The Misty Manor, Mercers

Well, after a very exciting week, we are moving our annual soapmaking workshop to next Saturday, May 29, 2010, from 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. on our farm

This workshop will cover soapmaking from scratch, from a wood-ash lye leach to finished product. There will also be a weedwalk in the afternoon identifying local wild edible, medicinal and otherwise useful plants.

Cost? None! We will have handmade lye soaps, learn-to-spin, -weave, or -knit kits available, as well as additional wool, yarn, finished garments, renewable-resource candles (bees, palm, bayberry waxes, and some other blends), felted items, etc. available for sale to help support events like this on our farm in the future. We will probably also have some farm-fresh goodies available for sale - goats milk, goat cheese, free-range chicken eggs, and depending on what we can get done, maybe some fresh-baked goodies out of freshly-ground flour.

As usual, we have a variety of projects ongoing on the farm that we are more than happy to discuss, including setting up a renewable energy system, making a cob-built woodfired oven, setting up fruit, vegetable and herb gardens - including strawbale raised beds, digging a root cellar, setting up a rainwater cachement system and building a strawbale addition to the farmhouse. And, as usual, we may have those projects in various stages of completion.

Here are directions - fair warning, Mapquest, Google Maps, and most GPS systems want to place us north of the interstate - we're on the south side:
Take your best route to I-44 exit 38, and go south on Highway 97, which will loop to the right at a T-intersection as soon as you clear the overpass. Take the right, and you'll pass a couple radio towers. FR 1050 is the first farm road - hang a left - we're not the farm on the corner, but the next one in. If you get lost, just give us a call. 417-393-0015