The Goat Experience...

Recently, we tooled through a quaint farmer's market in Winona, MN and were immediately sucked in to a booth selling goat milk soap. The cool thing about this booth was that; for one, it was selling soap and not the redundant tomatoes and cucumbers like all the other booths, and two, the soaps themselves were extremely eye catching and smelled amazing!
Allow me to introduce you to SIMPLE SOAPS an organic soap company located in the rolling countryside of Dover, MN.

Now, if you know anything about our little family you'd know how we can be a bit curious and typically willing to try anything (within reason of course.) So, when Shanna extended an invitation for us to visit her goat dairy to learn how to make soap and milk a goat we were SOLD! I mean what else are you gonna do in Southeastern MN on vacation right?? (That's a joke people... because, if you don't live there and go for a visit, you'll find that there's actually quite a bit to do... yay Minnesota!) OK, anyway... So, what you see below is a slideshow of our visit to Shanna's.

To me, milking a goat felt an awful lot like squeezing a squishy water balloon. I must say it was way easier than I thought it would be. I always have that mental picture of the "city slicker" trying to milk a cow by hand and all they do is squeeze, squeeze, squeeze and "nothin!" We milked two goats to get the amount of milk you see in the pitcher.

Shanna did an awesome job explaining all the cool details about the goats and the soap making process. Soap making is a rather tedious process and requires very specific measurments and temperatures. Shanna is a wiz at it though and has pretty much perfected her craft. I highly suggest that if you ever get a chance to purchase her soaps to do so, indulge yourself in them... they are beautiful, smell wonderful, make your skin feel great, and are NON-TOXIC unlike all the soaps you find in a store!

Oh, and BTW... *Kefir (in case you're like me and didn't quite know what it was) is a soury tasting drink that can be sweetened, but provides a multitude of benefits for your digestive tract and your immune system because it contains a ton of probiotics. It can also be used to make sourdough bread, yogurt, and sour cream... yum!