The new owner of Nightingale Farms, in Peardale, has a big wooden picnic table under a tree that offers delicious shade in front of the house. Lateefah Thompson calls it her “gathering table,” and it evokes the spirit she and her family bring to the business of raising goats and turning their milk into rich, skin-soothing lotion and soap.
“I love helping people,” says Thompson, 38. And she loves pouring her heart, soul and mind into her dream of blending family and farm, fueling business with passion, building connections and community, and working with her hands to create something wonderful that touches others. “There are so many people who love our products,” she explains. “People want the soul in that product, the love that you put into it. Having this product is another outlet for me to communicate with people and open my heart.”
Thompson and her hydrologist husband, Robert Thompson, 37, took over the farm and business after founders Shannon Friedberg and Steve Nightingale (featured in the 2018-19 edition of Nevada County Business Focus), retired to Idaho in late 2019. The Thompsons were living in Sacramento and enjoying wistful excursions into the local countryside. Lateefah Thompson had already gutted and remodeled their house, built 15 garden beds in the yard, chopped hubby’s couch in half as part of a furniture make-over, and launched crafts for her two young daughters. But she was itching for a project that would give her creative urges fuller expression.
“We stumbled on this home and property and just fell in love with it. My husband said, ‘This is going to be amazing for you. You need to do this,’” Lateefah Thompson recalls. In January 2020, they moved up from Sacramento. “There’s room for him and me and the girls to just grow.”
For now, Thompson is making her lotions and soaps with locally produced milk while she builds up her new herd. They got their first three goats in early July and expect their first kids (the four-legged variety) in spring 2021. It’s part of her ground-up approach: “I don’t want to just milk my goats. I want to bond with my goats,” she says with infectious energy. Meanwhile, she is working to improve her products, increase online outreach, meet farmers, envision development and talk to folks at retail outlets: Look for Nightingale Farms products to return to BriarPatch Community Food Co-op in Grass Valley; more outlets are on the website. She’s also listening to long-time customers, some of whom plead for the return of the brand’s milk-and-honey soap.
For Thompson, these steps all build her connection to the community in which she and her husband plan to raise her daughters. She adds, “I am blessed, truly.”
As new owners, the Thompson family is putting heart and soul into Nightingale Farms in Peardale, producing goat milk lotions and soaps that quench thirsty skin. Parents Robert and Lateefah Thompson are excited about raising daughters Alana, 4, and Kaylee, 1, in a place where they can connect with community.
Nightingale Farms
(530) 273-4628 (GOAT)
Email: nightingalefarms@yahoo.com
NightingaleFarms.net
