Reality Check

While I am all for fantasy and daydreaming, when it comes to representing our soap and our farm, I want to keep it real. AI wants to write my blogs for me - No Thank You. It wants to write my social media posts - Nope, not going to lie. It wants to send out emails that take up too much of people's time - Nope, not my style.

So, here I am, trying to be real about what we do, and why we do it. Surfing Goat Soaps is the value added part of our farm. That means that since farmers can't make a living selling crops or livestock, we need to find ways to add value to the products that we raise. For most, goat breeders make cheese, or cajeta, or perhaps sell meat. For most people with Nigerian dwarf goats that means they show their goats and try to raise money from the sale of kids. But for us, our value added product is our soap, and the associated products that go with it.

We can't make cheese to sell because we can't afford to get "licensed." I've been the "show goat," route, and since I live in an area of the nation which has some of the best goat breeders in the country, I can't compete there. As a person with a disability I cannot artfully show off my gorgeous goats well enough to capture the top prize, regardless of how good my goats are. The USDA doesn't consider knowledge to be a value-added product, so teaching doesn't count, though in my opinion it is the most important thing any farmer can do. Helping people keep their animals and their soil healthy; teaching people the truth about where comes from and how its raised, and supporting a good sense of morality by giving children the opportunity to develop their "kindness" side rather than their "economic" side, doesn't seem to matter to various Departments of Agriculture. So we make soap.

AI thinks I live in the Midwest, with wide open spaces. They believe that all goats have horns. AI believes its own hype, and tries to convince people that we've had all sorts of tests in order to prove the claims that it wants to make. Those things aren't true. Our farm is in the hills of Massachusetts - hilly, wooded with very little soil. Our winters are harsh, our summers are buggy, but our springs and fall are awesome, in a good way. Most of my goats have had their horns removed, though they are determined to have remnants, called scurs. I am more concerned with goat health than I am with goat aesthetics, so for the most part I let the scurs remain. I know my soap and skin creams are great because I use them, my customers tell me they work for them, and I know what's in them. But I don't claim they'll "heal" anything. I don't want to misrepresent my farm or my product, so I'm going old school. Though I'm not against using AI to illustrate something I can't draw, I don't want it to paint an incorrect picture. I will be using AI to help flesh out my "Caprenity World," because it is a fantasy, not reality. But I will not be using it to post daily social media posts, frequent emails, or blog posts. You will hear my voice, using our pictures (unless otherwise noted,) and you will read the truth of our farm. I hope you value that, and will support us. I do have other people helping me promote the soaps, and their choices are their own, but I do try to keep them within the bounds of what is legal for me to say. The truth is, ads and social media that make up things about my soaps, effects what people think of my goats, and my farm, and that I can't accept. I hope you understand, and that

you'll let others know that this "fantasy farm," is going to keep it real. Thanks.

An AI version of our products

At Hames & Axle Farm the goat and the soaps don't meet. Why? Because goats eat soap!

One of our soaps

One of our goats