It began many years ago when we traveled north of our home on an unusually warm late winter afternoon, with our granddaughters in tow, to a goat farm to see their nineteen ‘kids’ who had just joined the herd. By the time our visit ended, we were hooked, and had made arrangements to purchase three newborn doelings. Little did we realize the amazing journey ahead of us. The girls instantly became a part of our lives and our hearts. Everyday was, and still is a new learning experience! Goats, we were told, are extremely social animals and love interaction with people. This proved itself true day after day as we watched Olive, Sally and Fiona grow, and enjoyed their crazy antics! There is nothing more stress relieving than sitting in a corral and having a kid goat place her head on your shoulder and ‘nuzzle’ your ear.They grew that summer into sturdy, healthy does. In the fall we leased a buck to join us for breeding purposes. Wow, that was a treat!! Each day was an adventure. He (the buck) was successful with two of the three girls. Sally wanted nothing to do with him! That spring we went through our first kidding. It was privilege to be a part of Gods process of recreation, and we learned many things that spring, including reaching up inside to make sure there wasn’t a twin! Soon we welcomed two new doelings, Ariel and Savanna (Granddaughters named them) to our small group.
The next chapter in our goat owners’ journey was milking. After a lot of reading and advice from local farmers, we found this stage to go fairly smoothly. We became the beneficiaries of nature’s perfect food, our very own vitamin rich goat’s milk! However, it became evident very quickly that we were getting more milk than we could use on a daily basis. What could we do with it? We gave some away to folks with allergies and stomach disorders, we made cheese and then…we made soap.
Learning the soap process was a long, painstaking experience. We spent the better part of six months reading, researching, mixing, pouring, waiting and cutting, only to determine that we weren’t happy with one thing or another. We would head back to the drawing board to tweak some more. We had determined that we wanted a finished product that would be better than anything we, ourselves had tried (and we tried a lot!). We set personal goals (see ‘our goal’) and high standards for ourselves and our product as we embarked on the soap journey. Our hope is to always honor God with our business, our stewardship of His creation and our finished products, first the bar soap, and more recently liquid soap and skin lotion.
We’re not so naive to think that we have ‘arrived’, we are continuously researching ways to make the products even better, having said that, we think we have pretty good soaps and lotion!! Much has sold, and we’ve yet to have an unhappy customer.
We give the credit of our success to God who we believe has blessed our endeavors. He allowed us to purchase a small farm with plenty of room to grow and expand. Our herd now consists of ten does and two bucks and our journey continues with new and exciting prospects waiting ahead. As you read this you may think us to be a little crazy, somewhat corny, and maybe a little simple, but that’s the way we like it…simple. So please, try our soap and lotion. Let us know how you like it. We think you will!
Thanks,
Dave and Tammy
