The Economics of Small, Farm Products - Farm Flows

I haven't written one of those boring Farm Flows posts in a while, so I thought I better get back on it.

Actually, we've received a bunch of questions about the economics of soapmaking and whether it can sustain a small farm, such as ours. We love that so many people email us questions about leaving the rat-race and starting a small business. It's inspring, and I hope that some of what we share on our site will help them achieve their dreams. 

However, we don't know whether what we're doing will work. We're not yet paying the bills with farm income. What we do know is what it would take for items such as soap, lip salves, etc to provide a meaningful income for us. And that's what I think people really want to know. Can I move to the middle of nowhere and make soap (or other small, farm products) and live a happy life? The answer is my least favorite of all answers: it depends.

Our soaps and lip salves on display at OMG in Nashville

I am not going to give you all of our numbers because I want you to figure it out for yourself. Don't rely on other people's numbers. They aren't your own.

My goal in this article is to help walk you through the process that I use when I'm trying to answer this question for ourselves. At Little Seed our goal is NOT to create a giant business. We want to make an income sufficient to cover our bills and save a little for the future. We DO NOT want to sit in an office and manage employees. We want to be farmers. You should read this article with that standpoint in mind. 

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Hoophouse in Bad Weather

I wrote about building our hoophouse for hay storage last fall as we prepared to move all of our hay into a new location. The hoophouse is 30' with 24' PVC hoops. It could comfortably hold 180-200 square bales at a time. 

Erecting such a structure in Tennessee is a bit risky given the high wind speeds and frequency of tornadoes. Every time the winds pick up above 40 or 50 mph I get a little nervous and half-expect to see a giant white ball of shattered PVC and torn white plastic tumbling across the fields.

Last night's storm was a great test with wind speeds reaching a reported 105 mph only 15 minutes north of us. I don't think it got that bad where we are, but there were some mighty gusts that had us up from about 3am to 4:30am watching for tornadoes and monitoring the radar.This morning the hoop house was fine, however. It held steady and kept the hay dry.

Our animals also love the structure. Sometimes our LGD Sheba will climb the fence and find a nice place to nap inside. Our cat, Levon, also finds solace atop the hay bales. Nevat, the LGD puppy, can't terrorize him up there.

Nevat 'playing' with Levon while we reloaded our hay stash

 

New hay bales loaded; Levon happily perched above the puppy's reach

 

Sheba rents one of Levon's hay bales for the night

Thus far it's held up well, keeping our fingers crossed that it stays that way.

New Farmstead Goodies & A Sneak Peek

We're very excited to share some new farmstead goodies being released in our Shop today!

After our first release and a successful holiday season with our original Farmstead Milk Soap collection of Milk, Oat, and Lavender, we decided to expand our horizons with 4 new soaps for Valentine's day. We thought it could be the perfect time to play around with some fun ideas we'd be having (like local beer in soap), so for a few months we locked ourselves in the "soap cave". We experimented and tested (on ourselves and friends - no animal testing here!) until we emerged with these four new soaps that we love and that will hopefully make some people smile this Valentine's day. You can read more about our Activated Charcoal, Clay & Kefir, Cocoa Stout, and Rose bars here!

For sometime we've been getting lots of requests for a lip balm, but wanted to wait until we had something really special. We had starting making our own salves this past summer and have enjoyed using them on sore muscles and scrapes this fall and winter. Eureka! Why not make a lip salve? We started infusing different oils and nut butters with the calendula and comfrey we had grown in our gardens (following organic practices). Both are known for their extraordinary abilities to soothe and heal and have proven to be the perfect match for the blend certified organic oils and butters we use to craft the salve. They're available in Naturally (unscented), Geranium Rose, Lavender, and Wildwood. Check them out and let us know what you think!

Finally, we wanted to leave you with a sneak preview of the final piece of the new release - His and Hers Valentine Gift sets featuring the new Farmstead Milk Soaps, Herbal Lip Salves, and new note cards made from my sketches. We're a tad delayed on getting it in the shop (printing issues - ugh), but they should be available early next week if not sooner. Here's a little peek at one of the sets:

Thank you all so much for your support!