Hi! My name is Deserie and I am the FarmHer behind StoneDog Ridge! I am the chief goat herder, chicken wrangler, and soap maker behind our products here on our farm in Northern Minnesota. I started my professional career as a veterinarian from Indiana. My husband from the city and I moved to Duluth in 1996. We moved to the farm in 2000, had two wonderful girls, and have been gradually adding animals since, starting with chickens. In 2003, I left small animal practice to head up the veterinary technology program at Duluth Business University. We added our first goats to the farm in 2015 and haven’t looked back.
My time teaching began to wind down in 2017 about the time we were thinking about what else we could do with goats and goat milk. We knew we wanted to use goats to help manage the land using regenerative farming practices; goats are terrific at clearing brush and that is currently one of their very important jobs. We also hoped to be able to milk our goats as a source of dairy. We had our first baby goats in January 2018 (brrrr, NOT recommended!) and I started milking two does. Did I mention that goats make a LOT of milk, even when sharing with their kids? What do you do with 3 ½ gallons of milk a week?!! I started making cheese, yogurt, and soap. Before long, my soap-making hobby turned into a passion (ahem, addiction) that I brought to you in the Fall of 2018!
Our farm and business goals for StoneDog Ridge are constantly evolving and changing. We love using goat milk in our soaps and lotions and I try to figure out how to put it in all the products we make for you! Goat milk creates a bubbly, creamy lather in our soaps and luxuriant softness in our lotions. The extra fats, vitamins and minerals nourish our largest organ: our skin. Our goal is to bring luxury into your everyday lives when using our handcrafted products.
In addition to making soaps and lotions, we are a working homestead. We raise chickens for eggs and meat, as well as processing goats for the freezer. You can’t keep them all – feed is expensive! Gardening is a work in progress with a steep learning curve for someone with thumbs as black as mine. And I love listening to hard rock while cooking gluten free food from scratch and preserving our harvest in the kitchen.
You can follow along with us on our journey as a working homestead on both Instagram and Facebook. There you’ll meet our goats and other critters, learn about gluten free cooking, products, and upcoming events. We’d love to have you join us!
