We had some new experiences this month! We cleaned our loofah gourds that we grew to create loofah sponges, and we made hand dipped beeswax tapers!
Let me start with the candles, by far the least messy of the two processes. It would have been a much less painful/tedious process, but we used unprocessed beeswax, and what is called in beekeeping circles as "slum gum" and had to clean it up from a major "stanky mess" to a beautiful golden yellow wax. It was amazing! It was also amazing how little it actually produced! I think I understand why beeswax costs/sells for so much, and why I am not going to under price them. I do think I will buy it next time. The actual process was simple but does require very deep pots if you want candles of any length. All a learning process, good thing you can remelt what you don't want.
The loofah, normally will dry on the vines and the seeds will come out when you take the end off. This year with all the rain we had and and early freeze, they did not have time to dry on the vines. Between peeling, cleaning, knocking out seeds, bleaching, picking out seeds individually with a pic, etc. it took a very long time to get the results we did! Definately not a labor for the impatient person! Hope we have a better crop next year, is all I can say. We shall see. However, they scrub VERY well & hold up to tough jobs like cleaning stove tops!
