New Molds Arrive. . . and the Future of Milk and Honey is Here!

Last night was momentous for me . . . my daughter Roan and I made the first batch of lotion bars with the first round of my new custom molds. This is the first completed step of work that began over a year ago with the drafting of my business plan over the summer, applying for and receiving loan funds from Accion New Mexico and the Farmers Market Institute, creating and refining sculptural forms with sculptor Stephanie Huerta, discovering and collaborating with designer and marketer Michelle Moser . . . and here they are! I plan to introduce them at the Market this week, and hopefully on my website in the next couple of days as well. Soaps will take a little longer as they cure for one month before appearing in my booth and website. I'll be experimenting with price points; that is, ONE price point for all my products, as I incorporate my new designs into my booth and website, and rotate the old (but beloved!) designs out. There is one more mold that will come on line hopefully by the fall: a logo image mold--we are in an exciting phase of logo design right now, but it is not complete yet. Stay tuned and let me know what you think!

Bees making Honey. . . Goats with fat, lumpy bellies. . .

Today I thought I would take a quick look into my hive, and lo and behold, there was quite a bit of honey there! I did the fastest harvest of honey ever--under 20 minutes, no smoker. And I cleaned things up a bit in the hive, much to the consternation of the buzzing girls. One disadvantage to top-bar hives is that the bees are in charge of forming their own combs, and sometimes they form them in crazy directions that make harvesting impossible. So I had to clean out some of the comb that they had formed in some very abstract forms, telling them, "no Gehry-style architecture, girls!", and used some well-formed bars/combs to serve as guides for new comb-building. I was really surprised how much honey they have already made. Last year this time, I just stopped checking the hive because there was so little activity; then in July, we got lots of rain, and by the time I checked the hive again, it was bursting with honey. We have had an unseasonable amount of rain the past few weeks, so that must be good for pollen gathering and honey making.
And the other girls, the goats, are looking so fat and lumpy! I spent some time out at the barn this morning, just hanging out with them, and it's so fun to see what they do when they are relaxed and not expecting food. They invade each other's space, lie down practically on top of one another, scratch their neck itches along the ground in crazy stretched-out positions, and nibble on pine cones. They also let out these little groans and close their eyes contentedly like pussy cats. Very sweet.
My new soap & lotion molds are in the mail to me this week and should be appearing at the market and on my website very soon! The lotion bars will come first, then the soap. . . Can't wait to share them with everyone!

Google Rents Goats To Replace Lawnmowers

Isn't this just the best news ever? This story is a reprint from Sustain News at Gracecom.ws. I just had to pass this on!!



"Google recently announced that they rented a herd of goats to replace the lawnmowers that normally cut the grass in the fields around its headquarters. This is Google's "low-carbon" approach to maintaining its property. Google is renting the goats from a company called California Grazing. Apparently, every so often a herder will bring about 200 of them to the campus and they'll roam around for a week eating the grass. Not only that, these goats will fertilize the land at the same time. Google claims the goats will cost about the same as lawn mowers would. And a border collie named Jen will be brought onto Google's payroll to help with the herding as well. Source: techcrunch.com"

--read more about this at techcrunch.com, including a comment from PETA!

The Branding Process Continues, or, How to Grow Your Business

Well, it has been a very productive time for me--I feel like I am growing in all directions. Michelle (see post, 2/13/09) has been an incredible teacher and guide for me, almost a therapist for my business with whom I have been sharing all my thoughts and ideas about my business, how it fits into my life, where I want to go, how I imagine I fit into the "marketplace" etc etc, all of which she validates, and then expands upon in the most breath-taking way! We are deep into the logo-design process, which is incredibly fun, as we look at and tweak images of goats and bees [see first draft of logo design, with inspiration Luke and Leah, left], modify and refine the new mold designs, and as I am dispatched out into the field (read: Whole Foods) to do retail research. Let me just take a minute here to thank Mary and Robin, at Santa Fe Whole Foods, for spending their valuable time to answer all my inane questions on how things sell, what works on their shelves and why, and what their customers and they themselves like. So eye-opening! Turns out, once you start looking, you realize that what seems like a perfectly good idea in a shelf display (say a beautiful, handmade, custom wooden display that shows your entire soap product line), is actually a bust in terms of the space it takes up, the maintenance required by the store staff to keep it looking beautiful, and the amount of product that store is then required to keep stocked. So fun to ask Robin questions about what works for HER, as the buyer/stocker, and see her light up with the thrill of finally being asked for HER opinion! Yay!

Another key process that I am in the middle of, is refining my vision and mission for my business. Right now it is in very rough form, but I thought I would share it with you all, and see if there is any feedback. What Michelle has taught me is that socially conscious/green businesses lead with their mission, which other corporations and businesses (like Kmart. . . what's their mission again?) don't. This mission/vision becomes the guiding principle of the business, helping it (me) to discern how to grow, who to partner with, etc. So, here are some of the rough (ROUGH!) notes that I've put down:

Why am I in this business?

Love and respect for the animals.
Love of the nurturing, maternal qualities of milk and milking.
Love of the rhythms of maternity, animals, and the cycles of the natural world.
A connection to the women’s work of our ancestors.

Engaging, challenging and encouraging my entrepreneurial ability

Making a living based on my values—
This business allows me to live within a humane rhythm:
to be present to my children, actively raising them;
to pursue my many passions and interests;
to deepen my connections with my community and relationships with friends.

To fulfill the potential of progressive, “cradle-to-cradle”-based business and to be a leader and innovator in that field;

to encourage others, by example, to follow their passions and deepen their connections with others, and insist on living in a “humane rhythm” that allows for that;

to experience a satisfying and enriching exchange with people locally and globally through the medium of my products;

to bring to my customers a product that nurtures, heals, pampers, inspires and pleases/delights them;

a product that carries with it not only it’s immediate physical satisfaction, but also connects myself and my customers through my story, a certain way of life, and certain values that remind us of our shared humanity and bring us back to what is important in life. This connection takes place not just in the purchasing of products from me, but in the giving and exchanging of my products between my customers and the friends and loved ones for whom they buy my products.

to experience a satisfying and enriching exchange with people locally and globally by creating and selling a product that nurtures, heals, pampers, inspires and pleases the people who receive my products.

Relationship-based business.

Sensuality—connection with sensuality, privacy, love, romance, pampering, luxury, physical pleasure, cherishing of the self.

Thanks for reading. . .

More Beautiful Customers

Couldn't fit these all in the other post. . .

My Beautiful Customers

They speak for themselves (from this past Saturday's market) . . .

Valentine's Day at the Goat Farm

Yes, even the girls need a little romance once in a while. The beautiful male specimen you’re looking at in these photos is “LEGEND”, on loan from Camino de Paz farm, and is a papered Nubian buck from a line of prize-winning goats. Or something like that. So ugly, he’s pretty. Nothing like encountering pure male animal to make you appreciate, well men, but also the delicate femininity of the does. You can almost smell him in these pictures!

Though he is all male, and loves to get his way, don’t be deceived; he is very gentle and just wants to get along and get some attention. When he came to me, his hooves were extremely overgrown (sorry, Greg), and so I undertook to trim them, wondering if I would end up with a broken wrist and smelling like buck for days. Gave him a little grain, buckled him into the milking stand as best I could (a neck like a linebacker!), and lo and behold, he was gentle as a lamb as I trimmed his poor feet.

In five months, at the height of the summer (no hypothermia for the babies), we will have a crop of cute little kids running around—probably tripling the size of my herd, if the girls all have twins. Yikes! It will be sweet, overwhelming, fun and too much work. Can’t wait!