The Freckled Farm Soap Company

Tag: Farm

  • Getting to Know… Chelsea

    Last year I did a blog series that allowed our readers to get to know each member of our farm. Since the completion of that series the farm has grown significantly! New goats, new chickens, new cats… So, I figured it was time to meet the newest members!

    We are starting out with our little girl Chelsea. She was born on our farm last year. Her dam is Hillary and her sire is Milo from Chribrydon Farms, located in Lousia, VA. She came from the first kidding of 2014. Her full brother is William.

    Chelsea, with her fawn color, really stands out in our herd! When we dried her off after she was born I was shocked by her coloring. Both her mother and father are very dark. Chelsea has a wonderful, fun loving personality. Of all of the 2014 kids she is the one who plays around the most, leaping and running through the pastures. She is a full blown goofball!

    Chelsea from The Freckled FarmChelsea from The Freckled FarmChelsea from The Freckled Farm

  • January’s “Other” Pictures

    By now I am sure you know that we are doing a 365 Project on Instagram – A Photo a Day from The Freckled Farm, but aside from the “photo of the day” that we are posting each day there are others that get posted… and because they aren’t the photograph chosen to represent that day they get left out of the month’s round up. There are some great images that get left out, so instead of just letting them fall through the cracks I decided to do a round-up of the “other” pictures each month. This way if you don’t have Instagram you aren’t missing out!

    If you do have Instagram consider following us (@Thefreckledfarm)

    Photos from The Freckled Farm

  • What’s Up Wednesday – Feb 4th

    This has been the week of figuring out what our spring and summer is going to look like. We’ve been applying to farmers markets. Our plan going into the year was to be at five markets throughout the week and so far we have applied to a total of five. I have one more that I am considering. I should have a better idea what our farmers market schedule will look like in a few weeks and I will update the “Where to Buy” section of the website! We are also applying to several late winter and spring festivals.

    Kidding season will soon be here! Sonia is due first, in a little over 4 weeks! Ruth is next, followed by Hillary later in the month. Tina is not due until June (assuming she is pregnant, we only bred her a week and a half ago). We will be starting to slowly increase their feed over the next few weeks to help prepare them for milk production. They will also be getting their CDT booster shots.

    This is the time of year that things really start to pick up around the farm! The days are getting longer, egg production is picking up, the countdown to kidding has started, and we are getting days that are at least somewhat warm! The winter funk is starting to thaw!

  • 365 Project – January

    Have you been following our 365 project on Instagram (@Thefreckledfarm)? We have been posting at least one photo a day from the farm. If you aren’t following us you might want to consider it… come March there will be a ton of pictures of baby goats!

    Don’t have Instagram? At the end of each month we will be posting a round-up of the pictures that we posted throughout the month. Below are all the pictures from January. Enjoy!

    January 365 Project - Farming - The Freckled Farm Soap Company

  • What’s Up Wednesday – January 28th

    It has been a very busy week. We are still very much in the adjustment period since Kevin left his day job, but we are finally starting to form some sort of routine. I am in the middle of wedding booking season for the photography business, we are working on our new goat milk soap laundry detergent, contacting stores about carrying our products, building up our soap supply, and taking care of the farm. Busy, busy, busy, but we are loving working together full time.

    Last Wednesday we took Tina to have her hooves reshaped. She foundered this past Summer and we spent months controlling the crazy growth and lowering her grain intake to slow it down. I finally felt like we got her back to (somewhat) normal, so we took her to a farm in Culpeper who were going to use a grinder to get her feet back to the correct shape. We didn’t breed her in the fall because we were dealing with getting her feet comfortable again. We honestly were debating whether we were breed her again at all because we weren’t sure if it would be too hard on her, but the farmers in Culpeper didn’t think that her case was anywhere near as bad as others that they had seen and she was cleared to breed again. She went into heat on Monday and was bred to Warner. Her due date will be June 25th, much later than we are used to, but it could set us up for a year round milking schedule. It would be nice to not have periods of the year where we are without fresh milk coming in… We have two chest freezers of frozen milk for soap (it must be frozen to be used in the soap making process), but it’s not the same when it comes to drinking.

  • Fun Farm Fact Friday – January 23rd

    Today’s Fun Farm Fact is important to dispel a fairly dangerous wives tale about goats… That goats eat anything and everything. They don’t. Goats cannot eat trash or tin cans… It will kill them, and while goats are known to clear brush and will happily clear your land for you there are plenty of plants out there that are toxic to goats. Here is a great list of plants that goats can and cannot eat.

    Goats have very sensitive systems. Drastic changes to their type of feed or amount of feed can mess up their rumen. If we are increasing or decreasing our goats’ feed or changing the brand of feed we make the change slowly over the course of weeks or months. This way their system has time to adjust.

    It’s important, when putting goats into a new pasture, to check and make sure there are not plants present that can hurt them. For us personally, we have had to fight black cherry trees. Most people would be thrilled to find black cherry trees on their property. Especially some that are as big as ours, since their timber is worth so much, but wilted black cherry leaves are toxic to goats. So throughout the spring and summer we have to search through our pastures to find any black cherry saplings and . Most of the time goats will not eat things that are toxic to them, but if the foods they do like to eat become sparse they will eat whatever they can find, toxic or not.

     

  • What’s Up Wednesday – Jan 21st

    The last two weeks since Kevin left his “day job” have been an adjustment. For the last two years we have lived in survival mode. Kevin was pulling in at least 60 hours a week at work and every other second of the day was stacked with things that needed to be done for the businesses and farm. Late nights and extremely early mornings were how we lived. Now that the 60 hours of work outside of our businesses are gone we are trying to figure out what our new schedule looks like. We no longer have to live with the mindset that if we have a second it needs to be filled with something because who knows how much time we are going to have later. We are working on balancing everything and actually giving ourselves time to just relax… what a concept. I have actually had to set myself a set of tasks that need to be completed that day, and once I am done I am allowed to relax. Otherwise I will just move on to one of other five hundred tasks on my to do list…

    One of our big projects this week is working on our new goat milk soap laundry detergent. We are officially in the research and development phase! So far so good! We plan to sell them in three sizes; a nice large reusable glass container with a wooden scoop, refill bags, and finally a sample size for 2-4 washes. We are currently planning on 4 scents; Sunrise Citrus, Lavender, Tea Tree (for strong odors caused by bacteria – body odor and stinky socks), and Unscented. Look for these detergents to join our market booths and website in the late winter or early spring.

    We do have a little bit of sad news from this week. We lost one of our free ranging chickens to a hawk. Her name was Sophia and she was one of our original chickens. In fact she gave us our very first egg! We retired to her to the pasture last spring where she, and several of her sisters, had the run of both pastures and the barn. We knew this was a possibility. Chickens are very vulnerable to predators, especially when they are free ranging, but that doesn’t make it any easier when it happens. I am extremely tender-hearted and we love our animals. In the meantime we have moved the few other free rangers into the big closed coop until we can figure out a safer option for them. Our fear is now that the hawk knows where the food is he will just keep coming back.

    Check back next week for even more updates!! There is so much in the works!

     

  • What’s Up Wednesday – Jan 7th

    Happy Birthday Kevin!! … Not only is it Kevin’s birthday, but it is also his first day as a full time farmer. Yesterday was his last day at his “day job.” I am so excited to finally be in entering into this new chapter. I now get to work side by side with my favorite person every day! We have been working our butts off to get to this point.

    The next few months are going to be an adjustment as we try to get into a routine. Hopefully we won’t be pulling super late nights anymore… or maybe just less of them. I am extremely excited about all of the projects that we will have time to do, now that Kevin will be home and extra 60+ hours a week, like building the green house, greatly expanding our garden (by a quarter of an acre!), and so much more. It’s also going to be so nice knowing Kevin will be around during kidding time in March. The next year is going to be an awesome adventure.

  • What’s up Wednesday – 5/14

    The name of the game the last two weeks has been FENCING! Kevin took the week off last week so we could fence the buck pasture and a new pasture of the girls and llamas. We hoped to get both done on his week off…. well that didn’t happen. The surveyor marketed our line for the new pasture and the space ended up being much larger than we had expected, so that in addition to me having work with the photography business, farmers markets, and having to care for two small children, who have schedules and nap times, we are really behind. We managed to get all of the post holes dug for both pastures, and the posts set and about half the fence up for the buck pasture. It looks like this project is going to span over the next 4 or 5 weekends now. It will all be worth it when it’s done.

    Fencing the buck pasture is more important than the new pasture for the girls since we pick up our herd sire on Sunday! We also have to finish painting the buck house, put up the hay feeder, build the pasture door, and put the roof “shingles” on. Needless to say that we have a busy few days ahead of us. Kevin has been stretching the fence in the morning before he leaves for work and I have been going out after chores/milking and breakfast to staple/nail the fencing to the posts. We are chipping off little bits at a time. I hope to share pictures of the pastures in progress and of our new buck next week! I don’t think I have even been so busy in my whole life!!

    In other news, we have been working on June’s soap and it’s something very different, so we are hoping it comes together before June 1st! I can’t wait to share more about it.

  • What’s up Wednesday – 4/30

    We have a BIG weekend ahead of us! If you follow our blog you know that the My Manakin Farmers Market opens this weekend. We are so excited to be a part of this market and look forward to starting the routine of having 2 markets a week! On top of that we have 3… Yes THREE… products debuting this week. Tomorrow our May soap will debut and on Saturday we will be debuting our scrubs and bath teas to our market customers! The scrubs and bath teas will then be available on the website next weekend. There is so much to look forward to!

    The rain from the last few days has turned the farm into a giant pond. I am going to have to swim to the barn for farm chores tonight. While I normally don’t mind the rain I’m looking forward to a dry weekend.

    Finally, this up coming Monday starts the fencing extravaganza! Kevin is taking the week off of work so we can fence off the buck pasture as well as a new pasture for the girls. I know the girls are going to be so excited to get ahold off all those brambles that will be in the new pasture.