The Freckled Farm Soap Company

Tag: Farm

Getting to Know The Freckled Farm – Bryce

Want to know more about the farmers, animals, and buildings on The Freckled Farm? Every Friday I will introduce you to another part of The Freckled Farm. This week you have a chance to get to know Bryce!

Bryce, our youngest (1 year), has a real way with animals. They love her. She is too young to really help out with farm chores, but she brightens the experience for everyone as she giggles and “talks” to the goats and chickens.

She has a smile that lights up the room and you can tell by her photographs that she is quite a ham. She is the comedian of the family. She really loves to make people laugh. If you laugh at something she does be prepared to see it 100 more times. She’s brilliant, happy, charming, loving, and beautiful… inside and out.

I am so excited to watch her grow and to see how she finds her place on this farm.

The Freckled Farm Soap Company makes handmade goat milk soaps. Our body care products are all natural and made with love. For more information about our products and to read more about the farm please visit our website: www.thefreckledfarmsoapcompany.com

August 30, 2013
Llamas as a Guard Animal
How many of you are familiar with using llamas as a guard animal? I wasn’t until two weeks before our llamas moved in… Yes, TWO weeks. I may have heard about it in passing, but it certainly wasn’t something I was exposed to enough to consider it on my own. Using llamas as guard animals was a completely unexpected and out of the blue decision for us.

Our original plan was to get a dog, a Great Pyrenees. We actually had a reservation for a puppy and were only weeks away from picking her up when I got an email from the breeder saying that five of the puppies had passed (at 5 weeks) and they believed that it was because the dam had so many puppies and couldn’t care for all of them. They didn’t have a plan to autopsy the puppies who passed, so I was tentative about getting one of the remaining puppies. I called our absolutely wonderful, patient, helpful farm veterinarian Melinda and she suggested we pass on the puppy. We could be getting a dog with medical problems that wont show up until later. She went on to say that she felt like a llama or two would be a better fit for us anyways. Their care is very similar to how we care for the goats, they wouldn’t take training, and would be just as affective as the dog. I was a little skeptical since the idea of llamas never even crossed my mind… Where do you even get a llama?

Melinda came over the next day for some routine blood work and we discussed it further. I wasn’t sold that I absolutely needed a guardian, after all our pasture was fenced in with five foot no climb horse fence (yes, we went a little overboard). Her response “coyotes can jump 6 feet and you NEVER hear of an attack on a llama farm” I was well aware of the coyotes in our area and the thought of losing one of our girls is horrible, so just like that I was sold. She gave us information of where we could get a llama. I called the farm and set up a visit for that weekend…

The llama farmers, as Breckin calls them, were John and Debra of Westerham Farm and Studio. We toured their beautiful farm and asked a ton of questions. We went with the intention of getting one llama and ended up picking two. I expressed my concern that the llama(s) would not actually protect my goats because not all llamas are guard llama. They promised to replace any llamas that didn’t appear to be doing their job, but in their experience whether they were actually specifically protecting the goats or not they would attack any predator that came into the pasture. I was feeling excited and confident, and scheduled to have our guys delivered…. just like that two weeks later we had llamas on The Freckled Farm…

It was interesting adjusting to the llamas. They are far bigger than our goats, and not as social. They didn’t want to be touched and would immediately move away if you put your hand out to them. I wasn’t sure how I was going to catch them to give them their monthly deworming shot (since we live in a state with white tail deer, who carry the M worm). Over the next month or so they slowly warmed to me (in fact they are very easy to handle now), but I was still nervous that they wouldn’t actually guard. It was a week or two later I had the opportunity to see Afton in action. A random dog came up to the fence and all of the sudden Afton was running full speed in his direction while screaming his battle cry. The terrified dog ran away with his tail between his legs. Since then anytime a dog, hunter, random car, strange noise has managed to wander onto our property Afton has made his presence known. Nothing has attempted to actually come into the pasture, that I know of, but I’m confident at this point that Afton would “take care” of anything that did. Our sweet, sensitive Blue generally stays with the goats if there is a perceived threat (maybe he is protecting the goats specifically rather than the pasture as a whole like Afton), but there have been times that I have seen him right there with Afton protecting the fence line.

The protection goes beyond the battle cry and full speed charge. The first few months that we had the goats we locked them in the barn at night, but we hated doing that and it was always a chore trying to get them to go in. When the llamas moved in we stopped closing them in and kept the barn door open. Now if you go out at night you will find Afton laying across the opening of the barn.

I am so pleased with our protectors. I feel so safe knowing they are protecting our girls.

Why I believe llamas are the best guardians
1. They eat the same things as the goats (although we do not feed our llamas grain), so there is no need to purchase and prepare a totally different diet.
2. They poop in the same piles all the time. My guys poop in three different piles. You don’t have to search the pasture for random dog poop. I scoop the llama poop daily and it makes for a lot less mess in the pasture. Their poop also does AMAZING things for your garden.
3. They are large and intimidating, even to human visitors. They will not be swayed by strangers if they have treats.
4. They protect from the same predators as a dog.
5. They are cheaper to maintain. Quite frankly I was a little scared of how expensive the dog was going to be. They need more vaccinations, dog vets are expensive, good dog food is extremely expensive… This doesn’t include the cost of the dog itself (which was more than both llamas together) and the spaying!
6. Dogs need training and our llamas at least did not.
7. They are very gentle towards the goats
8. They are just as protective of me as they are the goats. Don’t try to stand between me and Afton… It’s not pretty and be prepared to be spit on.
We LOVE our llamas and hope that you will consider using llamas as your goat guardians.

The Freckled Farm Soap Company makes handmade goat milk soaps. Our body care products are all natural and made with love. For more information about our products please visit our website: www.thefreckledfarmsoapcompany.com
August 26, 2013
Getting to Know The Freckled Farm – Breckin

Want to know more about the farmers, animals, and buildings on The Freckled Farm? Over the next few months I will introduce you to a different part of The Freckled Farm every Friday. This week you have a chance to get to know Breckin!

This photograph was taken a year ago, but is still one of my favorite Breckin “farm” pictures.

Breckin, our oldest (3 years), is a true farm kid. His main job around the farm, aside from being a kid, is to help care for the animals, specifically the chickens. One of my favorite parts of the day is watching Breckin put the chickens back into the coop before we go in for the evening. We have trained the chickens to respond to a specific call (“Coop Coop!”), when they hear the call they come running from all corners of the farm. They hop in the coop and Breckin spreads black oil sunflower seeds on the coop floor for them. I love to hear him walking through the yard calling them as he shakes his cup of seeds. He calls them by name if they are being slow and counts them before closing them up for the night.

Breckin is also a great help in the garden. He will help me pull weeds, but I have to watch him closely because sometimes he will get ahead of himself and start pulling everything in sight. He loves to water the plants and watching as they grow (he even measures the plants). Many veggies he wont eat unless they come out of our garden, like cucumbers.

Breckin has been known to create mud puddles to play in, to strip down to his underwear in order to run through the hose, to build with any material he can get his hands on. He is so proud of his farm, his animals, and his family. He is the best big brother and son of all time, and he is so incredibly loved.

The Freckled Farm Soap Company makes handmade goat milk soaps. Our body care products are all natural and made with love. For more information about our products and to read more about the farm please visit our website: www.thefreckledfarmsoapcompany.com

August 23, 2013
Beating the Heat on the Farm
One of the biggest concerns during the summer is keeping animals safe in the heat. The last two summers here in Virginia we have had days that have exceeded 100 degrees and the humidity level soars all summer long. I have compiled a list below of how we keep our animals comfortable on The Freckled Farm

All Animals
1. Water – All animals require clean fresh water year round, but during the summer the water will get warm and gross quickly. I will refresh the waterers at least twice a day. I try to keep the water as cool as possible. We also have more than one water bucket.
2. Shelter – We make sure all of our animals have adequate shelter to escape the sun
3. Shade – At any point during the day there is shade somewhere in the pasture. This allows the animals to be outside and graze without having to be in the heat of the direct sun. Our coop was build in the shade of white pines, and our dogs have a labyrinth of bushes to hide in.
Chickens
1. Frozen or Cold Treats – Last summer was much hotter than any weather we have had to contend with this summer. The poor chickens were suffering. I would freeze fruits and veggies as treats. It kept them occupied and cool.
2. Avoiding Starchy Foods – Starchy foods raise the chickens’ (or anyone else for that matter) blood sugar which in turn raises their body temperature. During hot days I avoid giving them bread items, and corn and grain products. On days like this they generally only get their chicken feed, fruits and veggies, and very small amount of black oil sunflower seeds.
3. Dust Bath – We make sure the chickens have dust bath areas.
Llamas
1. Hose Down – One of our llamas in particular (Blue) LOVES to be hosed down. He suffers from the heat far more than our other llama. This is likely because he is black while Afton is cream colored. As soon as he hears the water he is a up against the fence asking to be sprayed. He will stand in the water stream for 10 minutes if you let him. On hot days I check him several times a day and I will hose him down if he is showing signs of being too hot.
2. Dust Bath – Like the chickens the llamas like to roll around in the dirt. Right in the center of our pasture you will find a large bare spot where the llamas have rubbed away all the grass.
Goats

We don’t do much extra for the goats. They are not fans of being hosed down and I’ve never really seen them rolling around in the dirt like the llamas. We just make sure they have cool fresh water and a place to get out of the sun. Of all the animals on the farm they seem to handle the heat the best.

During the summer please make sure you take extra care to make sure your animals are safe and comfortable. Keep and eye on the weather and watch for signs like labored breathing, lethargy, and loss of appetite.
August 21, 2013
Gardening Lessons I Have Learned This Year… so far
This was our first year of having a full garden on The Freckled Farm. The year that we bought the property we tried to plant one, but failed miserably. We went into the project with little knowledge about soil, plants, timing… anything gardening really. Little sprouts came up, then died off from overall neglect. Over the next few years we did select herbs and other plants with varied degrees of success. I wasn’t willing to undergo the big project again while dealing with pregnancies and newborns, so we waited until this year. The season isn’t even over yet and I have learned so much…

We started setting up the fencing for our garden last fall, but weren’t able to finish it. We finished the fencing and built 5 beds late winter, then filled the beds with compost, manure (mostly from the llamas), and top soil. I ordered non-gmo and organic seeds from Botanical Interests, although we did end up with a few nursery started plants in the garden.
1. Start with the best – We started by purchasing the bagged topsoil from Southern States, but it was getting expensive so we decided to go with the bulk dirt that they scoop into the back of your truck from one of those dirt and gravel places to finish off the remaining beds. The dirt wasn’t great quality, I’m sure we could have found better, but I thought I would be able to improve the quality if the dirt with the compost and manure. After working with it for a few weeks before planting it improved quite a bit, but I can’t help to think it would have been less work and our plants would have been even healthier if I started out with better soil. So the lesson here – If you are using raised beds start with a good base. Don’t just get the cheapest available in hopes of improving it.
2. Don’t give up, even if looks like it’s over – I decided to try growing my tomato plants from seed this year. I had been warned many times over about how difficult it was and that I should not beat myself up if I ended up resorting to nursery started plants. I started a set and killed them off a few weeks later. I started again and had much stronger, healthier plants. I put them in the garden a week past the average last frost date, but as luck would have it we had one last frost. We covered them up to protected them from the frost, but they still wilted away over the next week. That weekend we went and purchased tomato plants from a local nursery. I was feeling defeated as I pulled out all of the almost dead plants to make room for the new ones. I left one of the plants I started from seed because I had one less purchased plants than I did seed plants… I figured I would see what came of it. As the new plants grew, so did the seed plant. Now it’s just as big as the others and producing wonderfully. I wish I had kept the other plants. I had planted varieties that I was really excited about.
3. Don’t over water – This should be a given, but I got a little over excited with my seedlings and killed off my first set of tomatoes and onions.
4. Raised beds are awesome – I am so glad we decided on raised beds. It’s a bit of a cost up front, and you have less space than you would otherwise, but it’s been well worth it. It’s been great for weed control and you get control of the quality of the soil put in the beds rather than trying to correct the soil you have… in our case red clay.
5. Vine plants are going to sprawl… a lot – I thought I had given the “sprawling” plants lots of room, but apparently I was wrong. The beans continue to grow and are all out of lattice (I managed to get them to move over to the fence), the cucumbers are all over the place, and don’t get me started on the watermelon. Next year I am planning to have all of the sprawling plants vertical, not just the beans, and I may plant less plants.
6. Routine is key – The issue last time we tried a full garden was that I would just forget about the garden. Life would happen and I would miss days of weeding and pest control. I wouldn’t check everyday to see if the garden needed water and didn’t think about how the weather was effecting my plants. Now that the farm is up and running I already have an outdoors routine to care for the animals. I just added the garden into the routine and it is flourishing because of that.
I think I have found my green thumb! It’s a great feeling. I love going out to the garden and assessing the changes that happened since the day before. Plants I would have never thought I could grow successfully are flurishing. We started small with 5 beds this year but have big plans to expand by 6 more beds next year. One day I hope to live off our garden. That dream seems a lot more possible after this year

The Freckled Farm Soap Company makes handmade goat milk soaps. Our body care products are all natural and made with love. For more information about our products and to read more about the farm please visit our website: www.thefreckledfarmsoapcompany.com
August 14, 2013
Getting to Know The Freckled Farm – Crystal

Want to know more about the farmers, animals, and buildings on The Freckled Farm? Over the next few months I will introduce you to a different part of The Freckled Farm every Friday. I am starting with myself because it seems like the most logical place to start.

Hello! I’m Crystal. I play many roles here on The Freckled Farm. Aside from my normal motherly and household duties I am the one who keeps us organized, cares for the animals, tends our garden, writes most of the blog posts, assists in the soap making, and handles as much marketing as possible. I’m the planner of the family. It’s just a part of my personality… the lists… where would I be without my lists?

I graduated with a BFA in Photography from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in 2006. I run my own photography business (Website) where I photograph portraits and weddings throughout Virginia. I spend most of my time with my children. They are my whole world and I feel incredibly lucky to have a career that allows me to do most of my work from home so I can be with them.

The Freckled Farm has been a dream of mine since I was a child. It has grown from the desire to have goats as pets to a full self-sustaining dairy goat farm. We continue to grow and dream and I can’t wait to see where this all takes us.

The Freckled Farm Soap Company makes handmade goat milk soaps. Our body care products are all natural and made with love. For more information about our products and to read more about the farm please visit our website: www.thefreckledfarmsoapcompany.com

August 9, 2013
How The Freckled Farm Got It’s Name

Freckles are a common theme around here. We use the word “Freckled” for almost everything and I am sure people wonder where our obsession comes from… Well here’s the story

Long before the farm was set up we talked about what we would name it. We wanted the name to have meaning and somehow connect to/represent our family. We had the name Breckin picked out for our son years before he was even conceived. I actually saw the name and liked it before I had even met Kevin! One night when discussing our future family we looked up the meaning of the name and found out that it meant “Freckled.” Being freckled myself it seemed like the perfect choice for my future son.

A month or so before conceiving our daughter Bryce I started scouring all of the baby websites looking for names. We already had a boy name picked. It was the girl name that we couldn’t come to an agreement on. I knew I wanted a BR name but nothing really stood out. I kept returning to the name Bryce. I liked the sound of it with Breckin, so I decided to look up the meaning to see if I could convince Kevin that, that should be the name if we were to have a little girl. Well, you can image how excited I was to find out that Bryce meant Freckled (or Speckled depending on the site you look at) as well! There were no more arguments. If we were to have a girl her name would be Bryce… Luck would have it we found out in Nov 2011 that we were having a baby girl.

So picking the farm’s name came easy after that… The Freckled Farm was only fitting.

The Freckled Farm Soap Company makes handmade goat milk soaps. Our body care products are all natural and made with love. For more information about our products and to read more about the farm please visit our website: www.thefreckledfarmsoapcompany.com

August 7, 2013
Our Story

The story of how the Neilson-Hall Family and The Freckled Farm came to be:

I have always been drawn to farms. I love animals, especially goats, and the idea of peace and quiet is very attractive, but I could have never envisioned we would be where we are now… 29 and 30 years old, two children, dairy goat farm with a menagerie of animals, living in the middle of no where. We always talked about living on a farm, but not until retirement. We had big things to accomplish before we finally settled down in the country but here we are…

Many, many years ago, when Kevin and I were dating, we would talk about our future… We had big plans of big city living. I was going to have a fashion/photojournalistic photography career. Kevin was going to be a sound engineer and do live sound. We would have big important careers. Isn’t this what all people enter adulthood thinking they want? After I graduated from college Kevin and I moved to Philadelphia (from Richmond, VA) and got our first dose of reality. During our 8 months in Philly we encountered a lot of bad luck… A LOT of bad luck. We were planning our wedding, renovating an old house in South Philly, Kevin was working for a production company, and I was trying to build a photography business. I wont go into all the details of the difficult things that happened to us during our stint in Philly, that would take a book, but after only 8 months we were done. We were ready for a drastic life change.

A few months before our wedding we put our house on the market and decided to move up our “retirement plans.” We had started to think about children and we were considering the best location to raise them. I had always figured I would raise my children right outside of a city, the way I grew up, but that wasn’t what I wanted anymore. It all became very clear that the best place to raise our children would be in the country. Luckily we sold our house in three months. We moved back to Virginia, rented a house in the country to make sure we could handle living so far away from everything, and began looking for our farm.

Shopping for a farm gave us our second dose of reality… There was no way we could afford the farm we envisioned. The dream of rolling hills, and a big white farm house was out of reach. We decided we just needed to find a house with a little bit of land and make it work. We searched for months, but never found anything that really screamed “home.” Finally, I came across a listing for a house in Western Goochland. It seemed too far away from Kevin’s work, but it was in our price range and the ad said it was a little farm and to “bring your horse.” So, one Saturday afternoon we drove out to check the property. It was very difficult to find, but once we did it was obvious that the listing took some liberties. The house was precious, but the property was in no way a farm. It was a house sitting on some acreage. No barn, no fencing, the only outbuildings were a shed and lean-to. I saw the potential though. We called our agent and asked to get a viewing the next weekend. When we finally got to see inside the house it was like we were coming home. We ran through the house like we were children at Disney. It had everything we wanted. It was loaded with character. This was our home. We were just going to have to make it a farm on our own.

Long story short, we got the house and spent the next 4 years slowly fixing “issues” with the house. We also spent those 4 years dreaming and making big plans for the farm. We wanted a dairy goat farm that supply would our family with all it’s dairy needs and a goat milk soap company that would help financially support the farm and our family. We talked about it for years, but were afraid to pull the trigger. The barn was going to be a large cost, the fencing was going to be a lot of work, and we were in the process of building our family. How was I going to milk goats with a baby?

Shortly after moving into our house I got a job teaching art at the high school. I wasn’t sure I would be able to run a farm, a family, and teach. It was a lot to juggle. I had already let go of my photography business when our first was born, because it was too much to handle with all my other responsibilities. I was beginning to get frustrated. I just wanted my farm and I wasn’t sure how we were going to make it happen. Our dreams of having a small diary goat farm with a goat milk soap company had grown into a dream of having a full self-sustaining farm that could support nearly all of our family’s food needs, and hopefully one day our energy needs. In 2011 I was pregnant with our second and it became obvious to us that this was the time to make our move. We had been saving up for our barn for years and we finally had the money. After a great deal of discussion we decided that when our daughter was born I would leave my teaching position, reopen my photography business (Neilson-Hall Photography), start homeschooling our son his preschool, and begin building our farm.

Everything started moving at lightening speed. Our daughter Bryce was born April 2012, the chickens moved in June 3rd, the barn went up in August, the fencing went up in September, the goats came to live with us in November, the llamas came to live with us in February 2013, two new baby goats joined us in June 2013, and here we are.

We have spent time perfecting our recipes and getting the soap to the point that we are proud to sell it and have it represent our farm and family. We hope that you love it as much as we do.

I hope you enjoy following along in our journey as we continue to build our farm, our business, and work on becoming self-sustaining.

The Freckled Farm Soap Company makes handmade goat milk soaps. Our body care products are all natural and made with love. For more information about our products and to read more about the farm please visit our website: www.thefreckledfarmsoapcompany.com

August 1, 2013