# Time For Thinking Caps!



## Goat Song (May 4, 2011)

Okey dokey, I am in need of y'all's thinking caps right now. I'm looking at buying a booth at my local farmer's market (it's indoors, year around, fabulous attendance each week), and using it to distribute my raw milk and sell herdshares. The part I'm having a hard time figuring out is how to keep the milk *cold* during the day. The market goes from 10AM to 3PM, so that's five hours that it would need to stay chilled. Any ideas? I suppose if I can't think if anything better, I can just use large sized coolers and load up on the ice. It just --- doesn't look very pretty. :roll: I've looked on Craigslist for an antique ice box, and found one for $50 (it just needs new doors), but I have no idea how many gallons of milk would fit in there... The nice thing about this market is that you set up your booth when you begin, and you can leave everything there all the time. So it would be entirely possible for me to put something like a mini fridge in my booth, and keep it there.

Any ideas???


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## DavyHollow (Jul 14, 2011)

Get a slightly bigger than mini fridge lol sounds like your best option.


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## J.O.Y. Farm (Jan 10, 2012)

A mini fridge is the first thing that came to my mind! LOL! but I think DavyHollow is right.... a bit bigger lol!


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## liz (Oct 5, 2007)

You can sometimes find older refrigerators in decent looking, working condition in local papers, or even try Craigslist.


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## milk and honey (Oct 31, 2010)

Until you can get a fridge.. a cooler or two filled with a few bags of ice will stay very cold and frozen for more than 5 hours! That sounds really cool (ha ha) .. seriously... good luck!


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## Goat Song (May 4, 2011)

Thanks guys! I just looked on CL for some mini fridges (in hopes of finding one size bigger than "mini") and found the perfect sized one for only $70! There were a couple smaller ones as well for $25! I will have to check with the market manager and see if I can use them though... They have what they call their one "quirky rule" which is everything has to match their rustic-boutique theme. You can't bring camping chairs to sit in, no vinyl banners, no plastic tables without a tablecloth, etc. So I'll have to see if ma' mini fridge is discreet enough. In the end, I don't mind their quirky rule, as it really DOES make a difference in the place! The entire building is flat-out beautiful! I like going there just to take pictures...  

But yes... small fridge... Very good idea... :wink: I'm having a personal "duh" moment over here. LOL.


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## Goat Mom (May 1, 2012)

Maybe you could build a crate to house it, and just turn it so the door opens to the back and no one sees the fridge part of it.


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## Goat Song (May 4, 2011)

onder: Hmmm, certainly a thought!


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## nubians2 (Feb 20, 2011)

Actually the crate idea is great! I have the same issue going and I have customers that wont buy if it is in a cooler with ice. There is a fridge but it is on a generator. Little unsure of that too since I consign at a farmers market. goat song how are u bottling and are u doing a deposit? Just curios? Trying to sort it out myself. Good luck sounds like a really neat place to market your product.


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## Goat Song (May 4, 2011)

nubians2 said:


> Actually the crate idea is great! I have the same issue going and I have customers that wont buy if it is in a cooler with ice. There is a fridge but it is on a generator. Little unsure of that too since I consign at a farmers market. goat song how are u bottling and are u doing a deposit? Just curios? Trying to sort it out myself. Good luck sounds like a really neat place to market your product.


For bottling, I just use the glass 1/2 gallon jars that have a label on them. It works well, and folks in my area like it. I'm not exactly doing a deposit... This is a herdshare, so the way it works is that a customer pays a one time fee of $25 which buys their share. Then they just pay a monthly boarding/care fee of $40. In exchange for paying me to care for their goat (or cow), they get 1 gallon of raw milk each week. Customers DO have to pay on the first Saturday of the month. If they're late, then there will either be an added fee, they miss out on a week or two of milk (depending on how late they are), or both. I once had a customer who kept on forgetting to pay me for 3 solid months!! No matter what I did, they couldn't seem to remember to bring their checkbook when they came for milk! :GAAH: So they got taken of my customer list.

If a person is interested in buying a herdshare, then they first have to read and sign a contract which is found on my website: http://goatsongfarm.weebly.com/dairy-herdshares.html it's dull to read, but if a State official were to come to my door and accuse me of selling milk, and I can show him the papers as proof that I'm not. I don't sell milk, I give it away.

It is a neat market, and I'm really hoping this works as well as I think it will... The website to it is: http://www.mcminnvillepublicmarket.com/
My plan is to start with this market, and then next year I'll buy booths at two more markets. My goal is to be up to 20 goats (each giving 1-2 gallons per day), and 3-5 cows (5 gallons each).


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

they have this GREAT looking cooler thing at tractor supply. Its wood and opens at the top and I am in love with it!! I keep trying to think of some reason I can use it but cant lol. It looks like it would hold a lot, If you go on their site Im sure you can see what Im talking about and maybe find something like that. But hey If you get that one and it doesnt work you you know who you can give it to lol


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## milk and honey (Oct 31, 2010)

GoatSong.. I just read your herdshare contract (believe it or not!) and that is AWESOME! Can I ask where you found it.. or did you have to pay to get it written up? I wonder if I could do that in Washington? Wow... that's something to think about??? Really Nice Job!!!


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## Goat Song (May 4, 2011)

:angel2: It's sort of copied... I found it via a google search, or at least part of it. It was originally someone elses (they live in New Mexico I think...), but I had to change a LOT of it to make it fit for what I needed/wanted. You're welcome to use it as well, if you find that you can use it in WA! And kudos to you for reading the whole thing! :wink: Even I have a hard time reading it.... LOL.


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## Goat Song (May 4, 2011)

Jessica84 said:


> they have this GREAT looking cooler thing at tractor supply. Its wood and opens at the top and I am in love with it!! I keep trying to think of some reason I can use it but cant lol. It looks like it would hold a lot, If you go on their site Im sure you can see what Im talking about and maybe find something like that. But hey If you get that one and it doesnt work you you know who you can give it to lol


Is it this thing? http://www.tractorsupply.com/char-log-t ... ty-1025165 It looks awesome! Hmmm, I wonder if I can wheel a deal with them and do a trade of sorts... That's basically how I get all my expensive stuff that I can't afford. LOL.


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## milk and honey (Oct 31, 2010)

Hey! why not paint your fridge to look that way?!? If you dont feel you could do it, I'm sure you could find someone (thirsty for milk..) who can paint? or I know you can get stencils that look like wood... Then embellish with magnets in the same style! I have a freezer down in my wine cellar that I painted .. just prime it first.


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## Goat Song (May 4, 2011)

You can paint a fridge? Even with its slick surface? That's a neat idea!


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## jaycee (Aug 3, 2011)

Hi Caitlyn. I'm just jealous that you can sell milk at your farmers market. Here in Illinois its only off your farm and they have to bring their own containers AND you cant even advertise  

But what I wanted to say is that if you get a cooler look into the metal ones from coleman. They will keep ice for DAYS. You could decorate it any way you want to meet the requirements. But it would keep things a lot colder than plastic coolers.


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## Goat Song (May 4, 2011)

jaycee said:


> Hi Caitlyn. I'm just jealous that you can sell milk at your farmers market. Here in Illinois its only off your farm and they have to bring their own containers AND you cant even advertise
> 
> But what I wanted to say is that if you get a cooler look into the metal ones from coleman. They will keep ice for DAYS. You could decorate it any way you want to meet the requirements. But it would keep things a lot colder than plastic coolers.


I'll look into those coolers as well! Lots of great ideas everyone! :hi5:

And don't be too jealous of my milk selling capabilities... Oregon is thinking about putting an out an out ban on raw milk this summer. If they do, then I'm sunk.  I'm hoping that since I'm technically not *selling* any milk, maybe I can still continue what I'm doing. The market is my drop-off point, and the place where I sell my herdshares. This is my first year to run a herdshare and it's only because Oregon's raw milk sales laws are very similar to yours: we can't have more than 9 goats, 9 sheep, and/or 2 cows; we can't advertise that we have raw milk for sale, and we can't deliver it. Oregon currently has no laws pertaining to herdshares, so I decided to try this route.


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## .:Linz:. (Aug 25, 2011)

If you got a small fridge, could you cover it with a table cloth or some fabric?


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## Dreamchaser (Oct 30, 2008)

I think you can even reface a fridge with wood if you wanted to. I have seen it done on HGTV or something like that. I think they used liquid nails...


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