It started with a garden...

It started with a garden. In 2011, my husband and I decided to start a garden. Not knowing anything about gardening, we jumped in and started rototilling, planting, watering, and screaming with excitement when we saw our first seed poke through and show us life. We were able to experience, with our five kids, what a little hard work and a careful, watchful eye can produce. How great to be able to feed our kids from the ground on our farm! We noticed the almost 5 acre farm had more potential than just a wonderful garden. We branched out into laying chickens. Their beautiful large, brown eggs were nothing that we were used to. Then Bill said, “Why not pigs?” We wanted a pig that grazed more than “rototilled” our land. We wanted a good, quality pork as well. Idaho Pasture Pigs (IPP) are so friendly and loving. Their meat is red and marbled. First time we saw it, we thought we may have gotten beef from the butcher instead! Our first piglets were born on Prairie Junction Farms in July 2018 and what a fun group they were. Our next step was raising pasture raised Cornish Cross Broiler chickens which then led to pasture raised turkeys. Our family was so excited about this new farming venture but as we entered the fall of 2020, we knew it would be another winter of just raising our IPP pigs and gathering our farm fresh eggs.  Those are things we enjoy doing but knew we wanted to do more.  After months of learning, studying, and expanding, we got our Food Handling License with the State of Wisconsin and on December 3, 2020, we became licensed and insured to sell our Almond Toffee and Elder Aronia Berry Syrup.  These are two items that we have been making for years now and had been told by family and friends that we had something great!  During the process of getting licensed, Bill had been making lard based soap from our pigs.  He had finally perfected it and Sowp was born!  Many people ask me why we started making these very different things at the same time.  It honestly just worked out that way!  Now we are excited to see what is next for our small farm and small business right here in beautiful East Troy, Wisconsin!