Farm Life Archives - Five Feline Farm

Lessons Our Dads Taught Us

Living on a small farm requires skills.

Lots of skills.

We both love being as self sufficient as possible, but there are some things we don’t do, because we don’t have the tools, knowledge or strength.

From the time I (Julia) was a child, my dad taught me how to take things apart and reassemble. He was a do-it-yourself kind of guy, mostly because it was more economical. I’d like to think he enjoyed some tasks as well. Not once did he ever suggest that I should not do things because I’m a girl. He was ahead of his time in that regard.

One of his side hustles was to put together feeders for cattle from a kit, then sell the finished product to other farmers. I stood by his side, reading directions over his shoulder and handing him the correct parts. (A skill that came in handy later with Ikea furniture.)

Donna’s dad taught her the value of hard work and doing for yourself as much as possible. Later, he taught both of us how to take on a fixer-upper house. He spent many hours teaching us what we needed to know. Everything from installing siding and shingles to changing out windows and electrical outlets.

Now when a repair job or maintenance need comes up, we first consider if we can fix it.

Change an outlet or light switch. Yes.

Change the oil in a mower. Sure.

And now change an ignition coil in the riding mower.

Having a couple of acres to mow means riding mowers (yes, plural) need to be in running condition. When one of them was sluggish, we decided to investigate.

After disassembling the housing around the flywheel, we found the problem. A family of mice had taken up residence in the engine. Apparently, during their construction efforts, they got a little hungry for spark plug wires. The little beasties had chewed off half the insulation and right through the wire.

After a YouTube lesson, an Amazon order and a half hour or so of labor, the mower is back in service.

Another do-it-yourself task completed.

Plus, we saved time and money.

Our Dads would be proud.

Learning How Not To Name a Product and When To Go For It

One time an unconventional name really worked.

What is “Cat Burglar”?

The question has been posed to us more times than I can count. It usually goes something like this:

A customer to our small farm approaches the balm display and looks over the scents. They pick up one or two, check the scent label and try to arrive at a decision about what smells best to them. Then they pick up the one labeled “Cat Burglar”.

Yes, it is a bit of a different name. When we first started creating skin balms from the beeswax collected during the honey harvest, we tried to find unusual names. We created a line called “Phantom Balm” named for one of the cats in residence. The same logic applied to “Reine Balm”.

The questions rolled in with those names. We quickly learned that in business, cute creative names are one thing, but when the names are so obscure the customers do not know what they are purchasing, it is a problem.

As good entrepreneurs do, we stepped back and reassessed. Too many times we found ourselves answering about the contents of these little tins. As we repeated that we used the names of our cats, we began to realize the absurdity.

Time to rename the products simply. Straightforward so there is no confusion. “Phantom Balm” is not going to either treat your phantom or turn you invisible. It is a soothing balm for dry cracked skin.

So we rebranded all of the scented balms under our new “Gert‘s Garden Balm” line. The new name was not so confusing. It was easy for people to understand this is a brand name.

But one balm name stuck and we are always willing to tell the story of “Cat Burglar”.

Most people who use essential oil blends have heard the story behind the Thieves blend of oils.

The story goes when Bubonic Plague was rampant in the 15th century, a group of thieves went from house to house robbing from the dead and dying. Even after repeated exposure to the highly contagious plague, the thieves did not get sick.

At long last, the thieves were apprehended. After conviction, the thieves were offered leniency if they would reveal the secret to their plague resistance. They disclosed they used a blend of cinnamon, clove, eucalyptus, and TK oil as a defense.

We have incorporated those same essential oils into our balm. In keeping with our feline named business and with a nod to the 15th-century robbers, we call our version “Cat Burglar”.

Just to be clear, this name came about well before the current pandemic ravaging the world. The story of the thieves’ protection from Bubonic Plague with essential oils is folklore. We make no representation that our Cat Burglar balm provides any protection from any disease, germ, or phobia. What we do know is the balm is soothing to dry, cracked skin, smells delicious, and has a cool name.

Now you know the story, you can order your own tin of Cat Burglar with the button below.

Cat Burglar Balm

$2.00 – $4.00

Buy now

Origin Stories Are The Best: We Reveal Our Signature Beek Balm Beginning

Have you ever had a happy accident? You know the kind…you forget part of something, like an ingredient in a recipe, but it turns out great anyway?

That happened to us with one of our signature products: Hint-O-Mint Beek Balm. It is an odd name for a lip balm, but that is a story in itself.

When we first started Five Feline Farm, we had two main ideas. Sell our excess produce and raise honeybees. The honeybees were for both pollination and honey production. During our first honey harvest, we discovered a great byproduct: beeswax.

All-natural beeswax is a small farm entrepreneur’s dream. When you have a micro-operation, you need to squeeze maximum benefits from minimum input. Beeswax fits that description.

To harvest honey from the hive, each frame is “uncapped.” This is simply cutting off the top layer of wax to expose the honey. Frames are spun in a centrifuge to extract the honey. The wax cappings are collected in a tub.

There are a few steps to prepare the wax for use. Drain out the remaining honey drips, melt, and strain give us a pure wax ready to use.

The first wax-based product we attempted was a lip balm. It didn’t take long to branch into skin balms, but those are a topic for another post.

The first step to creating our lip balm was to figure out the ingredients. We picked up a tube of a famous national brand (you know, the one that everyone uses the brand name to refer to all lip balms)—no ingredients on the label.

Odd, we thought.

Off to the internet for a search. After digging through many pages on the brand website, we understood why the label does not include the ingredients. There are too many to fit on a lip balm tube! Then very few ingredients in the list had easily pronounceable names. It sounded like an experiment in a top-secret science lab.

Plus, the first ingredient is petroleum.

Petroleum comes from crude oil. For those living near an oil field, you are familiar with the odor. It smells, well, chemical and a bit gross. If you have never been near an oil field, imagine a thick sludge that smells like a blend of petroleum jelly, used motor oil, and gasoline. All I could imagine was smearing that voluntarily on my lips.

Nope.

Time for a different formula. An all-natural formula. One whose ingredients would fit on a tiny balm tube label.

Eureka!, as they say.

We had an abundance of beeswax. All we needed was sweet almond oil, vitamin E oil, and a food-safe flavoring. We source sweet almond oil and vitamin E oil from high-quality sources. We started with our original honey flavor sourced from our hives for flavoring. Then quickly developed three other flavors: Spearmint, Hint-o-mint, and Peppermint.

About that happy accident.

We were whipping up a batch of Spearmint Beek Balm, and some distraction or another interrupted the flow. Whether it was a cat needing attention or a cool song on the radio, the measurement of pure Spearmint oil was affected. Only half the required amount went into the batch.

Oops.

After testing one of the tubes on ourselves, it wasn’t half bad. (Pun intended.) The name “Hint-O-Mint” was a perfect descriptor. It became a hit with only half the mint flavor of regular Spearmint. It is now second only to the original Honey flavor in sales.

Are you still wondering about the Beek Balm name?

We sought interesting and different names for our products early in the business. Something creative that would identify the product and become a signature name.

The conversation turned to product names during an evening of great food and wine with close friends at our favorite restaurant. The four of us batted around names for our natural lip balm invention. The discarded choices are lost to history, but we settled on “Beek Balm.” Beek is a double entendre. It can be short for “beekeeper” and an obscure reference to a person’s lips.

There you have it.

The complete origin story of Beek Balm, available exclusively through Five Feline Farm.

2021 in Review

Have you looked back at the last year and assessed your progress?

We have just closed the books for 2021 at the Farm Fresh Mercantile (also known as “The Merc”). In December 2016, we began to transform a storage shed into a small mercantile. It became real in 2017 with periodic openings while we still attended our local farmer’s market every Saturday.

Since that time, we have faced many challenges, especially the last two years. We learned that adversity will either break you or make you stronger. All of you, our fans, followers, and customers helped raise us up in the tough seasons.

2021 was our first season totally on the farm. We did not attend any farmer’s markets, festivals, or other outlets. It was a scary decision. Would anyone make the trip “off the beaten path” for our products?

You did. People came from far and wide to visit our Mercantile and attend our events. We hosted Karaoke, Doty and Dexter, and the Luna Halos for music in the crib. Produce sold out every week as did scones or English muffins.

You made 2021 our best year by far.

Thank you for believing in a couple of crazy gals and supporting Five Feline Farm.

We look forward to serving you in 2022!