Goat Milk Soap

Update - Thanks to all for their interest in the soaps. However all soaps have been sold. Thank you so much Cathy.

Like many that raise dairy goats, I make goat milk soap. I have been crafting soap for a few years, originally just for our own personal use. I then gave family and friends samples to try. We had a good response with many requests for more.
Sister loved my soaps. She loved them so much she decided to add soaps and such to her product line. What product line you might ask, she has a cottage business creating and selling handcrafted items such as clothing (peasant shirts and skirts), bags, purses, quilts, pillows, jewelry, etc. sold on line and on a craft vending circuit.
I was game for the idea so I made lots of soaps and bath salts. She then added handcrafted lotions, sprays, lip and healing balms and sugar scrubs to match the soap scents.
Sister did all the work on the sales end, she traveled, advertised and hobnobbed with the customers (she is a people person where I am a homebody). My contribution was just to make soaps. Although when sister had a vending event close to the farm I would go with her to help.

Recently sister has taken ill. Having appointments at the Mayo Clinic ill.

So she is closing up shop. She is not happy having to do so and will continue to craft things as she feels up to it for her regular customers.

After loading up the family and stocking up the farm with soap we have a few bars remaining. 22 bars to be exact. Different scents made from my signature goat milk soap recipe I inherited from my late grandmother. I normally don’t advertise any products from the farm on the blog, but thought this one time I would in case anyone might be interested.

The bars are 3.5 – 4 ounces in size. Made by the cold process method and chocked full of good things for your skin. Ingredients are saponified oils of soy and coconut, goat milk, water, shea butter, fragrance or essential oils. Other natural ingredients used include honey, colloidal oatmeal and coffee grounds.

The remaining scents are listed below, the number of bars available in that scent are in (parentheses).

Apple Jack (2) Apple, cinnamon and clove scent
Berry Bliss (3) Blackberry, raspberry, musk and vanilla scent
Coffee Scrub (2) The same pure and natural goat milk soap with coffee grinds. The coffee absorbs odor as well as removes the dirt and grime.
Grandma's Recipe (1) Unscented plain old fashion goat milk soap
Honey Almond (2) A touch of honey with a sweet almond scent, dusted with colloidal oatmeal.
Honey Oatmeal (4) Unscented with added honey & colloidal oatmeal.
Mountain Breeze (3) Fresh, woody, earthy masculine scent. Made with Fir and Cedar essential oils.
Patchouli (1) Fragrance of Patchouli
Red Clay & Citrus (3) Tangy and fresh, this is a great summer soap scent. Contains a citrus fusion of Orange, Grapefruit, Sweet Orange Essential Oils and red clay.
Sandalwood (1) Fragrance of Sandalwood

If you would like more information on the scents and ingredients please do not hesitate to ask.
The soaps normally sell for $4.50 per bar. Since we are closing up shop I will sell the soaps individually for $3.00 a bar. Buyer to pay postage.
If you are interested in buying all 22 bars make a reasonable offer and I will throw in the remaining bath salts we have at no charge. I would consider barter. For anyone local I would even consider trading all 22 bars and bath salts for a couple of lambs.

Little Lambsie Divy

With the better half being home on vacation come many changes to the daily activities on the farm. Not only is more work getting done it takes less time to accomplish. Leaving time to get out and about, away from the farm for short periods. I rarely leave the farm when I am home alone. Just so much to do and I hate leaving the critters unattended. So his being on vacation allows us to get out and about and I also consider it a mini vacation for myself.

You know you don’t get away from the farm much when the friendly employees at the local farm/feed store holler across the store as you come through the door " Wow! They let you off the farm to come in to visit".

The last few days have been busy. We have welcomed a few new critters to the farmstead, the feeder piglets (photos and info to come later), replacement chicks and our new lambsies.

Excuse the poor quality photos, as you know I am so not the photographer and "el cheapo" digital camera seems to be on it's last leg.

The New Chicks

Some of our layers are quite old with a couple being our original birds and they have stopped producing completely. We stopped by the Cackle Hatchery to see what they had in-store. I was hoping for a few new Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks and Arucanas. None available that day so we chose a few California Whites, Dominique’s and Black Sex Links. Jim really likes the California Whites. He has a great story about one of our old CW’s that I’ll share another day. In a nutshell that old CW loved to lay her daily egg in the back of the pick-up, not in the hen house and actually took a trip to town. I am happy with the Dominique’s, they remind me of my grandmother, those were all she raised.

As most of you who read our blog regularly know, we raise our own meat. In the past we had been raising our own lamb/mutton though dispersed the flock when our goat numbers grew to over 150 head.
By my bringing the Shetland wether boys back to the farm for their fleece I think it made the better half remember how much he enjoyed raising sheep (other than shearing). We have also had customers requesting lamb, actually more so than goat. This also goes along with changing our direction on the farm.

Soooo ....

say hello to our new bottle baby sheepies. Scarlet and Pittypat

(Can you tell I watched Gone With The Wind not too long ago LOL).

Pittypat white with brown spots
Scarlet brown and white all over

Eating their breakfast (you can get an idea how colorful Scarlet is)

They are St. Croix/Katahdin cross ewe lambs. These breeds are hair sheep as well as meat breeds. They do not need to be sheared. They shed their coats. This was the main selling point for the better half, no shearing required.
Scarlet and Pittypat will be our foundation ewes. Their offspring ram lambs will be for terminal lambs. Their ewe lambs will stay to increase our flock. Of course this is all future planning, Scarlet and Pittypat are only a month old. When they are a year or better we plan to find a stud ram to borrow. I really do not want a ram on the farm.
Sunday after church we picked the lambs up at a fellow bloggers farm. All Natural Simple Life It was so nice to meet her and her family, plus visit with like-minded folks that were only just a few miles away from us. It actually is a small blog world. I would have not known they were even close if it had not been for blogging.
I have to share I was so impressed with her daughters. All were lovely, polite young ladies and obviously not afraid of hard work. They were out in the thick of things, caring for the animals, working side by side with their parents. Makes me wish I had granddaughters I could share our farm life with.

I also wish I could have brought home all 5 little ewe lambs they had. They were all so adorable.
Thanks so much Tonia, we love the girls.