Soap for sale....

If you would like to purchase our goat milk soap, please go to our online store at http://www.mayfinnfarm.com/
If you are looking for something in particular that you don't see there, feel free to use the Contact Us form, send an email to mayfinnfarm@gmail.com, or give us a call at 812-967-1350.


I am currently working on soap for an art fair in Ferdinand, Indiana this weekend, along with 100 soaps for a wedding on April 24.  We will also be at the Washington County Farmers Market opening April 30, 2011. This is a first for us, so hoping it goes well.  More updates to come, just busy, busy, busy here. 

Wordless Wednesday

Soap, soap, and....more soap!

It's official...Mayfinn Farm is an official small business. I am so incredibly excited about this, and terrified at the same time. I know a business is only as successful as the work put into it, and I see a lot of festivals in my future. I actually already have a few planned out. I have set up a booth of a few things for sale here.

Rightnow I have to get prepared for a Maple Syrup Festival here locally in Salem. More info on their website here: http://www.lmsugarbush.com/ourfestival.html. I will be there with my Great Wheel spinning wheel, my ram lamb Ollie, and some hand knit items for sale. Come on out and pet Ollie, or try your hand at spinning on the Great Wheel. Or you can just come buy some dishcloths or a scarf or two. :) We will not be selling soap at this event, as they already have a soapmaker that has been doing this festival for several years. I actually should be knitting now to prepare for this event, but wanted to take a break to update the latest news here.

This is what happens when winter has set in and doesn't look like it is going away anytime soon. I can't wait to be playing in the dirt again, and am praying for more rain than we had last summer. For now, I will make soap...and knit. :)

More fun stuff on the farm to come soon .

Barnyard changes

I found my spinning wheel. It's an antique Great Wheel, or Walking Wheel. I haven't had time to spin on it though, due to all the Christmas knitting I have been doing.

Also bought my first sheep, a little bottle baby ram lamb. He is sort of spoiled, but hopefully that will keep him nice as he gets bigger. We got rid of the potbelly piglets, and decided to just keep the two adults that we started with. They are lots of fun. We have also decided to get rid of most of the chickens for the winter. Now that the goats are using the hen house, we are unable to put a heat light in there, so they are on strike. We found 2 free Nigerian dwarf goats on Craigslist and they threw in 3 Pekin ducks too. The youngest doe has blue eyes, and I would love to find a blue eyed buck to add to the herd. We lost our oldest doe a few days ago. Seems like constant change in the barnyard.

We have about a quarter inch of ice on the ground now, mixed with a dusting of snow..good time for the seed catalogs to start coming in. Planning on doing some raised beds and container gardening this year. Hopefully it will mean less weeding, and easier gardening all around. For now, I am enjoying deciding what to plant, and have several new things in mind. Not sure where this year went, Christmas is only a short week away. Hope you all enjoy it with those you love.

The good life....

Well, no fall garden, as I ended up having surgery a few days after my last post, and was out of commission for a few weeks. It's okay though, more time to plan for the spring. :) We now have turkeys again, and some guineas, who seem to be smarter than the last ones we had, thank goodness. We have 7 potbelly piglets, and haven't decided yet if we are keeping just one or two, but its time for the rest to find new homes. Flower is a great mom, but I think she is tired of them now.
Went to the Southern Indiana Fiber Arts Festival a couple weekends ago, and was completely blown away by all that fibery fun. I also came away with an absolute NEED to learn to spin. I am now on a quest for a spinning wheel. Met quite a few local people while we were at the festival, and are now in the market for an angora goat or two to add to the herd.
This past Saturday, our local Beck's Mill had Oktoberfest. We sat up a booth there, and had a fantastic day selling our goats milk soap, candles and knitted items. Met some more local folks there too, including the photographer for our local paper, who got a shot of Boy Farmer listening to a storyteller, and Girl Farmer holding the new puppy. She seems to think our little farm might make a good story, after all the election stories are over for the year. So we shall see if she comes around for an interview.
Busy week ahead..we are going to a semi local farmers market on Saturday, and I was instructed by the local yarn store owner to bring some of my stuff. She will introduce me to the market masters and see about us setting up there every weekend. This is one of the top markets in the US I'm told. Little nervous about that, but I'm sure it will all work out.

Busy Saturday

So, I am making soap today. Got several different scents and colors going on in the kitchen. As soon as Mr. Farmer and Shorty Girl Farmer get back from Miller's Hardware, we will be making laundry soap. They have both Borax and washing soda, and Ruler Foods has bars of Fels Naptha.
The plan for today was putting out a fall garden, but we had a good thunderstorm last night, with quite a bit of much needed rain, so it's a bit too wet to till. Hopefully we will get to that this week. This mornings breakfast was home grown watermelon...so yummy. And Mr Farmer took the other ripe one over to Mr H.
So the rest of today will likely be spent indoors, knitting, soap making, and creating. We are so very blessed!

Foooood!!

We have canned 17 quarts of pickles, 21 quarts of green beans, and 14 quarts of dried beans, and froze 5 or so quart bags of squash in the last few days. Today I went to the garden and picked 3 more yellow squash, and some zinnias for a pretty bouquet. I am still working up tomatoes and making sauce, and hoping to get some blackberries to freeze this week. Mr. Farmer just walked in the door with 10 eggs. I have used both grandma's old canner, and my new to me canner, along with the new water bath canner. It's been busy and kind of hectic, but it will be sooo worth it when we can pop open a jar this winter and have fresh food. Next on the agenda is tilling up the middle of the garden and planting cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and fall peas. Most of that will go in the freezer at harvest time though.

We started back to homeschool today which went well. Need to get back on a schedule though, because the little farmers were exhausted at wake up time this morning. Tomorrow will be easier...it always is. :)

Piggies!! :)

It's been busy, busy, busy here. Finally got our garden in, now it's a battle to keep up with the weeds
Thanks to a great new friend, we have 2 Potbelly Pigs. One boar and one sow, bought the sow and traded for the boar. And in a few months, we will have piglets too! :)

We have sold/traded all our rabbits except one house pet, so we are now out of the rabbit business completely. They were fun, but so very time consuming. We also traded the billy goat. So we are back to 4 goats, and 2 of those are bred does. And of course all the chickens. Animal control called us this week, and asked Mr Farmer if he wanted a couple geese. DNR rounded up some Canada geese, and got some domestic geese in the process, 2 of which they gave to our friend Jim at the shelter. Mr Farmer of course picked them up, so we now have a total of 6 geese, and 4 ducks.

Spent some time outside this afternoon watching the pigs root, and the goats play, and thanking God for this place, and everyone and everything that lives here. It's a good life.

New Chicks

Our momma hen, Jet, a tiny little bantam, hatched out 3 chicks so far. Mr Farmer is sick, so the little farmers and I went out to check on them this afternoon, and one of the chicks was laying on the ground in the henhouse, completely motionless. I came in to get Mr Farmer so we could move the nest, so the other chicks would be safe. I told him one chick was dead, we had to figure out how to save the others. He walked out and picked up the little dead chick...only it wasn't dead. It moved. It took a breath. So he handed it to me...here, take care of it...a little sugar water and some time under a heat lamp, and the baby is now back outside with its momma. I honestly thought the poor little thing didn't have a chance. I'm so glad God is still in control, instead of me.

And then there were none...

Turkeys, that is. We butchered the last one. The mean blue slate tom that I had tried to sell, but decided to give another chance. He blew it today. There is a very sweet, small chick that follows Mr Farmer around, and jumps up on him whenever he leans down. Today, for whatever reason, that mean turkey decided to peck that chick till she bled. He is gonna taste fabulous with some green beans, mashed potatoes and stuffing. :)