No, not more candle tests, but I did let the ones I made burn all day today while I worked on making my Master Food Lists on the computer. I lit the candles (including the popsicle stick ones) at 7am, and other than the occasional wick trim, I didn’t do a single thing to them all day. Such a relief to finally be successful!

As I thought, the thicker string wick burned through its candle quite a bit faster than the thinner string. By 3 o’clock (nearly 12 hours total burn time)  the thicker wick had almost burned out. I blew it out along with all the others) since Princess Girl and I were leaving for our bible study date. When we got back, the thicker string candle would not re-light. It was too far gone.

But, I lit the others and they burned nearly till bed time. The thinner string candle burned for a total of 17 hours! And the smaller popsicle stick candle burned for probably 25 hours total. The larger popsicle stick candle has many, many more hours to burn!

One thing about the popsicle sticks is that they crackle as they burn. Kinda cool actually. 🙂

Both the popsicle stick wick and the thinner string wick ended up burning all of the wax. There is only a small residue of wax in the jars. This means that even with the smaller flames, they burn very efficiently.

I will take a look at the paperclip stands tomorrow and see how they fared when the flame burned all the way down. I’m hoping they will be usable again.

It was nice to get outside today and go for a walk with my girl. Then to sit in the coffee shop and watch the rain pour down as we sipped our coffees and talked about or Saviour. I love our weekly bible study dates.

As the evening progressed after dinner, I nearly finished our Master Food Lists. My goodness, we eat a lot of variety! I can’t even imagine trying to produce all that ourselves, even though with only a few exceptions it is theoretically possible. As I see the whole picture, I’m thinking that “producing/growing as much of our own food as possible” might be a bit overzealous unless we fairly drastically cut back on variety. However, more and more, I’m seeing the value of community. If I can’t, or don’t want to produce something, but my neighbor can, then it might just be worth it to buy it from them. Or better yet, barter for it!

At any rate, it’s still exciting to plan. Have you ever written out a list of the foods you actually eat? I highly recommend it. It can be an enlightening experiment.

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121