Farm Craft Studio contains a collection of over seventeen years of homestead work, projects, and events generated in our home basement. It is truly a magic space. Love at first sight, it’s the reason we bought the property and amazingly, it manages to find room for everything we put in it.

Not only do we have moving boxes that haven’t been opened since we moved in (nineteen years ago); but our second and third goat births happened in our basement.  Earl and Earlene greeted us one morning as we went downstairs to check on mama Minnie. There they were. Our newest goat family.

But before that, the first goat birth was a complete surprise. One morning, about a year before Earl and Earlene were born, I noticed something white in with Minnie. Come to find out it was our first ever baby goat. Clearly his father was a Boer because baby Lester was white with brown on his face. As my first lap-goat, he’ll always be my favorite of favorites.

After the goats got their own barn and moved out of the basement I turned the space in to a soap factory so I could make goat milk soaps and lotions. (My justification for getting/keeping more goats.) Gran’ Nanny’s Goat Milk Soaps was born in 2004 and has survived nicely through festivals and retail dealers (mostly in Stanly County). To this day, we only use goat milk soaps because of it’s soothing affects on our skin. (We need all the help I can get because we work OUTSIDE most of the time.)

Along the way, other interests developed that keep us busy. Below is a list of our Family of Companies. See the right column for links to these sites.

• Sleeping Dog Ranch describes living our farmstead life and everything that goes along with it. We’ve lived here since 2000 and are in the process of transitioning our seasonal gardens/pastures to include as many permaculture principles as possible.
• Nubian Soaps supports our love of goat milk and its health benefits. Initially known as Gran’ Nanny’s Goat Milk Soaps (GNGMS), this company was most active between 2004 and 2011 but more or less stopped when the cancer scare took over. (My carcinoid cancer is in remission now but it did cause several serious life-changing decisions.) Although I still make goat milk soaps, I make a smaller selection with goat milk, olive oil, essential oil, and honey, along with other health related natural ingredients. This site contains data and photos about our skin care products. I say ‘our’ because without the goats, none of it would be possible.
• Lazy Layers identifies our farm fresh eggs from cage-free birds as well as other chicken agendas.
• Farm Craft Studio serves as a Table of Contents (so to speak) for my other blogs.
• Heaven’s Hill Honey showcases our apiary, honey bee products and various gardens (pollinator and kitchen). In 2005 and again in 2017 I took the Extension Master Gardening training through Stanly County Extension Office. Gardening is key to our self-sufficiency out here. This site not only features our honey bees and their products, it explores my adventures in building pollinator gardens, my experimentation with permiculture principles, and my transition from who-know-what-plants to native plants. This promises to be a painful journey because I’m attached to most of these plants. After all, most of them have been here for over eighteen years.
• Farmhouse Musing is a diary of sorts describing life in the country.

Would you believe all these creative initiatives either took place or will take place in our basement/garage. It’s been called the workshop, craft room, storage, man cave, chicken equipment storage, garden storage, and welding shop. For all these activities our magic basement deserves a preeminent name. Hence, the all encompassing, yet stylish, Studio.

Like I said, welcome to the Farm Craft Studio. All of us at Sleeping Dog Ranch hope you enjoy your virtual tour.

Pat Allen, Co-owner/Operator and General All Around Trouble Maker 🙂