The Secret Garden of Madison

Good Bye 2012 Welcome 2013!

I cannot tell a lie, 2012 was a bummer, I just never got back on track after the fire, so the resolution for 2013, get back to living, enjoy every day, accept if it doesn't get done there's is always tomorrow. That said, let's get caught up.

The business! Where to start? First there is a brilliant new website thanks to Mara Morken and Alex Fogarty. It is truly beautiful and I can never thank them enough for all the hard work and talent they brought to the site. Make sure you check it out.

www.secretgardensoapofmadison.com

The holidays were INSANE, so busy, so many wonderful new friends and customers. Thank you all for a great Holiday season.

On to 2013, this year will be offering the same great soap and lotion with a few new additions One addition I'm very excited about is a new soap scent for the little ones, looking for a name, thinking about calling it Kids after the baby goats. I've decided for Valentine's Day to do something special for all the men in my family. A wonderful new shaving soap with Bentonite clay for added slip. I will have this available late January in a gift set with a boar bristle brush . The ladies will not be forgotten with a new scent Calyx in lotion and soap. For spring I will be mixing a gorgeous Hyacinth scent, perfect for Easter and don't forget Fizzee Eggs for the kids! Thanks to my husband's insistence I will also have a collection of ready made gift baskets. My thoughts are to have a green scented basket, a floral scented basket and a seasonal scented basket. These will be available at all my upcoming shows. The basket would include a jar of lotion, a 4.5 oz soap bar and a soap bag for $25.00. Please check the website for my entire gift basket collection. I have started a favor collection with Ounces, a perfect 1 ounce round suitable for any occasion. These favors are just $2.00 each which includes the soap in your choice of scent, customized front label, back ingredient label, ribbon in your choice of color and a glassine bag. I am always happy to do custom orders, let me know what you're thinking of and we can work together to make it happen. Right now I'm working on a beautiful Celtic cross soap for an upcoming Communion, what a perfect favor! This one is so nice it may become part of the favor line permanently.

The animals are doing great, our friend Pedro did a month long visit in October and we have three happily pregnant goats due at various times in March. Please call if you'd like to visit the kids, I only keep them for a very short 8 weeks. At this point we have Kota, Oreo & Miss Brownie lounging around and enjoying the peaceful winter months before all hell breaks loose when the kids arrive.

I do still have a few chickens, they have slowed down a bit due to the shorter days, but we still have plenty of delicious fresh eggs. I saw a new way to make scrambled eggs. Instead of premixing the eggs, crack them directly into a sauce pan with two pats of butter melted in the bottom. Whisk gently as they cook. As they start to firm up a bit add another pat of butter and a bit of milk. Scrape the sides until done, so good! The show I saw it on served it on toasted croissants with chives. I serve it on a plate with ketchup, your choice.

The garden is in a new planning stage which is causing great controversy here. I would like to try square foot gardening, which is basically raised beds with a special soil formula. My hubby says I'm nuts, (duh! like he doesn't know that yet), dig up the soil add a little manure and you're good to go. We made the mistake a couple years back of putting hay down as a mulch, well it wasn't salt hay, it seeded and my garden is solid hay. I don't want to add chemicals because really that defeats the whole point of growing your own veggies. The square foot gardening eliminates my seed ridden soil. I see a heated debate coming, please feel free to weigh in your opinion! I also found in the Burpee seed catalog a wonderful new corn seed suited for pots, there is no discussion on this one, I know just where they'll be growing next year.

Another new addition to the family is a very naughty pup named Lucy. She loves to chew, rip, bite, beg and basically terrorize the whole family, on the good side she loves to sleep on your lap and has the sweetest eyes. She is a perfect fit for an imperfect family. Kitty is still here, she still avoids us most of the time, but it just makes the moments she does say hello more special. Perhaps that's a life lesson? My last goal is to re establish my bee hives. First I miss seeing them busily flying in and out of the hive. Beyond that I truly would enjoy the most local honey I could get. Next I need to see what kind of condition my hives are in and if by some chance they are OK to order some packages of bees.

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year, that you have the extra time we all need, the simplicity we all want, and our families close, safe, and healthy.

Tracee

Welcome back to the Garden. It took six long months for us to come back to our house and finally I feel like I'm home. The blog has a new look to match my new website to be launched early this fall. I have begun restocking all the soap, trying to head into the holiday season with full shelves. During my hiatus I started with a few new scents, White Gardenia and Wisteria to name a few. I also created a very special bar for the men & women who kept my family safe. I found a wonderful smoky scent to honor firefighters, police and all people who protect and serve. The bar is called Hero and for each bar sold a $1.00 donation goes back to Madison Fire Department. The old favorites are still here too including Grandpa's Lilac, Madison Rose and Blue Hydrangea. One of my favorite new addition is the Drunken Goat Bar, a lovely goat shaped champagne scented bar, wonderful in the shower! I have concentrated on making mostly the 8 ounces bottles of lotions, available in several fragrances as well as special orders. The 5 ounces jars can still be purchased on the website, secretgardensoapofmadison.com Milk bath fizzees eggs have been reworked as well and now have honey & shea butter...a perfect bath after a day in the pool. Available in 1/2 dozen cartons for just $10.00 I have also created a lovely spa line using only essential oils. This line includes a sea salt milk bath, available in a quart size glass milk bottle. The salt bar, each batch has two pounds of European sea salt, uplifting bar and calming bar and lastly the cleansing bar with honey & nutmeg. Along with this collection is the new bath teas with goat milk, just pop the whole bag right in the bath for a fragrant soak. The teas are available in three blends, soothing, pampering, and healing...especially good during cold & flu season. The gift basket collection has grown the most. There are now nine different baskets to choose from ranging from the basic basket with a single bar and bath bag to the garden basket with a sampling of everything here at the garden along with two sweet little bird guest soaps. For the fall I will have pumpkin apple butter, cranberry, chestnut brown sugar and harvest. These fragrances will be available in 4.5 ounce bars as well as leaf guest soaps, five leaves to an organza bag. It's time to milk the goats! I will keep the blog updated with all the news an events here at the garden. Hope to see you soon.