Category Archives: goat’s milk soap

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Introducing Two New Products

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What a beautiful morning this is. It was 62 degrees at the farm when we got up, bright sun and almost no humidity. That’s really saying something for summer in Virginia. A morning like this made fixing a country breakfast mandatory. The most enjoyable part of it was including our first tomato of the season. It was nice finally getting something out of the garden that wasn’t zucchini! For the past month, it’s been nothing but zucchini bread, fried zucchini, sauteed zucchini, mock zucchini crab cakes (these are amazing!) and veggie mixes..with zucchini. The freezer is full of it, friends run when they see me coming, it’s a sad state!

It’s been months in the fine tuning and testing and finally our new Jewelweed Products are ready for sale (they are not on the website yet so you will have to email me breezehillfarm@verizon.net  to order). For those who do not know the significance of Jewelweed, it is wonderful for shortening the duration of an out break of poison ivy and oak and in some cases stopping an outbreak from occurring.

The two new products are a Jewelweed Balm, which is made with all natural and organic ingredients and Jewelweed Soap. Not being a person who has bad reactions to poison ivy or oak, I had to take the product to quite a few people for testing. The positive results were 100%. Both products benefit from having a variety of oils that help clear up the problem and leave the skin feeling soft but the soap has an extra bonus of containing goat’s milk. These two items are a must have for the summer first aid kit!

Well I’m off to go take a look at 3 possible new goat doelings that were born in March. Because of the increase in business, we need to add to our herd and these girls will make a wonderful addition.

Update for the processor. The fiber has been received and they hope to start working on it by the end of next week. This is great news, because it is possible that the shares will be available sooner than we had expected.

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Crazy Busy….A Sad Day For Me

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Haven’t been around much lately. I really do have to get better about my bloging. It’s just been so crazy busy here that by the time I think about the blog, it’s after midnight and I’m off to bed.

The soap and lotion business is doing it’s impersonation of the “Christmas Rush” here in July. Which is a good thing! I’ve been very happy with the sales for June and this month is looking like it might just be better. We’ve introduced two new items to our line, Jewelweed Balm and Soap, and we can’t keep it in stock. For those of you who don’t know this Jewelweed is a wonderful, natural treatment for posion ivy and oak. To add even more benefit, we use just a bit of goat’s milk in the soap which helps with the drying effect of posion ivy. We haven’t gotten these two items on our website yet, so if you happen to be interested in either of them, just email us at breezehillfarm@verizon.net.

The fiber side of the farm has slowed down for now. All of this years clip is off at the processor and I haven’t had time to work on the alpaca and cashmere that I held back. I miss having the time to spin my own yarn. It serves two very important purposes for me. It’s relaxing and I get to “show off” my stuff!

For everyone who has been coming to the St. Stephen’s Farmer’s Market to visit us, we have taken the month of July off and possibly August too. Our reasons are very simple..I am just too busy to leave the farm during the week. My thought is, if I can’t keep up with sales, why make it harder on me? This way my husband and I both get a little break. Last Saturday, as part of our 31st anniversary celebration, we did a day trip to Gryffon’s Aerie www.gryffonsaerie.com in Whitehall, Virginia. What a beautiful trip this is! It was so clear, not horribly hot, and most of all relaxed. We hadn’t seen Ramona for several years and it was just great visiting with her and taking the “ride” around the farm to see all of the cattle and pigs..oh yes, and sheep. She and Collins’ farm is featured in Virginia Living Magazine this month, so hopefully many more folks will make the trek out to their place.  

This past Saturday we took the day and visited Grayhaven Winery www.grayhavenwinery.com, for their South African Food and Wine Festival. Grayhaven is one of our wholesale accounts and Max and Dion are also very good friends of ours. We had a wonderful time and I have to say, the food was excellent. Oh yes, so were the South African wines! We picked up the coolest print of an African child carrying a lamb over his shoulder. Every opportunity we get, we try to pick up anything that is tasteful portraying sheep. So basically, what we did is take a full week of doing and going and called it our anniversary week. Not very traditional but definitely relaxing and fun.

On a happy but equally sad note. We had a barn kitten born in May that did not have eyes. We’ve taken him into the house and raised him with his litter mates and Mom (that’s been a real experience) and today, “Baby” is going to live with his new family. The family who is taking him, just lost their blind cat that had been with them for years, so he’s going to a home that knows how to take care of his special needs. As I sit here and type this, I can’t stop crying. I’m going to miss that little face held high, inquiring as to what I’m doing when I come into a room. I know he is only a kitten but he has become very important to me and I knew his life would be better if he lived in a home with a little less confusion than ours. Everyone, say prayers for “Baby” and wish him well in this new journey. Some times it takes something like this little kitten to make us realize how valuable our lives can be when we are blessed with the opportunity to love and take care of something so small in helpless. My emotions are so mixed with happy and sad.

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Just Stuff

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Well, the last couple of days have been just wonderful. Part of our Goat’s Milk soap and lotion farm business is made up of wholesale accounts. I picked up three new accounts and they are biggies. After a year of working hard and being patient with these accounts, Breeze Hill Farm soaps and lotions will be in our first Virginia Historical Home gift shops. This is so exciting and now it’s time to get to work. Also, we’ve added two new vineyards to our wholesale base. I love it when we are able to recognize how our hard work pays off.

Over the next few days, I will be revamping a lot of our website www.breezehillfarm.com and welcome your comments and suggestions along the way. The Fiber CSA offerings are down to just a few left but next week we will have a new fiber related listing. So, check back often. We have a lot of alpaca fiber, in every recognized color so, much of this will be made available.

I placed a dye order today so I’ll be ready to get started on the dyed CSA shares when the yarn comes back from the mill. Finally, I’ll get to do what I really love. Every single dyed share is going to be painted yarn, which really gives the true fiber artist (that would be me) the opportunity to show her stuff!

You know, I am such a lucky person to be able to have this wonderful life. So many people never get the chance to live and work their passions. I have both, plus a wonderful husband to give me help and support every step of the way. I could never imagine not going through this life without him. July 7th, we will celebrate our 31st anniversary. Wow, am I really old enough for that? You bet. Funny thing, that’s kinda cool too! 

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Snakes In The House

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I’m sure that everyone has noticed my absence, well there is a reason for that. We’ve had an in house snake issue and I have finally grown brave enough to go back into the office. Kinda hard to run the business end of a business when you can only use the computer when Hubby is home from work. For my entire life I have been terrified of snakes. I’ve grown to accept the fact that black snakes are good to have at the barn but when they decide to come in for some air conditioning, it’s too much. I’ve been told that we are “blessed” to have a black snake in the house..not sure on what planet that’s true! So, this is why I’ve been missing.

Aside from the aforementioned, it’s been crazy busy here. We shipped off all of the fiber Friday to the mill. I decided to hold back all of the colored fleeces this time to work on processing myself. When we first started out in 1994, I did all of the processing and did so for years. In some ways I miss having that control but it has become much more practical to send it off. There were some absolutely incredible fleeces this year. We have two white ewes that double any fleece produced by a ram and it’s almost Merino quality. Can’t wait for everything to come back.

We worked the St. Stephen’s Farmer’s Market yesterday. Good Lord it was hotter than the hinges of hell! As always, I set up the spining wheel but could only spin in short spurts. My hands were so sweatie that I couldn’t get the fiber off of me. Fiber sales were off but the soaps and lotions did really well. I love the fact that this is a producers only market and they stick to that rule. There are so many F.B.N. (fly by night) soap people, that only use melt and pour soaps that are trying to infiltrate the market these days that it makes it hard for an honest producer to sell their product. You would think that something as pure and natural as soap making could escape all of the nasty back biting and unhealthy competition but apparently that is no longer the case. It’s really quite sad that many of us do our level best to be helpful to up an coming producers, then they come behind us with substandard products and cheaper prices than we charge. They are arogant and down right nasty and plow through us like yesterdays news. We can only hope that in the end, the consumer can see through the outward charm and realize that the quality and pride doesn’t exist with these people. OK, sorry about the rant but I know that many of our fellow producers know exactly what I’m talking about here.

A month or so ago, another producer accused me of being a “thief”. While I can understand her feelings, being called a thief was directed at an innocent mistake. For 15 years, I have worked hard to establish a strong customer base, been truthful, have done it on my own, haven’t stepped on a single person to get here and have enjoyed the fact that yes, it can be done this way. Maybe it’s the economy but it seems that all of the negativity and accusations are getting worse. In my “Pollyanna” way of looking at this I think we should be out there lending fellow producers a hand..not handing them a club or worse yet, using the club on one another. Well, I’m ranting again. I might just be dealing with some wounded professional and personal feelings today.

I understand that there are quite a few people in the Fall Line Farms Co-op www.farm2udirect.com that are looking for me and wondering what has happened. There has been a drop point mixup, that has now been fixed. Also, we had decided to only deliver once a month in an effort to justify the expense in deliveries to five drop points but we are changing that as well. We will be back on the list next week and starting the second week in July, we will be back every week (all five drop points). Sorry I wasn’t there but glad you missed us..we miss you guys too!

Make sure you always check out our website for additions of new products and changes www.breezehillfarm.com. Have a great day and say little prayers that we will not have any more house guest of the reptile variety!

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Hello Again!

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Wow, I cannot believe how busy the last, almost two weeks have been and how behind I am on blogging and just about everything else. It’s been so crazy, in a good way, I’m not sure what I’m doing! Just in case anyone really cares..business is really good. Since the introduction of the Fiber CSA, it’s been endless emails and phone calls and yes even some purchases. Also, once the offering was listed in the Local Harvest Store it’s been out of control. Who knew how well this was going to catch on. Be sure to check the CSA out at www.breezehillfarm.com, there are still shares available and the time is nearing for us to send the fiber off to the processor.

Let me share a little bit about what has been going on. It all started on Saturday, May 23, when we took off to the mountains in search of the magic “Heirloom Vegetable Seeds”. Well we found them; tomatoes, peppers, okra, squash, pumpkin and many more. It was a nice day for us to finish up shopping for seeds for the garden..the late garden. After lunch at historic Michie Tavern, in Charlottesville, we headed back to the farm. On the way we received a phone call from our friends at Shady Nook Alpacas www.alpacasinvirginia.com/, in Powhatan, they were birthing babies and wanted us to come out. So we diverted our trip to their farm. How wonderful to be included in this. I had spoken to Lois and Ken on the phone numerous times but had not met them. Our visit was two fold, we got to meet two of the nicest people and see one live birth of a cria. (Sorry, no photo’s today)

The next day we sheared our llama, Kosmo. Still don’t think we’re over that one yet. He is so big and so spoiled (don’t know how that happened!) and is such a bratty baby. First he had to have his hum and kick fest, that was fun. Then he cushed and refused to get up. The crowning blow though was when he got nose to nose with me and spit. He had eaten breakfast about 3 hours before, you know that was a really pleasant spit! He and I got in a spitting match while my husband just stood there and laughed. Finally, Kosmo was shorn. We were invited to a Cuban Party that afternoon, so after showers we left for the party. Didn’t stay very long but the food was to die for. We promised we’d come back later for fireworks but came home and crashed.

I’m glad we got good rest on Memorial Day because last week was the week everyone decided they needed to order soap and lotion. With it only being me doing the production work, I tend to get backlogged easily and now I am. We’ve got a Farmer’s Market this weekend at St. Stephen’s and wholesale orders coming in from all of our accounts. This is such a good and encouraging thing. Business is picking up for all of us.

Wow, I’ve been all over the map with this post. Look next week for some fun and exciting things we will be offering to our customers and readers. Have a great rest of the week and upcoming weekend..we’ll be back Monday!

Almost forgot to include that we sheared most of our sheep this past weekend. We had one ewe produce 22 pounds of fiber, with a staple length of close to 12″. I’m thinking that we might should consider shearing her twice a year from now on. She’s always been a big producer but this was huge. To add to that, she is over weight, so her diet started Monday.