Breeze Hill Goats Milk Soap & Lotion New Retail Location

August 19, 2009 by Breeze Hill Farm

Wanted to take a second and let everyone know that if you are in the Powhatan, Virginia area, after today you will be able to purchase Breeze Hill Farm goats milk soaps and lotions from both the Powhatan Pharmacy Gift Shop and the Plaza Pharmacy Gift Shop. We are very excited about the addition of these two retail sources for our products. In addition to the soaps and lotions, they will also have our Shea Butter, made with our own “Mint’s” essential oils produced here at the farm.

To celebrate this new addition we are giving away a bottle of this months Breeze Hill Farm Store feature product Collina Breeza Lotion and a bar of Collina Breeza bar soap. Just leave a comment and I will contact you if your name is chosen for this giveaway to get your mailing address. Good Luck!

The Whole Garden is Finally In

July 21, 2009 by Breeze Hill Farm

Well we may be picking our last tomatoes and peppers as the first snow falls but our garden is finally in..now it’s time to think about fall planting. It will be interesting to see how well this garden does. If the rains continue to come every 4 or so days and it continues not to be so horribly hot, everything should grow well. Just can’t believe we took this long. Oh well, it’s been really busy here and there just wasn’t enough time to get everything done.

I am trying to get a rather large goat’s milk product order filled and it’s really slow going. Probably because I’m trying to fill other orders at the same time, while dying roving and yarns in between. Also, I am making myself sit down at the spinning wheel everyday for 1 hour and spin. It’s good for the mental health and I have a custom spun order that I’ve been working on for several months now that is finally getting finished. Usually by this time of year I have completed the 12 items that I spin and knit each year to sell..I don’t even know where my knitting needles are!

All fussing aside, things are really going great. The animals seem to be doing very well, even though Boggie, my 18 year old sheep, gives me a good scare everyday with her “dead sheep lay”..guess she’s practicing or just exercising her Mommie.

"Boggie"

She’s looking good for an 18 year old, we think.

The goat’s are fat, happy, and giving lots of milk, with little to no incident. All is well for today.

Introducing Two New Products

July 15, 2009 by Breeze Hill Farm

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.

Look At Our Big Suprise!

May 9, 2009 by Breeze Hill Farm

Yesterday went very smooth with Co-op deliveries and I am sorry to say, I didn’t get a single picture of anything all day. I did set up at Gather for a couple of hours and enjoyed meeting and greeting all of the new Co-op members as they picked up their orders and a reporter from the newspaper did interview me, so next week I should be able to share that with everyone. I also had the chance to sell several Fiber CSA shares. There are a lot of knitters in this area and they are all very excited about the idea of knowing exactly where their fiber comes from. It was just a good fun Thursday.

Look what we found at the barn this morning!

Now I ask you, are these two little girls cute enough. Their mother, “Blackie” is our stray goat (long story, we’ll share it some day). We knew Antonio had bred her and were hoping for a little black mohair. Antonio’s father was a black Angora but the white prevailed. She obviously is a very good Mom. She had these little girls all cleaned up and ready for a photo shoot by 8:00 a.m. I’ve been at the barn most of the day just watching them with Blackie and watching Carley. I think she’s next, so tonight I won’t leave it up to her. It’s her first so I want to make sure she does OK. It’s starting to look like a long sleepless Mother’s Day weekend. That’s fine..who could ask for a better Mother’s Day gift than beautiful healthy babies? Not me.

Rainy Days Are Getting Old

May 6, 2009 by Breeze Hill Farm

I, for one, love cloudy, cool, rainy days. It’s seems to make me thrive but our recent weather pattern is even getting old for me. For days now it has either rained or has threatened rain. Yesterday, the sun came out for 5 minutes and what happened next? Tornado Watch! This rainy spell has caused pastures to “green up” and gardens are starting to grow but we could use a little bit more sun to keep things going. Another thing that is affected by the rain is sheep shearing, something we’ve needed to do for a month. I love to see the girls out in the field all big and fluffy..they make the perfect picture but before we know it we will have 90 degree days again and they won’t be happy. Not to mention, the sooner I get those fleeces off the sooner I can get all the fiber shipped off to the mill. Until then, I must look at the fact that we are blessed with a wet Spring!

Overheard some chatter at the barn last night. Looks like, for the first time in years, we did really miscalculate our delivery dates. The does are getting ready now, so there will be baby photos coming soon!

There was additional chatter out there when Breeze our picture perfect Border Collie rousted up a skunk. She is such a cool dog. When she goes out for her barn work, she has to stop off and kiss the other dogs, kiss the cats, kiss the pig, she’s just a sweet kisser. Well, she seems to think that skunks are cats, so she tries to kiss them too. Aparently her doggie genius only goes as far as what to do with the sheep, she just never learns. She got a bath in what we have found to be the best skunk odor remover, disposable douche (found this in a natural pet care book), and the otherwise nightly sofa hound spent the night in an outside run. This morning she smells fresh and clean and dishing out kisses again!

"Breeze"

Well, I have to make soap today. Just got the orders from the co-op (www.farm2udirect.com) and soap is the big seller this week. People were probably thinking about Mother’s Day when they ordered this time. Also, the Market at Gather (www.shopgather.com) is Thursday so inventory needs to be ready for that. I’m so glad I have this life!