This is exciting…
Our eggs from our free ranging hens are in a storefront!! This is Stomping Grounds Coffee House; a quaint coffee shop located in Greer, SC. We were approached by JP and Chad, co-owners of Suburban ShareCrop in Greenville, back in March about offering our eggs in this coffee shop. JP is a barista there, and Lisa, the owner of Stomping Grounds, gave him the green light when he presented her the concept of a mini market in the coffee shop to help make local produce more available to the public. The idea has been a hit! Our goat milk soaps are there as well!! Next time you're in the Greer area, stop in Stomping Grounds for a fresh cup o' joe and some local produce and eggs!!
He gathers, counts, washes, dries, weighs, grades, packages, dates and labels all our eggs! Whew!! That's quite a job for a 10 year old, but Ben does it with excellence. He takes his work around here very seriously! I took him along for our first delivery to Stomping Grounds so he could present the eggs to the owner. I also wanted him to be the one to experience selling them so he could see the fruit of all his labor. It was awesome, and he did great. I am once again so thankful for all the learning experiences farming is providing our family. Also, we are investing in 25 more laying hens so we can provide other storefronts with our farm fresh eggs! And for anyone interested, we will always have them available at the Woodruff Farmer's Market every Thursday 3-7pm right here in Woodruff!
This is Jerry, our neighbor and friend. He is a goat lover! And I must say, he is very kindhearted…he is also the one who gave us our first buck, Pongo. His beautiful doe gave birth to twins back in March. He generously offered us the buckling!
One thing we have learned when purchasing goats…always look at the momma's milk sack and teats! Well looky here!….all I can say is, I would be thrilled to milk an animal like this!! She is loaded and this is her first freshening! I'm sure that all sounds silly to most of you reading this, but for someone who milks goats every day, and relies on their milk for several things, this is super exciting!! Seeing this doe and knowing this is the milkline of the buck we've just been given is fantastic!
Isn't he handsome?!? Jerry had named him Charlie so we are keeping that name. He is an Alpine crossed with a Nubian, which are both great breeds for milk volume, and Nubians are my personal favorite! He will make some pretty babies!!
Here he is being greeted by our girls before he's even in the pen. We are keeping Charlie in with the does for now because our 2 bucks are much older and bigger, and they have horns. Males like to dominate each other and we don't want to risk him getting hurt so we will wait a while.
Now we have 2 bucks from excellent milklines, our other being a Saanen/Nubian mix whose mamma gives a gallon a day! Wow! Now to find some does from superb milklines….
