With 2021 recently behind us, we have spent the last week focusing on some of the highlights of the past year! 2021 brought us so many opportunities to see our wonderful customers, grow our business, and spread the love of goat milk products. At the same time, we are already looking forward to what 2022 will bring, and planning accordingly for what we think will be another great year! Today, we wanted to share with you some of our favorite parts of 2021, and some upcoming plans for 2022 that we are super excited about!
Return to “Normal” Markets
After many events being cancelled or significantly changed in 2020 due to the pandemic, we were SO happy to welcome back many farmers markets and events in their “normal” form in 2021. We loved getting back out there, visiting with our people in person, and seeing so many of your smiling faces again😊. Of course, we love our online customers as well…but being able to meet and “hang out” with many of our customers face to face each week is truly something we LOVE to do. It is so energizing as a business owner to hear from customers how your products have improved their lives. We were able to attend 98 farmers markets and events in 2021…here’s hoping in 2022 we break 100!
We Had a Baby Boom!
If you were following our social media channels throughout the spring of 2021, you will know we had a huge baby boom here on The Hill. Our precious girl, Cocoa, gifted us a set of quintuplets in April! Statistically, this is a 1 in 10,000 chance. Then, our three does ,Pearl, Cookie, and Gigi, ALL had a set of quadruplets. When all was said and done, we ended the spring with 30 sweet new kids running around the pasture. Five of these little ones have stayed on The Hill as future milkers, while the remaining kids found loving homes at farms across Kansas and Missouri. All of this seems like it just happened yesterday, so it is crazy to believe that in just a few short months our girls will be kidding all over again. This year though, we might get an ultrasound for Cocoa, so we know what’s coming!
Our Loofah Garden Grew
In 2020, we experimented with a garden of naturally grown loofah sponges to incorporate into our products. Since the process of growing loofah is a year-long cycle from planting to a finished sponge, we weren’t able to recognize the fruits of our garden until early 2021! Our fall 2020 crop dried throughout the winter, and in March of 2021, we were finally able to remove the seeds and skin from our dried sponges. We instantly loved the loofah and began incorporating them into our soaps! Our customers loved them, too – and after quickly selling out of our 2020 loofah crop, we knew our garden had to expand in 2021. And expand we did! In 2021, we planted 85 Loofah plants and harvested over 100 gourds. These gourds have been drying since October and will continue to do so for another couple months, until the cycle starts all over again.
Of course, these are just a few of the highlights that made 2021 a great year! As much fun as we had last year, we have some really exciting plans for this new year, that we are so excited to share with you…
We Are Building a New Barn!
This has been in the works for quite a while, and we are so excited to finally start this project in 2022! Our current barn setup has gotten a little tight between housing our herd, milking supplies, and other necessities, so we are eagerly awaiting the new addition and more room to spread out. Our new barn will provide new housing for the goats, some dedicated space for our pregnant does and young kids, a (much needed) larger milking room, and an area indoors we hope to use for open farm days and other events in the future. We plan to break ground on this project in the next month or two, weather permitting, so that the new space will be ready for our 2022 kids born later this spring.
Jinger Is Getting a Friend
If you have visited The Hill, you’ve likely met our precious Great Pyrenees, Jinger. Jinger is both a livestock guardian to our goats and a beloved family pet. When we host open farm days and farm tour, she loves to be outside greeting guests and making new friends. However, she is turning eleven this January, and while she is still very happy and healthy, we want her to have a comfortable retirement of napping indoors – so we are adding another Great Pyrenees pup to The Hill in just a few short weeks! We can’t wait to introduce the new addition to our goats and are hopeful she can learn the ropes of being a livestock guardian from Jinger 😊
We are so excited for these two new additions to The Hill and hope we will be able to share them with our customers during Farm Tour this spring, and during our open farm days! We are so appreciative of all our wonderful customers who have contributed to such a successful 2021 and continue to support us. Each and every one of you make it possible for us to live our dream. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Have a very happy 2022,
Madd House Hill
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