Tuesday, February 28, 2012

What were we thinking?

What were we thinking!  This is the question I have been asking myself often lately. 

When I am feeding baby goats at two in the morning in my cold garage right after I've nursed my infant son, and all I want to do is curl up under the covers, I hear it.  What were we thinking?

When I am sitting in the laundry room on a tiny stool trying to get the smallest of our goat kids to drink milk from a baby bottle, and milk is dripping all over my hands and legs and feet, and meanwhile my 18-month old is spooning my homemade laundry detergent all over the floor, I am wondering.  What were we thinking?

When I am just getting the house finally picked up and swept because I had to feed goats, wash bottles, heat-treat colostrum, wash the pasteurizer, nurse a baby, and then I look up and it's time to feed the goats...again, I sigh.  What were we thinking?

When it is evening and I just washed the supper dishes and all I want to do is sit on the couch but my three-year old wants me to play cars with him and we still have to make soap after we put the kids to bed, I am screaming.  What were we thinking?

Because honestly, there are times when this life we've chosen is just too crazy.  We have three children, one a nursing infant, and they require constant care.  We milk dairy goats twice a day, we're bottle-feeding babies right now, we're trying to run and grow a small business which consists of us making soap, and soap, and more soap.  I'm homeschooling my oldest son in our first year of preschool.  And let's not talk about laundry, dishes, sweeping, mopping, and all other household chores that are required.  Being a mom, especially of little ones, is stressful for all women.  It's overwhelming just thinking about everything that must be accomplished, much less trying to do it.  Some days I just wonder what were we thinking adding something so time-consuming to this already busy life.  And so I have to remind myself just what we were thinking when we decided to milk goats and start a home business.

First, we wanted a source of fresh milk for our family.  We're a firm believer in growing our own food both for the money it saves and because it's healthier for our family.  And having your own source of fresh milk saves a bunch of money, considering how much we love milk around here.  We were thinking that since we grow our own vegetables, raise a lot of our own meats, raise chickens for eggs, that milk was the only other thing we needed.

Second, we wanted some animals for the boys to raise.  We eventually want the boys to show the goats in 4-H if they desire, but we also wanted them to learn the many lessons that caring for God's creatures teaches you.  We want them to learn responsibility and perserverance.  We want them to learn the value of hard work and not just expect the good things in life to handed to them on a silver platter.  We were thinking that having animals and living the farm life is one of the best ways to teach life lessons that help shape a child's character and attitude about life.

Most importantly, we wanted a business that could hopefully someday allow Greg to be at home with us.  When we first started discussing homeschooling, I was worried because I didn't know if I could handle the responsibility of educating our children by myself.  And so Greg said, "Then help me find some way that I can be here to help you."  And so we dreamed of this business that would hopefully one day support us to allow Greg to be more involved at home with not only our children's education, but the molding of their hearts and minds.  We were thinking that we wanted Dad, the spiritual leader of our family, to be with us more, so that we could all work together, grow together, learn together.

It's those moments when it's time to go to bed, and I realize I'm still wearing what I woke up in this morning because from the minute my feet hit the floor I've been too busy to think about changing my clothes, that I need reminded exactly why it is we're doing what we're doing.  It's for our family, our faith, and our future.  And thinking that way isn't that crazy at all.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Neptune

Yesterday we were supposed to be in town to get Canaan's birth certificate around 3:00.  We had dropped the kids off at Greg's parents and headed back to the house to pick up something we forgot.  Greg ran to the barn to check on Flo because she had squeezed from her stall into the dog's stall and we were worried about him bothering her.  Lo and behold she had already given birth to a healthy boy just a few minutes before he arrived.  Flo is our smallest and least healthiest doe, but she sure throws great kids and has no trouble giving birth.  Unfortunately, that threw off our entire evening because we had to do post-kidding tasks like dry off the kid, trim the umbilical cord and dip it in iodine, milk Flo and heat treat the colostrum, feed the kid, and then watch both kid and mom just to make sure they're both okay.  Flo surprised us because we really thought Budzi was going to go first.  But here's our new baby boy (who is right now living in our laundry room because I don't want to walk to the barn to feed him every four hours.)  His official name is Lonely Windmill Farm BT Neptune.




The boys keep going in his pen and pestering him.  I told Greg this is going to be the tamest goat ever when our boys get through with him!  Hopefully in a day or two we'll have more good news to share because Budzi sure looks like she could go any minute!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

What's in a name?

Before our first child was even born, we had his name picked out.  Gideon James.  We both liked the name Gideon and James is the name of both of our dad’s and Greg’s middle name.  So, it just worked all the way around.  I thought all of our children’s names would be easy to pick out.  Clearly, I was wrong.  My husband is a wonderful man, but we have completely opposite tastes in names.  Here’s a little how the naming process works in our house:

Me: How about Channing?
Greg: Channing…Channing…that sounds like a vegetable.
Me: No it doesn’t. 
Greg: Yes it does.  We’re not naming our child that.
Me: Okay….how about…
Greg: No.
Me: I didn’t say anything.
Greg: I know; I just know I’m not going to like it.

Okay, that’s maybe not 100% verbatim, but seriously, every name I come up with, he has some ludicrous reason why we can’t use it.  And every name he likes I dislike.  We plan on having more children, but I think we’re just going to start calling them “Baby Morford #4” and so on after this because that’s just much easier.

 Then we got goats.  Oh, we must be gluttons for punishment around here.  We have registered animals, which means they must have names.  And they need to be creative names, because really, when you get a certificate of registration from the American Dairy Goat Association, do you really want it to say “Blackie” or “Billy” or “Spot”?  No.  Are famous racehorses named “Sam” or “Ed” or “Trigger”?  No, they have flashy and cool names like “Man of War” and “Sea Biscuit.”  So, last year when we had 4 goat kids, the naming battle began again.  In the end, we came up with Prima, Pixie, Blizzard, and Brutus.  It’s a very stressful process trying to find names that are distinguished, unique, and pronounce-able.  But the fun doesn’t stop there, because we sell soaps.

Ahh, the soaps.  Yes.  That’s fun.  We feel like the names of our soap are very important because you want people to be able to understand what the soap smells like even if they purchase online and can’t actually smell the soap, and we want it to be semi-creative so we don’t sound like complete idiots.  When we purchase fragrance oils, our supplier already has given them a name.  Some of them are pretty self-explanatory and we can’t really change them.  I mean, what else are you going to call “Black Raspberry”?  Some soaps don’t have a singular smell, and it’s hard to give them a name, but we don’t like the supplier’s name.  Our man’s soap was originally called “Pheonix”.  But we didn’t really like that.  We were going to call it “Blue Ice” or something similar, but when we used our natural colorant in that soap, it turned green instead of blue.  You can’t call a green soap “Blue Ice”.  So we went with Amazon, as in the rain forest. 

Right now, we are in the middle of a soap-naming conundrum.  We have a new soap that smells amazing.  I mean, it is fabulous.  But sometimes when you smell it, it smells like vanilla.  Sometimes, it smells like cotton candy.  Other times your nose picks up fruit, flowers, or something else that’s sweet but you just can’t name.  Also, the vanilla in the fragrance turns the soap dark, dark brown.  All things to consider when choosing a name.  Names we’ve considered are “Sugar Blossom”, “Vanilla Blossom”, and “Spun Sugar”.  None of these we feel like completely describe all the aspects of its scent.  I suggested “Everything Nice” just so we don’t leave anything out.  You know, like “Sugar and spice and everything nice…”  No?  Yes, my husband gave me a blank stare too.  I would love to put a scratch and sniff sticker right here so you can smell it and suggest names.  I’d throw a contest and whoever picked the name could win a prize.  But unfortunately that’s not possible.  So we’re back to arguing politely discussing soap names in hopes that eventually we’ll find one we like so that eventually we can sell you this wonderful bar of soap, because frankly, we think you all will love it. 

But as the saying goes, “A rose by any other name, would smell as sweet.”  In that case, maybe we’ll just go with Soap #5!

Monday, February 6, 2012

Meet the Fam

I know some of you know us Morfords, but maybe some of you don't, and I thought it would be nice to introduce everyone to our little family so you can get to know us a little better. 


Greg and Amber: Greg and I were married in 2007 after knowing each other for a really long time. When Greg had just graduated high school, he worked on my grandpa's farm for a summer. I was only 11, but I fell in love with Greg and told my cousin that I was going to marry him someday. Lo and behold, eight years later we started dating, and two years later we were married. Now, five years after our marriage, we have three children, a small herd of goats, and a soap business. Talk about whirlwind romance...



Greg: Greg makes everything happen around here.  He takes care of the barn chores and does the soapmaking.  He's quite good at it, if I may say so myself.  Without Greg, we wouldn't have started doing this.  He's the one with the entrepreneurial spirit, the one who is willing to take risks, the one who thinks about the logistics and details of a business plan before just jumping in.  He does all this while still maintaining a full-time job.  I really don't know how he does it, but I'm very thankful that I have his leadership and help in this family and the business!   

 Gideon:  Gideon is 3, our firstborn, and a bundle of energy.  Gideon leaps before he looks and doesn't know a stranger. We're hoping that charateristic will help him grow into quite the salesman. We're very thankful for his helpful spirit, even though it is accompanied by a large dose of stubborness.  (I'm not sure where that came from...)




   
Lincoln:  Lincoln is almost two and Gideon's opposite in personality.  He is thoughtful, cautious, and shy when around others, but at home he's loud and rambunctious.  He is very attached to Mommy, which makes getting things done a little difficult, but he will at least hold still to snuggle, which makes up for it.




Canaan:  Canaan is 3 months, so he mostly sleeps and eats.  He's a wonderful baby who loves to snuggle.  The older boys love their baby brother, and often smother him in trying to love on him.  Having a third child in a two bedroom house definitely makes things interesting, but we wouldn't trade it for anything.


The Goats:  We have 8 goats currently--3 milking does, 3 doelings (year-old does that have not had babies), and 2 (very stinky)bucks.  All three of our does are expecting, and typically a goat has 2 babies, but can have up to four.  So our herd could be doubling very soon!  
Sundance: Sundance is our new dog.  Someday when we have a place of our own and our goats are out on pasture a lot, we'd like a dog to protect them, so we got Sundance for Christmas and we'll raise him with the new kids so he'll be ready to guard them.  I am not a dog person, but I've become attached to our little puppy!

I hope you've learned a little about our family.  We want our customers to know us and what we represent so that they can be confident in the product we sell, and that's why we created this blog.  We hope you enjoy reading and watching our business and family grow.