Shampoo Bars, Holiday Soaps, and Winter Markets

I was reading an article about blogging the other day, and it said that if you go longer than two weeks without making a post your readers will consider you dead.  Hmm.  Well, I'm sorry it has been a while, but I can report that we are alive and well around here!  :)  We are just flat out as we wrap up fall chores, and move into our busiest sales time of the year.

A couple quick things to share now, with more info to come shortly:

• We've been formulating and reformulating... and reformulating some more...and I'm really pleased to announce that our new,  natural shampoo bar will be available for purchase beginning November 2nd!  This is not a soap dressed up like a shampoo--rather a real shampoo with a pH that is appropriate for your hair,  in bar form.  And, to go along with those shampoo bars, we are also introducing a hair conditioner bar.  We've been making these for a retailer under a private label arrangement for quite a while, but have been holding it back from our product line until the shampoo was ready.  Woohoo!  Look for a posting on the shampoo & conditioner story, the natural, plant based ingredients, and why your hair's gonna love 'em soon!  
• We are delighted to be vending at the Burlington Winter Farmer's Market again this year.  The market runs alternating Saturdays 10-2, November through March, at Memorial Auditorium, and hosts over 50 vendors selling vegetables, meats, cheeses, spirits, crafts, baked goods, pickled goods, prepared foods, and more!   This year there will be a couple extra markets in November and December, so please check the events page on my web site for the schedule.  Our first market of the season...and the roll out of the new hair care products...is November 2nd.  Hope to see you there! 
• Our limited edition Holiday Soaps are cured, wrapped, and ready to go!  Look for them in our online store or at one of our retailers after November 1st.  Or stop by the Farmer's Market and pick them up there!  Our holiday soaps always sell out, so please shop early if you are interested.  This year's scents include Cranberry Balsam, O' Christmas Tree, Frankincense and Myrrh, Peppermint Frost, and Orange Winter Spice.  Our Vermont Sunflower Oil Soap in Spruce and Cedar also makes a great holiday soap. 

But first, before holidays soaps and holiday markets...I wish you happy pumpkin carving!  

Pumpkins and Hay Bales

It's here!  My favorite time of the year.  I adore autumn.

This past week we've seen a major shift in leaf color. The maples are stunning!  It was time to load up the truck with pumpkins.

Another favorite thing is putting up our hay for the year.  It's a lot of work, but I always feel very satisfied at the end of the day to have a barn full of hay neatly stacked and ready to get our animals through the winter. It's like having a fully loaded pantry.  

We buy our hay from Roger, a fellow who lives two miles from our farm.  Like most things in Vermont, there's a back story....   Roger grew up in our house.  

Our farm is about 215 years old, and there have only been a handful of families that have lived here in all of that time.  The original owners kept the property in their family for over 100 years. Anyway, Roger grew up here, and his family raised dairy cows.  

When we were renovating the kitchen and stripping wallpaper, I found a message written on the bare wall that his mother had penned when Roger was a small child wishing future owners happy days in this home.  I couldn't cover up such a heartfelt wish, so we decided to "frame" the message by hanging an empty picture frame over it.  

When Roger was ready to leave home and get married, he bought the farm he lives on today, just down the road.  He owns and hays fields that are in between our two farms.

So our hay is really local.  :)   

Wagon number one.  Our place is all connected:  house to breezeway to hay barn to pottery studio to animal barn.  It's very convenient when the weather is poor, but it also means we load hay from the front lawn.

Here's Roger.  He unloads from the wagon and places the bales on the elevator.

Then it takes two men upstairs to catch, toss, and stack the hay into orderly piles.  Thanks, Grey and Jim!

And, at the end of the day, three wagons and 550 bales later, a full barn.   This is enough hay to feed 12 goats and 2 sheep for six months, and provide for an emergency stash.

Happy Autumn to you!