It's full blown summer here in Vermont. Bright orange day lilies grace the roadways and local corn has just arrived at market. And I realized the front page of my website still talked about spring lilacs. Whew! Time has been speeding away while my head has been down in the weeds! Lots of news to share--
Our Vermont Sunflower Oil Soaps got a face lift! The seasonally scented collection features local sunflower oil grown in the Champlain Islands, just a few miles from our farm. Sunflower oil is naturally rich in vitamin E, and makes a nice, creamy soap. We add organic goodies like fair trade cocoa butter to the sustainably grown sunflower oil, and then scent the bars with our unique fragrance blends made from pure, therapeutic grade essential oils.
When we started the sunflower line several years ago, we surveyed customers, friends, and most everyone we knew about what Vermont smelled like to them. We got lots of great answers (hay, dirt, grass, warmth, fresh air, clean water, evergreens, wildflowers, manure....) and used this information to help us create our fragrance blends. The new scent names better reflect the seasonality of the line: Muddy Boots + Green Shoots, Golden Summer, Falling Leaves + Flannel, and Snowbound. We also offer an Unscented version in this line for those who prefer no added fragrance.
We ditched our plain, earth toned boxes, and added some beautiful color with a view of the mountains across the lake from a sunflower field in the Islands. Our new boxes were painted for us by Vermont artist Gabe Tempesta, the same artist who has painted several of our Artisan soap wrappers, including the Honey Oatmeal, Our Farm, and Lilac wrappers. What do you think?
We are running a special on the Vermont Sunflower Oil Soap Collection right now to celebrate the relaunch. Five bars, one of each scent, for $23.00. (Regularly $6 each. Save $7)
You might notice another packaging change on all of our products. We joined GS1 and have gotten ourselves barcoded. Even our artisan soaps are sporting the familiar bar pattern! I feel like everything has gotten a tattoo. While admittedly this isn't terribly exciting, the barcodes make it easier for us to work with retailers who use scanning software to manage their inventory and checkouts, and that makes it easier for us to grow. (And I do think growth is exciting! :)
Speaking of growth, our hen house grew by one this year. One of our old hens decided to lay a few eggs in the very back of the hen house underneath a roosting post. She managed to hide the eggs from us for a week or two, and after we realized she was actually sitting on eggs and not just resting, we decided to let her try to bring the eggs to term. We've downsized our flock considerably, and there was plenty of room to give her a private chamber. (Our hen house has three separate chambers.)
One by one she kicked out eggs until she had just one left. Eggs usually gestate for about 21 days. When 21 days had certainly come and gone--remember we don't know exactly when she got started--we figured it just wasn't going to be. That is, until one morning I went into the hen house to do chores, and a very plump, definitely not newborn chick greeted me in the first chamber! A very weary looking momma was running behind fussing. Momma sure did a great job of keeping that chick hidden and protected under her wing, fed, and warm! Based on her feathering and size, we're guessing she was about 10 days old when we first saw her.
After a couple of weeks, Momma threw in the towel and decided motherhood wasn't for her. Fortunately, another hen has taken over the mothering duties, and she and the chick are doing well.
We need a name for this very sweet little "surprise" chick. We are fairly confident that she's a girl. She seems to be mostly Americauna with the classic whiskers but she has black and white feathers in a barred pattern. We think maybe the barred rock rooster hooked up with her momma. Have any ideas for a good name? We'll send out a couple bars of our farm soap to a winning submission! Just email us your ideas, info@chasworthfarm.com. Thanks!
If you're local and haven't made it to the Burlington Farmer's Market yet, please consider stopping by. Produce is coming in quickly, with lots of beautiful and tasty varieties and colors. Saturdays, 8:30-2:00, City Hall Park downtown.
All the best!
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