Hammond Farm will not be attending the Bayou City Farmers Market in Houston this coming saturday. Our daughter who started the farm will be graduating from the Navy Boot Camp at the Great Lakes Illnois Naval Base.   We are very proud parents!

We have a nice young lady studying to be a vet coming to farm sit for us.  She loves the goats , Princess our horse, and our dogs.  This will be a good experience for her while she is studying.

Today its re-building the buck pen where Tex our buck goat decided to have a temper tantrum.  You would think he thought he didn't need any shelter in this winter cold.  Silly goat!

Our doe's are looking very pregnant and are due to kid in January and another group to kid in May. So we will be having lots of babies with milk in the spring.   I do love babies!

Farm News

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

We are covered by an unusual blanket of snow this afternoon.  Highly unusual for Houston I might add. At times the snow was really heavy and leaving white powder of snow on trees and lawn.

I spent the morning bedding down the goats with shavings trying to beat the blizzard conditions.  Well, I did not make it before the snow started coming down hard.  The goats were really happy to see me and I gave them some extra hay to munch on as I was laying down the shavings.I put the shavings extra thick as the temps this evening were expected to be bitter cold.  Once I finished the doe pen I moved on to the yearling pen to start the same procedure again.  They were a bit scared of the white bag that contained the shavings
as I was shaking it to get all the shavings out, didn't want to leave any in the bag. Once that was complete the yearlings decided it was time to investigate this new item in their house as this is their first winter and they have never seen shavings before.  They started to nibble the shavings and I immediately went and got them some hay as I didn't want them to eat their fresh bedding. Once we got that out of the way they too started
to bed down and watch the snow come down.

Next it was the buck pen to add shavings they seem to be bumping heads to keep the other one from me. They were talking to each other and pushing on each other until I was able to get the shavings completely down.They investigated the shavings then settled down as well.

Now all the goats were settled it was time to head to the house for lunch as by now I was extremely cold.  I
had already got all of our oranges off the tree and bedded down the goats for a long winter nite.

We waited a few hours of getting ourselves warm and headed out again to prepare the evening feeding.
The goats came out of their nice warm place, ate their evening meal and headed back again to their shelter.

Looks like it is going to be a long winter.  Now I am headed off to rest after a really long day.
Have a great evening everyone.

Hammond Farm Goat Milk Soap and Lotions in local newspaper

We are really excited that we made the newspaper! We have listed below a link to the article.

http://www.ultimatelakehouston.com/2009/11/natural-soaps-lotions-market

Enjoy!

Julie

Cheese Kitchen

We had a plumbing crew at the kitchen today working all day bringing us closer to having the kitchen finished.  We start again tomorrow laying more sheetrock and PVC.

Goat Milk Lotion

Our peach lotion is now at the markets just in time for Christmas!  We are also adding peppermint for the holidays. We have had lots of compliments on our goat milk lotion and it continues to be real popular.

Hammond Farm won an award this year at the American Dairy Goat Product Competition with this lotion.

Looking  forward to seeing you at the markets.

Cheese Kitchen

Our County Health Sanitarian and our County Health Food Inspector came by the building this week. They advised that the construction of the building looks great!  They gave a few suggestions which is great to have during construction.

The water company is coming to the building this week to look at everything and give us their input.

The building construction is coming along and I can't wait until it is all complete.  Our milk inspector has approved everything so we have a green check mark so far for all work completed from all inspectors involved.

See you at the next market.

Our cheese kitchen is on premises and we are nearing completion to bring cheese to the markets. Our milk inspector has approved the flooring to be used and we are working closely with him to ensure we are in compliance.

Our yearling babies love their morning hay.

Our new dairy goat buck

 Brushy-Creek Zuko N001468895 PB Buck

Our new member of the family. We have him settling in with the girls. He is very happy right now.

Cypress Market

We will be at the Cypress Market on friday 4pm to 9pm


Corner of 290 West and Skinner Rd

Take 290 Westbound

1 exit past Barker Cypress Rd

Event is at Metrorail Station in

front parking lot facing 290.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

Humble Farmers Market

It rained nearly the entire market and my feet are soaked. We really appreciated the customers who came out in the rain to support their local farmers. It is really appreciated!

Wednesday - Humble Market

Today is the Humble Market so it's a busy day.  Peppermint and Sandlwood soaps are new arrivals at the market today.  Spearmint is not far behind.  See you at the market! 

Humble Market
800 Main and Ave G,
Humble Texas 77338

Goat Milk Lotion places in National Competition

We are pleased to announce that our goat milk lotion has placed in the top 3 at the 2009 American Dairy Goat Products Competition. We could not be more pleased.  This is our first time to enter a national competition and won the first time we entered.  Our lemongrass lotion has been very popular over the summer months and we are very pleased that this lotion has brought us home a ribbon!

Fall Festival October 31st, 2009 - Urban Harvest Farmers Market

Look for our booth at the Urban Harvest Farmers Market we will have lots of goat milk soaps and lotions.
3000 Richmond and Eastside

At the Fall Festival:  October 31st  08:00am to Noon

*Lots of Kid's Activities including

- face painting

- plant propagation

- story time

- origami

- mask-making

- trick or treating (market style)

- AND a costume contest, with fabulous cash prizes and "Market Goodie Bags" to be awarded to the best costumes. Celebrity Judges for the costume contest include State Representative Ellen Cohen, food critic Dai Huynh, My Table magazine's Teresa Byrne-Dodge, Chef Chris Shepherd of Catalan Restaurant and Edward "Big Mac" MacGowen of the Texas Department of Agriculture.



*Demonstrations on:

- Home Composting

- Garden Bed Construction

- Patio Gardening



*Community Partners at the Market:

- the Museum of Natural Science's "Creepy Crawly" Traveling Insect Zoo

- the Houston ZooMobile (with animals to hug and hold)

- the Bayou Preservation Association

- the Houston Audubon Society

- Mothers for Clean Air/GHASP

- the Nature Discovery Center

- Station #3 from the Houston Fire Department

- Shining Star Waldorf School

- the Harris County Master Gardeners.



Stop by for a FREE fun filled event!

Goat Milk Soap and Goat Milk Lotion

We are busy getting ready for tomorrow's wednesday market in Humble.

Time: 4pm to 8pm

Humble Farmers Market
800 Main Street and Ave G
Humble Texas 77338

We will have an array of goat milk soaps and lotions.  Orange lip balm has been made and added to stock.
By special request goat milk shampoo is added to stock as well.

Our Oatmeal Milk and Honey Lotion will be there and Lavender has been restocked.

No rain please!

Goat Milk Soap

Many people ask us what is different about Goat Milk Soap and Lotion.

Goat milk is known for having beneficial properties to soothe the skin. It is higher in Iron, Riboflavin, Calcium, Phosphorus, Vitamin A and B than cow's milk. Goats milk also contains Vitamin B1/thiamin, Vitamin C and D.  When bathing with goat milk soap you are adding all these vitamins to your skin as you bathe.

The PH of goat milk is the closest to the PH of human skin making the soap really mild.

Many people find goat milk soap very soothing to the skin.

Farmers Markets

We are excited about our markets as are goat milk soaps and lotions have been well received. 
You can find us at the following farmers markets.

Wednesdays  4pm to 8pm- Humble Farmers Market  800 Main Street and Ave "G". Humble Texas 77338

Saturdays -      8am to Noon
Urban Harvest Farmers Market 3000 Richmond and Eastside
Grogan's Mill Farmers Market - Grogan's Mill and South Millbend Drive, The Woodlands, Texas

We are anxiously waiting for the judging this week of the American Dairy Goat Bath Products Competition. We have entered our goat milk soap and two of our goat milk lotions. We can hardly wait to hear the judging results. We should know by thursday of this week if not earlier. Hoping for the best!

We had a nice day at the market on saturday, glad I had my jacket. The cool weather is a welcome site compared to the August heat. The goats are enjoying the cooler weather as well.

Our goat milk lotion was a hit as well as our Texas Beeswax Lipbalms.

Please say your prayers for our daughter as she leaves for Navy boot camp in two weeks. We are going to miss her very much. She graduates in December where we will be spending time at her graduation with tears in our eyes.