Craft Fair

Craft Fair

The end of August and early September was a very, very busy time for Momma Burns. We had our first ever Craft Fair coming up September 17, and I had a LOT to do to prepare. 

First, we received a call end of August that an opening had popped up at the butcher shop where we wanted to get our hog processed. We went with Marksbury Farm because we bought sausage from them one time, and it was some of the best sausage I had ever had. I should probably mention I'm not a huge sausage fan. Don't hate it. Don't love it. 

Anyway, we took Maribel in, and she wound up being TINY--which means we paid WAY to much for the meat we got from her (they had a price per processing fee not a price per pound). They misplaced one of our boxes at first, so we ended up having to drive to Lancaster twice to pick up meat. The meat itself has a weird, cleaner/sterilizer taste in every piece--making me think it's a by-product of their processing. AND they said there wasn't enough meat for them to do sausage, so we had to buy the spice pack from them (despite having paid nearly $300 for a processing that including sausage) and make it ourselves. Not to mention this place doesn't make bacon, so we still have frozen pork belly in our fridge waiting. Long story short....we had a HORRIBLE time processing our first hog. We got about 40 lbs of meat, 20 lbs of lard, and spent WAY too much. 

But making the sausage wasn't too bad, and it's actually quite delicious (no weird cleanser taste)! First, we ran everything through the sausage grinder that Papa borrowed from his friend who also raises hogs. 

Then, we plopped all the meat along with the spice mix and the pig fat into a giant cooler and mixed it as consistently as we could. 

We thought we were going to have to run it through the grinder again, but this made the meat come out WAY too finely ground, so we gave up and started stuffing the bags. 

We did some with the machine (which required it to be ground twice), and the rest we stuffed in by hand. 

After the sausage processing, we saved the rest of the lard to make soap. The next ingredient we needed before we could make soap was goat's milk. The goats had just come into milk. It was still too early for me to milk them everyday (the babies needed all the milk), so I just needed to get 8 oz over a few days. 

Sam helped me fix the milking stand since the original design on the legs was no good.  

William helped me to build the head piece to hold the goats still along with installing the side boards to tie their feet so they wouldn't kick me (it took SO many versions to keep them from kicking the snot out of me and spilling the milk).

I managed to get the milk I needed, and gave them another week of nursing exclusively before I started milking them in the mornings. This went on for about three weeks, and then I milked them morning and night for a couple weeks before weaning them.

The milk was too "goaty" in my opinion to drink, although Will Will and I did drink a few glasses. Rylee did not like it at all. She only wanted "cow milk" or "eglar milk" (regular).

The flavor could have been due to a number of factors, but it certainly didn't help that the girls kept getting  out of their pen and being around Bruno the boy goat. He was in rut, so he was ESPECIALLY stinky, and his hormones likely flavored the milk. 

Mostly, we attempted to make chèvre cheese. For some reason, I struggled this time around and only managed to make a few batches. However, they were absolutely delicious! We hope to be able to start offering goat cheese for sale this next time around. Also, we discovered that people like to feed it to their dogs (strange, I know). We sold the milk for $10/gallon. 

I was especially proud because I managed to stick with it for so long, and because I went from 30 minutes per goat milking with one hand as my time down to 3-5 minutes per goat milking with both hands simultaneously. 

Once we had enough goat milk and had the lard rendered (super easy...just put the pig fat in a crock pot outside on your porch away from the snoopy animals, scoop all the cracklings off the top, and the liquid that is left is the lard! Let it cool down and store in an airtight container.), it was time to make the soap!

I was so, so, so very excited about the soap. Not just because I love making soap! But I was able to use an online soap calculator to make my very own recipe. We used goat's milk, lard, beeswax, and honey ALL FROM OUR FARM! The only remaining ingredients were the coconut oil, essential oils for fragrance, and the lye. I was pretty proud. 

What scraps we had after cutting the soap I was able to melt back down and mix all together to make these super cute muffin soaps. I didn't have enough to put into the soap mold, so I filled muffin papers with the soap and let them harden like that. They looked delicious, haha. 

Next, we used about half of the remaining beeswax to replenish our chapstick stock and add a few new flavors using the essential oils I got for Christmas 2021 (thank you CC and Madison!). I really like the new clear tubes...I think they look more professional.  

We also tried something new! Using the scraps from the chapstick, I melted it all back down and let it cook long enough to burn off most of the fragrance (so you didn't have a bunch of fragrances hitting you at once). Then, I added lavender and peppermint oil back to make....an itch-be-gone stick! It helps your bug bites to stop itching! 

Lastly, I used the rest of the beeswax to make....candles! Yes! I bought the little tins and wicks to make tea candles. Regular candles are usually made of paraffin wax (a product derived from petroleum). When burned, they can release pollutants into your air--although there is some debate in the scientific community about whether this is a problem since the emission levels are within the air quality exposure limits from the World Health Organization. All of this is to say.....that if you burn BEESWAX candles, you are actually PURIFYING your air. Beeswax releases negative ions into the air which attracts some pollutants and allergens. 

Unfortunately, they weren't exactly a big hit at the craft fair because of the steep price ($6 for pack of 4), but I think if I highlighted the above more...that it may help explain their value as opposed to the super cheap tea candles you can get at Walmart. I also didn't have enough beeswax to make larger candles--and wont until we get some more bees on the farm. 

You've probably seen enough pictures of my cloth napkins that I'm not going to show them, but I will show you the variety of children aprons that I made. I think they are adorable. We sold half of them at the fair. 

This one I ended up keeping...it's from material that my Granny gave to me. She passed away this past spring. 

This one was probably my favorite. 

So with all of these products, in addition to packages of feathers for crafting, feather pens, and about five different flavors of wildflower jelly....we were ready for the market!

The market went really, really well! We sold so many of the cloth napkins and made a big dent in the jellies and aprons. The feather pens completely sold out. People loved them! We only had a few people buy the soap, and only one person buy some of the candles. We did sell a ton of chapstick as well--especially the itch-be-gone sticks which we pushed as a new-to-the-farm product. All-in-all, we made about $550. This of course is excluding the $50 booth fee, the $25 business registration fee, and the $100 or so it cost for all the materials to prep for the market. We do have to file taxes on the fair income this year, but all we have to do is show them the enormous amount we spend on food and ta da! They will feel sorry for us and hopefully not take anything.

The experience definitely opened our eyes to the wonders of craft fairs! It was really, really fun running the booth and seeing what interested everyone. I'm already cooking up new projects for next year, and I think we will try and do 2-3 craft fairs a year as opposed to doing farmer's markets. We still aren't ready for that kind of store. But one thing is for sure....no more setting up at the chicken swaps. This was 5x the money for only 2x the time. 

Just like this chrysalis we found on the pear bush in our front yard....our farm is growing and transforming. We approach each month and year with excitement thinking about all the things we can do (and make) with the farm. Yes, we get burnt out a little and a little exasperated at the cost (...you don't want to know how much we spend in animal feed per month...), but it's definitely worth it for our kids and the way we will be able to raise them--hardworking and healthy with an appreciation and love of the beautiful world that God gifted to mankind. 

Pax Domini cum spirito tuo temper sit,

Torey, Sam, Rylee, William & Luke

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