This weekend we will be at the Augusta Expo’s Semi-Annual Arts and Craft Show! We will be debuting soap from our new soap molds and will have our new Cedar Goat Milk Soap, so there are lots of reasons to come out!
Saturday March 8th from 9am – 5pm
Sunday March 9th from 10am – 4pm
277 Expo Rd. Fishersville, VA 22939
The girls are so close to having their babies! We are still two weeks from their due dates, but Hillary’s ligaments are disappearing, which is a sign that labor is on it’s way. Although, it doesn’t necessarily mean she won’t reach or exceed her due date. It just lets you know that their bodies are in preparation mode. Tina’s ligaments are still very tight. Monday night the temperatures were in the low single digits and I was convinced with our luck that Hillary would go into labor at the coldest possible time, and we would have baby goats living in our house! Luckily that didn’t happen, but I’m keeping a close eye on her. Hopefully this week’s snow storm is the last, so we don’t have to worry about having babies in the snow anymore. I am really hoping they wait until after this weekend, since we will be at the Augusta show Saturday and Sunday.
The chicks will be on their way Monday! We are hoping they will get here by Tuesday, but it will more than likely be Wednesday. Since I write these posts on Tuesday night you probably won’t hear anything about the chicks until later in the week or the week after. I promise to include pictures! Breckin is so excited. He is old enough to handle and help with the chicks this time around. Last time he was two and was really only old enough to hold them for a second, and I was so worried that he would put his hands in his mouth before washing them that I made myself a nervous wreck. I’ve lightened up a bit.
This past weekend wasn’t as productive as the weekend before, but we still got a fair amount done. The chicken coop went up in the pasture, and just as expected the goats spent a good amount of time chewing on the corners. We started working on the solar, but had some questions about the installation, so that project was stalled. Kevin built the new raised beds in the garden, and he finished the walls of the birthing pin. I cleaned up an area in the shed for the chicks and cleaned up the kennel that will be their brooder. At some point this week, when I can get out of the driveway, I need to go pick up the chick food and electrolytes.
You may have noticed that I missed the Makeover Monday this past Monday. It’s been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to test out the recipe that I did this month. I am working on it now so the post will be going up next Monday! Sorry for the delay.
So, another productive week down! Here’s hoping for another… and maybe some nice weather with it.
As most of you know by now we are introducing a new soap each month in 2014. For March I am so excited to introduce our Cedarwood Goat Milk Soap!!
While planning the expansion of our soap line I knew I wanted to add some soaps that would appeal more to our male customers. We have many “gender neutral” soaps, but I wanted something that could be considered “manly.” With essential oils the wood scents are about as manly as it gets. This soap has the hardy deep smell of fresh cut cedar… I’m a fan.
Our cedarwood goat milk soap is made with the essential oil of Virginia Cedarwood (of course). This particular soap uses the castile recipe. In our house the castile is our “all purpose” soap. We use it as shampoo, for shaving, to wash our hands and bodies… everything. We decided to do the cedarwood with this recipe so it can be a nice all purpose bar for men.
While we made this soap to give our male customers more options it’s still a great bar for everyone. The cedarwood essential oil is said to have many benefits, including acting as an antiseptic, anti-flamatory, antispasmodic, astringent, insecticide, fungicide, and the list goes on. To read more about the benefits that studies have shown to be associated with cedarwood visit this article.
Our Cedarwood Goat Milk Soap now is available on our website!
Holly molly have we had a busy week. The amazing weather this weekend gave us the perfect opportunity to start getting projects done around the farm.
We started by constructing the chicken coop we ordered a few weeks back. It didn’t take very long to put together and we are both quite pleased with the design. I will do a post highlighting it soon. We sealed the wood once it was together in hopes that it will last longer. We put it together outside of the pasture because I didn’t want the goats getting ahold of the packaging or messing with us (incessantly) while we were working. I wanted to put it in the pasture on Sunday, but with the second coating of sealant going on that morning I decided that we should wait until next weekend and give the seal a chance to really dry as the goats will likely chew on it for a while when it first goes in.
Last year we built a kid pen out of pallets and spare wood. Ruth and Sonia lived in it last spring until they were big enough to move in with the big girls and llamas. It worked well for them, but the calk we used to seal the roof didn’t hold up and I was beginning to worry about the cracks between the slats and wind getting through, which would be a problem if we got another snow storm. So, we reinforced the sides with plywood and plan to use the roofing we are buying for the buck’s pen to seal the roof off once and for all. Finally we painted it kid barn red. The same red we plan to paint the buck pen.
This weekend we also put up the temporary birth pin in the barn. The walls and door are made out of pallets. It ain’t pretty… but it does the job. Good thing it’s not staying up. We may decide to do something more permanent next year, but for now this will do.
Finally, we got the intercom for the barn. We got this so we could hear what is going on inside the barn at night. We are hoping it will allow us to hear if the girls go into labor at night… so we don’t have to check on them every 10 minutes… although I am sure I still will. Unfortunately, we put it in Monday night and realized that it was messing with Bryce’s baby monitor. We need to do a little research, but at the moment it looks like we are going to have to return it for something that is on a different frequency.
It’s about 3 weeks until the girls’ due dates. They were so uncomfortable in the warm weather this weekend. While the other animals were laying the sun, enjoying the beautiful weather, they laid in the barn and moaned all weekend. I could have sworn that they were somehow going into labor early, but they were fine once it cooled off again. I am so glad they won’t be going through pregnancy in any sort of real heat.
The next few days should be as busy as the last week. We plan to put solar up in the barn (only one panel… enough to power a light and maybe a fan), put the chicken coop up in the pasture, and set up the brooder for the chickens coming in two weeks!
It’s one of my favorite times of year… when the seed catalogs start coming in the mail. The kids and I love looking through them. Not only is it excited to dream and plan for spring in the dead of winter, but they also contain great lessons for children. I thought I would take the time to share some of our favorite seed catalogs, where we like to order our seeds, and what the kids and I like to do with the catalogs when we are done using them for their intended purpose.
I have gotten my fair share of seed catalogs and a few have always stood out among the others. While all seed catalogs contain pretty images of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and sometimes trees, the ones I picked are also full of information that helps you grow as a gardener.
We get our seeds from two places:
Seed catalog activities: There are an endless number of activities that you can do with your seed catalogs when you are done planning your garden and purchasing your seeds.
The countdown is on! Spring is a little over a month away, the girls only have 4 more weeks until their due dates, and we only have 3 more weeks until the baby chicks arrive in the mail. It wont be long before we have precious baby goats and chicks hopping around. I can’t wait!!
We got around 10 inches of snow, sleet, and ice last week. There is still quite a bit of it on the ground, even after several days of mild temperatures. The bad weather has halted our construction projects, but I’m hoping to get the chicken coop started (and maybe finished… who knows) this weekend. The chicken coop is going in the pasture and I was hoping to have it done by this point in the girls’ pregnancies because I don’t want to cause them any sort of stress this close to their due dates… but there is only so much that you can do. We also apparently underestimated the amount of hay we needed when ordering last August and only have about a 2-3 week supply left. So, this weekend will also be spent searching out hay.
Overall it’s been a pretty uneventful week. That’s what happens when you are trapped in your house for most of it!
We will be at the My Courthouse Market today from 3-7pm! I am really looking forward to seeing everyone.
I have now been using our Goat Milk Soap as shampoo for two and have since revisited this post. See the new post here!
I want to start by saying that I was truly skeptical about this. We have used our soap as shampoo on our children since the beginning, because it was the healthiest, cheapest option, but neither of them have a lot of hair and I wasn’t concerned about their hair “behaving”. I had fleeting thoughts about using it myself, but I have thick wavy hair that rarely behaves even with professional products, so I didn’t want to make my hair issues anymore challenging by using a product that wasn’t designed specifically for hair or my hair type.
A few months after we opened I started to hear about customers using our soaps as shampoo with good results. A little over a month ago Kevin took the plunge and ditched the store bought shampoo as well… of course he didn’t inform me of this until I bought him a new bottle of his shampoo. I guess it’s a good thing that I didn’t even notice he made the change. I finally decided that I needed to try it out myself. With my goal of getting rid of all my skin or hair care products that contain chemicals I would eventually need to figure out something else for my shampoo anyways. Why not start with something I already have?
I waited until I had a week when I didn’t have a lot of meetings or work outside of the house to conduct my experiment. The first time I washed my hair right after I used the soap, while my hair was still wet, it had that stiff sticky feeling you get after swimming. It wasn’t the slick, smooth feeling I normally got with my old shampoo. When my hair dried it looked pretty normal… until I had reached the 24 hour mark from my last wash. It was greasy and I’m not used to my hair getting greasy so quickly. Normally, I only wash my hair every other day or every two days because anymore than that and my hair would get super dried out and frizzy (Don’t worry. I shower everyday. I just don’t always wash my hair). All of my friends with a similar hair type have the same issues, so I just thought it was normal. Needless to say I was concerned with how greasy my hair was in such a short period of time, I didn’t have time to double my hair routine, but I decided to keep working with it. I did a little research and found what was causing my issue. Normal shampoos strip your hair of it’s natural oils. Much like normal store bought “soaps” strip the natural oils of your skin. So how our soaps balance the PH and oils of your skin it is doing the same for your hair. I often tell our customers that if they plan to use our soaps on their face then they needed to allow for about a week to a week and a half for their skin to adjust (skin elsewhere does not seem to need this adjustment time). I needed to allow my hair to adjust. So I washed my hair everyday, and as the days passed it took longer and longer to get greasy. After about 4 or 5 days I was able to go back to my every other day hair washing regiment.
Normally, my hair is out of control. It waves in every direction and I am in a constant fight against the frizz (one of the reasons I have always avoided washing it everyday). I don’t do much to my hair. I wash it, let it air dry, then straighten it to avoid the hair sticking out in every direction. I don’t use product. I really don’t have time for all of that. I figured I should maybe buy a hairdryer since I was going to have to wash it more often, yes I had committed to using the soap at that point, even if that meant I had to wash my hair more often (it takes my hair hours to dry), and no I did not own a hairdryer, so I ordered one on Amazon. After about 4 or 5 days of using the soap I noticed a nice change though. My hair maintained it’s body, but the frizz was non-exsistant. My waves waved in (mostly) the same direction. I haven’t straightened my hair since I started using our soap as shampoo. At first because I didn’t have the time to wash my hair everyday, let it dry for 3 hours, then spend the 30 or so minutes straightening it, but now it’s because I don’t need to! Before I wouldn’t dream of going out without my hair either up or straightened. I’m quite pleased with how it looks naturally now.
One more good side effect. I have been battling a dry scalp for months. It’s been driving me crazy. I have never had this problem in the past. Our soaps are great for healing dry and damaged skin…I guess the same goes for the skin on your scalp. It’s a much better option than medicated shampoos.
Here we are, two weeks later, and I don’t plan to ever go back to regular shampoo. I would call that a successful experiment! Now what do I do with the barely used bottles of shampoo and conditioner that we have?
I used our Castile Goat Milk Soap for this experiment
*** This is was a personal experiment and there is no guarantee that you will have the same results. Our soaps are designed to be used on the skin and we cannot claim that it will work on hair, but I do suggest you try yourself! ****
Another snow storm is headed our way. In fact, it is supposed to hit us early evening, go until afternoon Thursday, and bring between 8-12 inches of snow. I’m hoping for a lot less though. I’m over doing farm chores in the snow and I have a wedding to photograph on Saturday. The snow is just a nusance at this point. I’m so ready for spring!
Last friday I scheduled to have UPS deliver our new chicken coop. I got a call from the freight service asking if a tractor trailer would be able to make it up our driveway. Anyone who has been to our farm knows that the answer is no way! I had no idea what to say, and was trying to imagine how big these boxes had to be that they needed to be delivered on a tractor trailer. After I practically worked myself into a panic, worrying that it wasn’t going to be delivered at all, the man asked if we had a pick up truck that could just meet the delivery man at the bottom of our driveway. We do, so I scheduled the delivery for Monday and had Kevin drive my SUV to work so I could use the truck. When the time came to meet the delivery man I put the kids in the truck, Breckin brought his measuring tape just in case we needed it, and waited at the bottom of the driveway. Breckin bounced up and down in the seat every time a truck drove by. I tried to explain to him that it was going to be a BIG truck and his jaw nearly hit the floor when he saw the huge UPS 18 wheeler pull up. I desperately wanted take a picture as our boxes were loaded off this huge truck into the back of our little F150, but I thought the delivery man would think I was crazy. I did snap a few pictures once we got back to the house though… I still don’t understand why it had to be delivered by such a huge truck. I can’t wait to start assembling it!
The girls have 5 more weeks to go in their pregnancies. Now is the time that we start preparing them. They will have their CDT shots and dewormer in the next week and we will start to set up their birthing area soon. They should also really start to show before too long. Both have a little bit of a tummy and waddle, but 75% of the growth happens in the last 4 weeks of the pregnancy, so they should really start to “fill out” over the coming weeks. I promise to post pictures as they really start to get big.
On a final note, the My Courthouse Market has been canceled for tonight due to the weather…. did I mention that I’m over winter yet?
If you follow us on Facebook you might remember me talking about getting a few new soap molds a while back. Well, they came in and we have spent a few months building our supply and we will be debuting these new shapes at our next big craft show, the Augusta Expo’s Semi-Annual Arts and Crafts show.
Soaps from these molds will not be sold on the website, because that would get too difficult and confusing. Instead they will be sold at farmers markets, craft shows, and are available for custom orders. We are so excited about these new molds and think they will make an amazing gift or favor for weddings or showers!
Flower Mold:
Wrapped Leaf Mold. This one is my favorite! It makes such a beautiful bar of soap. I think it would work perfectly for a natural, earthy wedding.
Leaf Mold. We felt like this one would be a nicely paired with the wrapped leaf mold above
Rose/flower Heart. The example below is our Rose Goat Milk Soap, but it looks good with any of the scent… I just felt it was fitting to show it in rose.
Flower/Snowflake. The title of this mold is “Flower” but to me it could just as easily be a snowflake.
Finally, we have our stone mold. It could also be seen as a sponge.
Our second book in the 2014 First Friday Book Club is The Year of the Goat: 40,000 Mile and the Quest for the Perfect Cheese by Margaret Hathaway and Karl Schatz.
This book is all about following your passion. In The Year of the Goat Margaret Hathaway writes about the year that her, and her then boyfriend, Karl Schatz dropped everything, leaving their big city lives in order to travel around the country visiting all things goat related. They toured dairy and meat goat farms, auctions, barbecue competitions, cheese tasting, and much more. This is one of those books that you want to live in. There were times while I was reading it that I was fiercely jealous that it wasn’t me going on these amazing travels. It’s amazing to see all the different ways people are using goats. This book truly is an homage to small agriculture and goat farmers.
Are you starting to see a pattern?… People leaving their city lives in search of greener pastures and a simpler life. This is what we did. Maybe that’s why I feel so connected to these books.
Have you read The Year of the Goat? Leave your thoughts in the comments.