Freedom Farm Soap and Stuff

We have been milking our Alpine goats, April and Aries, twice daily since they had their babies Willow, Traveler and Glory in January.

And by "we", I really mean "we", since each of our children has milked a goat multiple times. It's a family affair. Primarily it's our oldest daughter Allie's daily chore. We are down to once a day now as the mommies are in a larger pen, back with their babies after being "weaned", and still wanting to nurse them often. Usually though, we all get in on the process and thoroughly enjoy it. It's very much a part of our daily life.

In May, we "goat sat" four nanny goats for our friends and got TONS of extra milk. Then our son Sam, the main one who drinks it, turned two and started drinking less of even what our two goats were producing. So we started selling some of the extra milk and freezing a lot of it. Soon we had our deep freeze full of the creamiest, whole, raw goat milk. We didn't want it to go to waste! What to do? We decided to try our hands at making goat milk soap.

We made three batches: Lavender, Tea Tree, and Oats and Honey, which I affectionately call Biblical Beauty. Our twelve year old Allie designed a label, and we were in business.

I have to tell you a little about each one because honestly I'm hooked. This stuff is amazing!! 

1) Biblical Beauty: my personal favorite. Ingredients are goat milk, olive oil, castor oil, coconut oil, lard, lye, honey, and oats. I got the name because of a book called Beauty Secrets of the Bible in which there is a daily skin regimen I've been following for a couple of years now. I've never had better skin. The first step involves dry goat milk and oatmeal. The second involves raw honey. The third involves olive oil. Since all the above ingredients were found in this one bar and I honestly found that it had the same effect on my skin, I call this soap Biblical Beauty. You want to use this everyday on your face, ladies. Your skin will SHINE.

2) Lavender: my second favorite since I LOVE LAVENDER. Ingredients are goat milk, olive oil, castor oil, coconut oil, lard, lye, and lavender essential oil. I use just this one bar of soap in my babies' baths. It cleanses their skin and even washes their hair without harsh ingredients. Plus they smell so good after a bath in this stuff.

3) Tea Tree: a favorite for people with eczema, acne, skin rashes, etc. Tea tree, I have discovered, is absolutely amazing stuff. And it is in this soap. Along with goat milk, olive oil, castor oil, coconut oil, lard, and lye.

We are loving this soap and I hope to make enough so that we never have to buy regular soap at the store again. Seriously it is that good. We hope to make more batches over the weekend and sell it at local farmers markets like Graves Grocery in Lacey's Spring. Along with these three, I am making some breast milk soap with cocoa butter for my babies. Breast milk is an amazing thing for the skin! I should have extra if anyone is interested.

We have also begun harvesting the seeds from our ginormous sunflower path that lined our long gravel driveway this summer. Neat story about this: my daughter Allie went to visit her dad and stepmom in Charlotte, NC two summers ago and brought me back a packet of sunflower seeds because she knew they were among my favorite flowers. The following summer, I grew them in a small flower bed in the front yard of our old house in the city. During the summer while she was gone, the sunflowers grew way taller than I was and reminded me of my sweet daughter every time I looked at them. I sent her many pictures of their growth during the five weeks she was gone. When she got back, they were pretty much dried out, so she and several of the neighborhood kids sat on our front porch for days, harvesting the seeds from them and drying them out. We saved the seeds and used those seeds to plant our sunflowers this year. They thrived. From one packet of seeds came hundreds of flowers! Next year it will be in the thousands! 

We plan to package the seeds and sell them so that we can spread the joy that sunflowers bring. Get yours and you can begin to sow seeds that will grow and thrive and pass the seeds along! Soon our community will be filled with sunflowers! Great reminders of the goodness of God.