Oh, there were cookies baked by Connor and his younger sisters (Good!), chicken coop cleaning (still no eggs), some wood stacking (happy to say we should have enough to burn full-time next winter), snowman making (and destroying), a snowball fight in the dark between the boys and their Dad (always fun), and still pampering the baby who has a lingering cough and runny nose. She has been up frequently at night the last several days, so I've not been at 100% either. Ok. I've been grumpy, whiny, and generally unpleasant. Yuck. I'm sure you other moms know how unfortunate this is for the rest of the family, as everyone seems to take on the same attitude as mom. Double yuck.
I am excited to report though that we are getting our soaps made and ready for sale by early Spring! Dandelion's Acre will offer goat milk soaps, yummy body scrubs and organic herbal salves. All of our products are 100% natural, made with the highest quality ingredients such as raw goat's milk (but of course), coconut oil, mango butter and pure essential oils. Just in time for your Spring Easter baskets and Mother's Day goodies. We'll be making a product page off this blog, so check back often!
In other exciting news, we are checking on a momma Alpine and her two kids. Even if this sale does not pan out, our goat barn will not be empty much longer, I can feel it!
Deciding which breed of turkeys to order,
Standard Bronze, or...
Giant White. What would your preference be ? ;) Can not wait to see these big beauty's gobbling around the farmyard.
Other spare moments have been spent perusing seed catalogs. Yeah! My fingers are aching to dig in the dirt again, and my mouth watering for homegrown peas and tomatoes and greens, oh my!
And now, someone is crying and someone is yelling, and so this blog mom must depart. What's occupying your time these days?
Your soaps and lotions are divine. Can't wait to have lots of splashes of serenity with them! I remember days of little children. Guess I've graduated to a quieter time. Spent the day writing Bible studies that accompany my Spring retreats. What did I learn? Well that Jesus will replace our sadness with oil of joy. Perhaps Oil of Joy should be the name for one of your oils. Nice. Love you, my daughter.
ReplyDeleteBeginning to see light at the end of our tunnel and we too are looking into making several batches of soap, but for Farmer's Market and our CSA garden. It took me some time to find a recipe( cold batch) that I really like, it lathers well and leaves no feeling of a residue.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Turkeys, are you hoping that they'll mate and raise their own, or are these strictly for butchering? If for breeding I'd have to say Bronze, not White. Also if you have preditors white sticks out like a sore thumb. We raise Narragansett, Bourbon Reds and Bronze( not the hybrid Broad Breasted) Ours raise their own poults every year, some years better than others( last year only one survived :o( )
Anyway, good luck with which ever breed you choose, turkeys are tricky to raise, sort of like sheep.
Blessings,
Kelle
Kelle,
ReplyDeleteThis will be our first year with Turkeys, and so we will only get 2-3. Plan to butcher in the fall. If all goes well, we may look into getting a breeding pair in the future, and raise more to sell. We'll see. Baby steps. I'm really looking forward to it though! We were visiting a home a couple months ago and they had a 'pet' turkey. The thing was so darn cute (ok, really ugly) it was just like a dog and followed us everywhere. I fell in love. Though I've heard they can have a mean streak too.
We were going to order from Murray Mcmurray. Do you have somewhere to recommend?
I hope you have better luck with your poults this year! And good luck with your soaps! I know just how it is to take forever to find JUST the right recipe :)
Liz
Good luck with those turkeys! We managed to kill off 8 of the little beggers one spring (well, technically 1 was a suicide because, really, how many times can you keep tempting a cat by escaping from your nice secure pen, huh??!). We did have one successful year of raising them, but didn't realize when they needed to get butchered so we had 40-50# turkeys! Lot's of meat in the freezer! They are very curious birds. We raised the bronze~ started with 8 and had 4 survivors. They follow you all around and remind me of those stalking dinosaurs on the old Jurassic Park movie (remember the ones by the river valley that ate that guy)~ we finally had to pen ours up because they were too friendly.... I'll be looking forward to your adventure:)) And, just for the record, if I can learn how to butcher a chicken, you can too my new friend! LOL It really wasn't too bad, especially considering the boys didn't mind doing the butchering and I only had to pluck and clean.
ReplyDeleteSo fun to hear you are a soap maker too! I have been making lots of goats milk soap, and we just tried making soap out of Wisconsin snow~ turned out great! I am hording 4 little bags of milk in my freezer to make some more batches,as the goats aren't due for another month. One area of soap that I have enjoyed has been teaching soap making classes. We are thinking about trying out the farmers markets this summer, too, if I get that far:))
Hope you get your goats soon! Have a great day!