Hello and happy Hump Day friends!
It's beginning to look a lot like the holidays are here! Can you believe that Thanksgiving is tomorrow?!? It feels like the whirlwind of 2021 has flown by faster than ever, and I can't believe it's almost over. As I'm sure many of you feel the same way, there are parts of 2021 we won't miss, but there are also a lot of things that happened in 2021 that we can look back on with fond memories and happy hearts.
November Holiday Sale is Here
Of course with Thanksgiving being tomorrow, we are busy as bees preparing pies, home baked breads and side dishes galore for the feast we host here every year for family and friends, but I wanted to make sure I took a couple minutes and shared the news with you- we started our Black Friday/Small Business Saturday/Cyber Monday Sale early!
That's right, you don't have to wait until the weekend to take advantage of our sale- you can hop online right now and get 20% off everything in our online shop with a minimum purchase of just $20! This sale lasts not just through Cyber Monday, it goes until the end of the month. So even if you're just as busy as we are preparing for Thanksgiving Dinner with your family and don't get a chance to shop until later, you won't miss out on the deals. Don't wait too long though- some of our seasonal items are in limited supply, and once they are gone, they are gone. Many of our soaps and lotions are available year-round, but some of the popular soap scents like Pumpkin Frost and Cranberry Woods are getting cleared out to make room for new products to be introduced in 2022.
So click here now to head over to the shop and stock up on goat milky goodness for your skin and don't forget that we have our bundles available here that are already packaged up and ready to be wrapped and placed under the tree, or simply add a shipping label and mail it off to a long distance gift recipient. Or if you're not sure which variety of our goat milk soaps and lotions to get, our e-gift cards are another great option and are available in increments between $10 and $100 to fit all budgets.
Around the Farm and our Curve Ball
Here at KC Family Farm, we have been busy this month with preparing for the holidays, planning the Thanksgiving Dinner we host each year, attending local fairs and festivals almost every weekend, and somehow we have still found the time to look towards 2022 with hopes, dreams and big plans!
While I won't beat around the bush and act like 2021 has been a normal year (if we could even define what a normal year looked like), I want to say that despite the turmoil we have seen in the news, Covid-19 still affecting every aspect of our lives and the multiple issues that are affecting our many supply chains, we have been very blessed as a family and as a farm.
Our gardens grew in size and productivity and our dairy herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats were all tested and cleared of any diseases in January and then appraised by the ADGA in May, increasing the value of our herd.
Then in October we added a new buckling we have decided to name Right Turn Clyde- Ray's idea, but I thought it was cute- who is bringing new genetics from great milking lines to our herd and who also happens to be naturally polled so there is the potential for not having to disbud all of our kids in the future! (Personally, the disbudding is the hardest part of keeping goats for me, so I'm just as excited about that as I am the new genetics.)
And of course after lockdowns in 2019 had all the spring, summer and even some fall events cancelled, we hit the ground running with events for 2020 and 2021, and turned some of our focus to the website and our online presence and sales. Since we are just a family based business with half of us working full time jobs off the farm, the website and social media growth has been a bit slow... but still steady. I still have much to learn about this side of running a small business, but almost every day I find myself learning a bit more.
This summer through us a curve ball that we haven't tried to hide, but haven't discussed much via our website or social media- both myself and Ray received diagnoses of Alpha-gal Syndrome in June and July, respectively, which has caused us to re-evaluate some of our plans for the farm. Alpha-gal Syndrome is a food allergy to mammal meats and mammal by-products that is thought to be caused by a tick bite (the jury is still out on whether other bugs like mites and chiggers can cause it). I won't go into all the scientific mumbo jumbo to explain what AGS is and how it affects people, but if you're interested in learning more or curious if maybe you might have it, the website Alpha-gal Information is a great place to start.
Naturally, I was devastated when I got my diagnosis. We had been raising and growing rabbits for meat for a few years already, and we had just purchased two lambs in the spring with the intention of processing them in the fall for our freezer. And obviously we have our dairy goats and used their milk daily in our diets as well as using our soaps and lotions! I had just perfected my recipe for homemade yogurt using the milk from our goats, and was at the precipice of expanding my talents to include making hard cheeses. If I wanted to rid myself of the horrible stomach pains and other nasty symptoms I had been experiencing for close to two years, I had to give up a LOT that I loved. As I learned about AGS and what it would mean for me, I learned about the wide variety of symptoms that AGS causes, including increased inflammation in joints... an issue that had been increasingly bothering Ray and causing him constant pain. He was also seeing a doctor for his issues, and I told him to ask his PCP for a blood test to check for the AGS markers, just in case. Sure enough, he has it too and while his joint pain isn't completely gone after taking all mammal out of our diets, it is considerably better and he didn't have to have surgery on his shoulder this year, which we previously thought was unavoidable.
Luckily, the silver lining is that neither of us have allergic reactions to using our goat milk soaps and lotions, our symptoms only come from ingesting mammal meats and mammal by-products. The downfall is that we had a bunch of animals that were supposed to provide our family with homegrown protein, and a lot of mammal meat in the freezer already. Not everyone in the house has AGS, and we hope it stays that way, so the meats already harvested and in the freezer have been slowly getting used for meals when Ray and I aren't here for dinner. We sold all of our rabbits to a few other individuals who wanted to start raising their own meat rabbits, and the lambs were sold at cost to another friend who could harvest the meat for their own family.
The biggest dilemma for our farm was our beloved herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats. We considered selling them as well, and putting all of our focus on our gardens and the poultry we raise and taking our farm based business another direction. But I just couldn't do it. Not only had I already started our business with the focus on skincare that utilizes all the benefits of goat milk, but I am too emotionally attached. We are too emotionally invested. We are proud of the progress we have made in such a short time, we have gained a lot of dedicated followers and customers, and well, I just love seeing my babies every day and watching our little herd grow and improve.
So despite the fact that I no longer pour myself a bowl of cereal or yogurt as a snack, and I haven't made any cheese in a while (and have some of the supplies on hand still), we aren't retiring from raising dairy goats anytime too soon. I still milk them daily, they still get scratches and hugs and kisses from me, and I am still going to continue using their milk in our soaps, lotions, and other skincare products for us to use and to share with you.
Looking Ahead to 2022
While it may seem like right before the holidays is too busy a time to be thinking too far into the future, we have been doing a lot of that lately. We still have goals to produce more of our own food with each passing season and rely on grocery stores less. The current climate of supply chain issues hasn't been the driving force for this goal, but it has definitely pushed us to focus more in that area. We had planned from the beginning of our homesteading/farming journey to produce healthy food for our family and share the excess with our immediate community.
To that end, we have already pre-ordered 50 cornish cross chickens and 10 broad-breasted turkeys that will be delivered in late March from Hoover's Hatchery. We aren't affiliated with them in any way, but we have had great success with baby chicks we have ordered from them in the past and highly recommend them to anyone interested in ordering their own poultry. At this point in time we aren't set up legally or logistically to offer processed meat to our community, so all of the meat from these birds will be for our personal use. BUT we have also pre-ordered some live plants, seed potatoes, sweet potato slips and a few packets of seeds from Urban Farmer. We have a few other seeds to purchase elsewhere, but Urban Farmer had preordering available with a 10% discount on seed potatoes that was only good through today, so I didn't want to take a chance on availability in Spring being limited due to higher demand or any supply chain issues. Again, I'm not affiliated with Urban Farmer, and I will add a disclosure that this is the first time I have ordered from them, so I don't have personal experience ordering from them before. But the new additions to our gardens means we hope to have even more excess than in previous years to share fresh fruit and vegetables with the local community.
You'll notice that we post to social media a bit more about our gardens and food production, but it's not the highlight of our website. Our website focuses on what we produce that we can share with our friends across the country: our goat milk soap and other skincare products. My hopes and goals for our business is for continued growth, both in our local community and online.
We have plans for new products, new seasonal varieties of soaps and lotions, and more unique ways to share these items with you, including the option of Private Labels! Not only are we discussing vendor options with a handful of local businesses to make our products more available to our local community, but you'll see some improvements and changes coming to the website soon to include the options of wholesale purchasing and private labeling. While some folks think private labels means our products will be labeled for an individual business to sell as their own specialty product (and that is an option), the private label option is also available to individuals who want to purchase our products in bulk for events like baby showers, wedding favors, wedding party gifts, or any other event where you might be looking for a gift to give to a larger number of people with a special individualized touch. We have already completed our first private label order for a baby shower, and are excited to get feedback after the shower and guests have received their personalized soaps and lip balms!
Of course there is a lot more brainstorming going on for improvements and growth to the farm and business, but for now, I have more pies needing to be assembled before tomorrow. Make sure you follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and save us to your contacts so our emails don't get missed in your junk or promotions folders. And don't forget to get your order placed before November 30th to save 20% off everything on our website!
We hope and pray that your Thanksgiving day is filled with family, friends, good food, lots of love and an abundance of blessings. God Bless.
Until Next Time,
Shawna