have the freedom to write this, but how long will it last? None of us is perfect (especially me), and we are all going to share things that aren’t always correct, but I know this for sure, I don’t want to be “protected” from other people trying to share their knowledge, even if it’s not good information. What works for one person doesn’t always work for another and we all have to sift through the information, do the best we can, pray for wisdom, and have grace with one another. Wouldn’t it be great if could all share our ideas freely?

Week 27: Get the Toxins Out . . . Of Your Mouth

Over the last two weeks I have shared about how I was being poisoned with mercury vapor most of my life and how I unknowingly used a “natural” toothpaste that had a poison warning label on it. Now that I have got the poisons out, I am doing what is called “oil pulling.” The only problem has been trying to remember it! My biological dentist recommended this to me when I visited him back in December 2020. I have good intentions of doing this every day, but you know how the saying goes, “Out of sight, out of mind.” I finally put a pint jar on my counter in the bathroom today so I will see it and hopefully make that connection to do it! I copied this helpful information from Dr. Rehme and you can find more at his website here. I do not receive any compensation for sharing this. 🙂 Please note that he does not recommend oil pulling if you have mercury fillings, crowns, braces, or are pregnant or breastfeeding.

“Food can be a powerful ally in reducing the risk of disease,” added another of the study’s authors.

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Testing Out the Chiller

We finished our chiller a few weeks ago, allowed it to air out, and over the weekend we finally got to test it out. We butchered up our calf that should have been done back in the spring of 2021. The morning started out in the pasture where the cows and sheep were grazing. It was cloudy and cool with some cloud cover and the pasture was quiet. Caleb got his gun ready and waited for the perfect shot. The steer that he was aiming at was calm and at peace as it ate some grass and looked up at Caleb occasionally. At just the right time Caleb fired a perfect shot that dropped the cow instantly. The steer didn’t even see what was coming. We were all in agreement that this was a really humane way to end his life, and because there was no stress on the cow, the meat should be great quality. Keeping animal stress low is so important in the quality of meat that there is actually work being done to try to breed this gene out. My thoughts on this issue is that we should stop playing God in the lab and figure out ways to keep the stress low on the animals. It’s good for the animals and it’s good for us.

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