It has been a long time since I have had time to sit down and write here. Time seems to slip away, through cracks and seams, between fingers, and out of my grasp. They say that everyone has the same amount of time each day and it's all about how we utilize it. I, however, seem to have found a special world that has less time than others.

Over the last year we have been busy. I homeschooled my daughter for her first year of school starting the year in Kindergarten and ending in 1st grade. We're following a year-round schedule, and this "year" she's in what most would call 2nd grade. We've connected with some local homeschool families, and found some other extracurricular activities to participate in. I tried focusing more time on doing things as a family instead of so much on work. We lost some chickens, gained a bunch more, and failed miserably in the garden (as did most of everyone around here thanks to a very hot yet too wet summer). Recently we acquired a 20-year-old pony that my daughter named Dixie. She's the sweetest pony and we love her so much. I hope she loves it here as much as we love having her. This past year I also spent a lot of time visiting doctor after doctor, never finding answers for the many mysterious symptoms I have been suffering with for years. One doctor has given me the diagnosis of Lupus. After having a round of self-pity, I decided I don't want to accept that diagnosis and have again started seeing new doctors for a second opinion. The jury is still out, but it's confirmed I do have some sort of autoimmune disorder. This all has taken its toll on me, and after much deliberation, I've decided it is time to close Niffer's. I have tried to hold on for as long as possible, but I just can't seem to balance life with Niffer's, and I need to be able to focus on my family and health.

I wanted to give everyone as much time as possible to order products and stock up if they wanted to, but I seem to have found that special place where time ran away again. So, I'm unfortunately just giving you a couple of weeks. If you need anything you don't see listed in the shop, feel free to email or message via Facebook. I'm happy to accommodate everyone as much as I can, but some things I'm not restocking supplies to make just one last time.

It has been such a wonderful experience the last 6 years. When I started Niffer's I never thought I would reach so many people around the world. I just needed a little extra income during a difficult time and it bloomed into something much more. The research and time spent learning how to make products that were not only useful but natural and good for everyone is something that will be with me forever. I have enjoyed the opportunity to share my knowledge and products to people near and far. I hope everyone has enjoyed Niffer's All Natural Products, too. Together we have helped people all around the country after disasters and locally at shelters and with other fundraising charities by raising money or donating laundry powder directly. I hope anyone who wants to make a small difference will take the chance, like I did. It has really been a pleasure and I am sad to say goodbye. Perhaps I will start again in the future, but right now I need to utilize the little time I seem to catch and use it to focus on things closer to home. Thanks again to all of you that have supported me for the last 6 years. I cherish each one of you!

<3 Niffer

Hello friends! It's been a while since I've had much to post about and I'm so excited to finally have some news. Last year we began our journey in beekeeping in May 2016, and by the end of the year after weeks of heavy smoke from a forest fire we lost our bees. It was really devastating, but we pushed on and prepared for the next season.

I'll get back to the beekeeping here in a moment, but first I really want to talk about some of the exciting news with Niffer's! First, who likes soap? Everyone, right? Well, almost everyone. I know some kids who would rather have mud baths. Well, if you like soap then you'll be pleased to hear that very soon Niffer's All Natural Products will have a line of soaps! You've heard this rumor before? Yeah, you have... but now it's happening sooner than later. At this very moment, I have soap curing and hopefully by the first week of May you'll have a few scents to choose from. The first of two scents I have curing is a peppermint and rosemary blend. Perky yet soothing at the same time, it's the perfect scent to freshen up on a hot summer day. It's topped with dried sage to add an extra little herbal hint. Second in line is probably my favorite so far, a lime and basil blend. The fresh lime comes through so clean and the basil follows up giving it a spicy note. Both soaps are made with pure and natural ingredients, of course. I blended coconut, olive, and castor oils to give you great scrubbing power and combined those with shea butter for the wonderful smooth and moisturizing benefits. I'm working on a few more scent blends but I'm hoping to have at least three to choose from.

Next on the exciting news list is the announcement that the Mazama Store in Mazama, Washington is now carrying Niffer's All Natural Laundry Powder and Niffer's All Natural Dishwasher Powder. The Mazama Store offers many general items, including groceries, cleaning products, t-shirts, and more. But, what makes Mazama really unique is that they offer natural cleaning products in bulk where you can fill up containers, and reduce the need for excess packaging. I am so excited and honored to work with the great people at Mazama to offer great natural cleaners and reduce packaging waste. If you get a chance to visit, or live in the area, please be sure to stop in and get a bite to eat and some coffee, and of course fill up your jar of Niffer's cleaning powders. Check out their website to learn more, and then stop by their Facebook page where they've got great pictures of the AHH-mazing views from the trails nearby. Plus, I love their goat logo! Who doesn't like goats?

In other farm news, we've started the garden and already have some happy sprouts. We scaled it back this year to a 50'x50' space from the 28'x128' space last year. I'm also planning on limiting the varieties of produce. So far we've planted collards, red beans, mustard spinach, peas, green beans, beets, and inside we've started 12 total tomatoes (6 different varieties) and 19 total peppers (6 varieties). In the coming weeks I'm going to plant 12 more tomato plants to have a total of 24. We also started some cabbage and cucumbers indoors. One of our awesome neighbors (because we have a lot of amazing neighbors) let us borrow his seed planter. What a great help that was! We were able to get about 20 rows into the garden in about an hour and a half. Last year it took me days and days to get all the seeds in. Thanks Robert!

Back to the bees...

This year we did a lot of things differently, which I'm going to cover in a separate blog post. Today, I'll just give the quick version. It rained the day we had to install the bees into the hive which created a lot of stress on our end. Everything we read talked about waiting another day before installing them, but my husband had to go to work and we couldn't wait. We made it happen, and three days later when I checked to make sure the queen was released from the queen cage I was happy to find she was. The second hive, however wasn't happy about my intrusion so I had to come back the next day. But it rained again. So, five days after installation I verified the second box's queen was released. Then we waited. This past Saturday, one week and 5 days after installation we opened the hives again to see if the queen was laying eggs. The hives were beautiful, full of new comb and honey and pollen. The bees were busy, and tucked perfectly inside the cells were perfect little bee larva. We found the queens in both hives, wandering through doing her queenly business. We removed the queen excluders from under the hives, and closed everyone up. So far, both hives are far happier than last year's was at this stage. I'm hoping we have a successful first year! I'm going to try to get a full post about how we installed the bees in a day or two. We did it in a more nontraditional way, and I'd like to share what we did and then continue to update as the year goes on.

Until next time, I'd love to hear from you. Do you keep bees? Have you ever ignored the traditional methods? What is your favorite scent of soap? Do you prefer soap with color or just naturally colored with the oils and butters used? If you had three hands, what would you use the third for? Comment below, email, or find me on Facebook! 

Happy Spring!

Hello, hello my friends. It's been a long time! Just about four months since the last time I wrote a blog. There isn't much I can say to defend my absence; honestly, I've just been lazy. The cold weather, holidays, and stress around the farm have made me a bit reclusive. Simply, I've been trying to avoid the computer. I glance at my emails a few times a day, I still check Facebook, but I've been purposely trying to be distant.

One of the biggest disappointments during my absence has been our loss of bees in November. We had a single hive that left during a two week long, 200-300 acre, forest fire, less than a 1/4 mile away. I was devastated, and I am hoping they found a new home before the temperatures dropped. The smoke was so heavy for so long, we think it drove them out. Once the fire was out, the temperatures dropped in the teens. The cold temperatures kept us from being able to open the hive and check on the bees. We didn't realize they were gone for almost a month. But, live and learn. Next year we're going to try a new location on the farm, a different kind of bee, and hopefully start out with two hives rather than one. 

When life gets too stressful, what do you do to help yourself relax? I enjoy watching movies with my daughter. Her insight is usually surprising and funny. I also enjoy crafts, and I've been working on a few different needlework projects, a couple cross stitch and now embroidery. This summer I decided I wanted to use the winter months to learn embroidery. It's not nearly as confusing as I expected.

So, what's new with Niffer's you might ask? One thing is our new packaging. You might have already ordered some, but if you aren't aware, we have new eco-friendly packaging for laundry powder. The paper bags with Kraft paper labels, are more environmentally friendly, and easier to recycle. I had some nudging from a wonderful patron, and I am so glad he brought the subject up.  I strive to be as environmentally friendly as possible, and the goal is to reduce as much as possible the plastic products used in product packaging, labels, and shipping. You can find Eco-Bags in the Laundry Powder section of the Niffer's Store. Currently available in two sizes, Eco-Bag 128 oz. & Eco-Bag 48 oz. What's the best part of Eco-Bags? The price! The savings to us by using cheaper packaging and labels is passed on to you! You get more for your money!

Also, laundry powder is now made with pure coconut oil bar soap made IN-HOUSE! That's right! Niffer's All Natural Products is starting to make soap! For now, anyway, the soap is purely for laundry powder purposes only. Soon, we'll be able to introduce body soap. I'm still working on formulas for body soap, but hopefully before we're all getting too dirty in the garden I'll have a good formula worked out. Hopefully, just in time to wash away winter and welcome spring!

Until then, my friends, I hope you stay warm through the last months of winter. I hope you forgive my absence, and I hope to hear from you! I'd love to hear what your favorite soap scents are, and if there are any other products you'd like to see me try to make.

Today marks our one year anniversary of living in our home. Our first home, and what we plan to be our only, forever home. One year! A part of me feels accomplished, proud, and excited that we made it through our first year. Another part of me feels like I've been slacking, and that I probably could have done so much more. In the end, however, we've achieved things we didn't expect and didn't do things we hoped for. That's life.

Life is interesting, isn't it? Even when it seems bland and boring there is still always a chance for excitement, change, or who-knows-what. I'm a chronic reminisce-er (I just made that word up). I love to remember old times, good and bad. I like to think about how each and every moment of our lives creates the future that is now our present. How each and every breath is just a tiny pause before an unknown future. Who knows what will happen? I don't. That's exciting. Even the most mundane days can change in an instant. I try to be aware of each moment.

This weekend I started thinking about how things come full circle. It all started because of some peppers. In the garden we're growing Fatalii peppers. If you like a hot pepper, these are for you. They're HOT, hotter on the Scoville scale than a jalapeno -- 14 to 160 times hotter. They have an amazing flavor, and go great in spicing up dishes, cheese and crackers, or topping the cream cheese on your bagel (one of my favorites). My hubby picked some peppers Saturday, and when he came inside with his hat full he mentioned our friend Lorrie. He thanked her for the peppers, and we both started thinking about the journey those peppers he just picked made.

Five years ago a friend gave us a gallon bag full of a mix of peppers that his friend grew. Some were sweet, some were hot, and all were delicious. One of the peppers we came across in the bag were these small, yellow, pointed peppers that smelled really terrible like cat pee. So, being the foodies we are, we sliced it up and tossed a few rings onto a cracker with cream cheese. And WOW! The flavor was phenomenal, the heat was almost unbearable. We were in love. But, we had a problem. We had no idea what the pepper was, and we didn't know the friend of a friend who grew it, either. So we searched a little online, but couldn't find anything definite. Life went on.

A year or so later I was setting up and selling Niffer's All Natural Products at our local farmers market (Morgan's Grove Market) in West Virginia. It was there that we met Lorrie and Bob from Stony Ridge Farm. One of the Saturdays we were there my husband was over looking at the produce that Lorrie and Bob were offering, and he noticed little yellow peppers that resembled some of those yellow cat pee peppers. "Fatalii peppers!" Lorrie said. Unaware of his conversation, suddenly I see running towards me, my husband with a giant grin, waving hot yellow peppers at me, through the crowded farmers market, "LOOK! LOOK! Lorrie has THE pepper! The cat pee pepper!" We bought them all, of course! We took them home, ate them, and saved the seeds.

I kept the seeds in a zip lock bag for four years. They hung on the magnetic white board for all of those four years. During that four years we moved from RV to friend's, and then to Tennessee. For four years we waited. We didn't know if the seeds would still grow, but I refused to throw them away. After four years of holding onto these seeds we finally put them in the ground. After four years, we have three pepper plants in the garden popping bright yellow peppers all over them. Four years was worth the wait.

One year and one day ago in the pouring rain Lorrie helped load a U-Haul. She sacrificed her precious time on a Saturday, away from her farm, to help me load up a U-Haul heading to Sneedville, Tennessee. In that very truck was the zip lock bag full of Fatalii pepper seeds from her farm. Without her help we wouldn't have been able to leave that Sunday like we planned. I'm so grateful for the few hours she gave, to help me move the boxes up the steep hill into the moving truck, and in the pouring rain! And today, I'm so grateful for her and Bob's wonderfully curious personalities that inspired them to start their farm, that allowed us to have three bushy pepper plants in our own garden.

One year ago today we took a giant leap. We moved over 400 miles into a town where we didn't know anyone. In the last 365 days we have made many friends, fallen in love with our kooky neighbors, and have never tired of the beauty that surrounds us in the amazing state. We have, hopefully, so many more years to come. I look forward to the unknown, to what other circles there will be. New friends, old friends, hard times, good times, and appreciating each and every bit of it.