09/13/2026
Summer in snippets!
Trying to run a small farm on top of working has definitely been a challenge. But a very fun one! We’re so lucky to have so much to do before, during, and after a work day.
Some summer highlights:
🌸 our garden finally grew well! Which means lots of picking, weeding, washing, canning, selling, saving, dehydrating, cooking, baking, freezing, etc.
🐓we hatched lots of new chicks which are finally laying! I believe we’re in the mid-40s or 50s for our bird count right now. The crazy weather this summer has been fluctuating our egg production a little bit but we can hardly keep eggs stocked in the farm stand. Thank you! Maybe it’s time to hatch some more 🤔
🐐we had 3 baby goats born at the end of spring, so I’ve been stocking up on milk to make more soap! This year I was milk sharing with the babies, so I would milk out whatever the mamas had left over. I wasn’t getting a lot of volume of milk, but that was what worked for me this year due to limited freezer space for the milk and also I didn’t have much time to make as much soap as I was hoping to this year. Next kidding season I will probably bottle feed the babies so I can collect much more milk from the girls.
🥛I have been occasionally farm sitting for a friend and milking her 2 Jersey cows. We loved having fresh raw milk in the fridge and I made so much butter and yogurt. A dairy cow may be in our future (probably a far off future). I may experiment with a raw cow’s milk soap recipe and see how it compares to the goat’s.
🧼 although I wasn’t making a lot of soap this summer, I made a ton through the spring so I still attended 4+ farmers markets a month to sell!
🛠️ Lots of outside projects are getting done, thanks to Matt. Putting up a building for extra hay/equipment storage. Building a new hay feeder for the goats. Moving fence panels all over the property to rotate the goat area.
🚜 Matt did 1st and 2nd cutting hay and soon to be 3rd cutting. He also planted 3/4 of an acre of sweet corn in succession so we would have sweet corn out at the farm stand all summer.
And much much more!
