This Saturday will be our first day at the My Manakin Market and we will have our new Tea Tree Goat Milk Soap with us.
We love being a part of this group of vendors and can’t wait to see everyone! Come out and see us and support all of the wonderful vendors at this great farmer’s market.
Saturday May 3rd
10am-1pm
68 Broad Street Road in Manakin-Sabot, VA
The post is coming a little late today. We had a crazy day to top off a very eventful week. Tina kidded early this morning. One kid was born before we got outside to her at 5am and the other came shortly after. The second kid came out in a bad position, making it a very complicated birth. I am extremely grateful that we got to her in time for that one. I will write a separate post where I go into more detail about her labor later. Tina was the last goat to kid. Hillary kidded Sunday, so all of our 2014 kids are here!
While you wait for the post about Hillary and Tina’s kidding I thought I would go ahead and share a little sneak peek picture of all of the cuteness to come… This is Chelsea
Tomorrow is the first day of spring!! And to celebrate we are introducing our new “Spring” Goat Milk Soap and running a giveaway where one lucky winner will win two bars of our spring soap along with one additional bar of their choice. Check back tomorrow to enter the giveaway!!
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.
We had wonderful mild weather this past weekend. It’s amazing what a slightly warm, sunny day can do to your mood! Although the last couple of days haven’t been as nice as the weather we experienced over the weekend, it looks like the weather is going to hold up, meaning no snow, so we are able to attend the My Courthouse Market inside the Goochland Courthouse YMCA this evening. We will be there from 3-7. We will have our coffee goat milk soap with us!!
We got quite a bit done in the last week. We ordered our newest chicken coop and it was shipped on Tuesday. It’s going to be nice to just assemble a coop this time rather than spending months building one from scratch. We are also putting together a huge lumber order for all of our other projects that will be happening over the next few months including a buck barn, buck pasture, building a few new mangers to accommodate the new animals, expanding our garden by adding 6 new beds, building a garden for Breckin, and fencing off a new pasture for the girls and llamas. We are also hoping to have the solar put up in the barn before too long as well. So much to do, so little time!
More snow… Can winter be over yet? We have really gotten good at managing the fire in our stove and have had a few days where I was able to keep the house at 70 degrees, even with it in the teens outside. I’m a person who loves heat, so the hotter the better!
The animals are wishing for spring as well. The goats and llamas are spending most of their time in the barn, making the daily clean up fun, and the chickens only leave their coop for a few minutes during free range time. On Monday we had a little warm spell and the animals ran and leapt through the pasture, acting crazy and having so much fun. I guess cabin fever is getting to all of us.
Last night we ordered new chickens. They are scheduled to be shipped on March 10th! We are down to 5 laying hens and they are not enough to supply us with all of the eggs we need for our family of four. Our girls are getting up there in age and will start laying less and less, so we have decided to purchase a second coop (instead of building another one from scratch), put it in the pasture with the goats and llamas, and retire our current girls there so they can free range all day and live out the rest of their days happy and unrestricted… except my the pasture fence. We are hoping they will also keep the bug population down in the pasture. With this order we got two breeds of chickens; Easter Eggers and Black Copper Marans. We ordered 3 female and 1 male Easter Eggers, and 7 female and 1 male Black Copper Marans. The plan is to put the Easter Eggers in with the “retired” chickens. The Black Copper Marans will go together in the old coop that Kevin built. This will keep the roosters separate and allow us to have pure bred fertilized Easter Egger and Maran eggs if we want to expand our flock or sell the eggs.
We also got 3 male Buff Orpingtons to meet the minimum shipment requirement for this time of year. We plan to use these guys as meat chickens since My Pet Chicken doesn’t offer actual meat chickens. We had to go through MPC because they offer the lowest shipping requirement (we do not have space for 25 chickens at the moment) and had the breeds we wanted. This will be our first experience with butchering and we are very nervous about the whole situation, but we have friends who have promised to help us. If all goes well we will do a full batch of actual meat chickens later in the spring. This is a subject I have struggled with quite a bit. It’s sad that I am so detached from our meat source that it is painful to think about butchering an animal to feed my family, but I have no qualms with purchasing meat from the store. I know I can offer our own meat chickens a much better life. I have been told that I have built it up in my head too much and that I will be fine after the first butchering. I know it will feel good feeding my children healthy meat that was humanely raise (spoiled, really).
On another note, we are SO excited to announce that we have been accepted to the My Manakin Market Saturday market for this spring and summer. We have also been extended at the Wednesday My Courthouse Market in Goochland through the rest of the year. We have loved being apart of the market group!
It’s been a rainy week on The Freckled Farm. The farm is one big muddy mess. It’s been like this for weeks. The ground never has a chance to dry out before another drenching rain comes along and makes the whole situation worse. The pasture is in horrible shape and I worry that it won’t recover this spring. It’s causing problems all over the place. I don’t remember it ever being this bad. I practically have to swim through our backyard!
Yesterday it rained most of the day. Doing farm chores in the rain is miserable. The kids are usually stuck in the shed the whole hour and I have to just tough it out and get soaked! Luckily, yesterday it stopped raining and the skies cleared up moments before we went outside. We were only outside a few minutes before a thick fog started to roll in. It was so beautiful.
As soon as I finished farm chores (because the goats weren’t going to wait) I ran inside to get my camera to capture the fog. I have included some of the pictures that I took below… I know, I know, some are duplicated. I just could not pick between the color and black and white on some of them… I mean, could you?
It was a cold day on The Freckled Farm yesterday… as it was for most of the country. Monday and Tuesday night we closed the animals up in the barn and coop. Normally we leave the doors open to the pasture and run, but we wanted to prevent any wind from getting to the animals and to allow the deep bedding to do it’s job. The animals faired well through the cold weather, although there were points when I was working in the pasture that I could see the goats shivering. They ended up spending the entire day in the barn, only coming out when I was doing farm chores. We have one chicken though who decided that she wanted to molt late in the season and still hasn’t gotten all of her feathers back. I have worried about her quite a bit, but she seems to be doing fine.
On Tuesday Kevin went out to feed the animals around 5:30am and the temperatures were in the negatives with the wind chill. He closed everyone back up after they were done eating and I went and let everyone out once the sun came up. I had to go out several times during the day to remove the ice from the water buckets. This is my least favorite winter chore. We thought about getting heated buckets, but the breeder of Tina and Hillary told us to avoid them because they lower the goat’s resistance to cold, and if the bucket should break or the electricity go out the cold water could end up hurting the goats. So I trek out the barn and coop every couple of hours to remove the layer of ice that has formed on the water and add warm water. Last year there were only a few days that we really had to fight ice in the water buckets. If we lived in an area that is as cold as what we are dealing with right now all the time I might have consider investing in something else to combat the problem!
In other news, today is our first day at My Courthouse Market in Goochland, VA. This is an INDOOR farmers market located inside the YMCA in Goochland Courthouse. The market runs from 3pm-7pm. Come and visit us!