Hometown: Bella Vista, Ark.
Family: Children Zoe, Bozwell, Zane, Faith and Isaiah
In Town: Candice Schulz and her family operate Serendipitous Summer Farms, an organic skincare line of natural salves and balms formulated at their home-based business in Bella Vista, Ark.
Products include healing salves, shampoo/body wash, soaps and other similar items.
“I was raising small children, and I was very into any natural healing. I was into permaculture gardening and trying to find the right plants to grow my food without pesticides,” she said. “A lot of those ended up being herbs, and when I looked at their properties and found out that they were really medicinal and started using them. This was going to be a sideline, then everyone in the family started loving it, and they said, ‘You should sell this.’ So, I started a business.”
Five years later, Serendipitous Summer Farms has a strong online retail portfolio through retailers like Amazon and Walmart.com.
In the Country: Candice’s life on her small urban farm inspired her to begin her company. “Serendipitous means a happy accident, so the name kind of speaks for itself,” Candice said.
“We started our farm in 2011 with (Myotonic) goats and chickens,” Candice explained. “We are actually in town, on a half-acre lot. It’s not fancy, but we turned our landscaping plots into permaculture. We’ve never had a lot of land. We wanted it, but it got put on the back burner.”
Candice said she realized she could do want she wanted on the space she had available.
“That’s all I ever actually needed, surprisingly,” she said. “No one cared we had goats, even though we lived in town; everyone loved them. It all just meshed. I jumped out on a limb, and it just meshed. It is town living, but not.”
Candice grows the majority of the plant ingredients used in her lines at her home.
“We do supplement in the winter months or if I didn’t manage it correctly; sometimes the years are just different,” she said. “Most of it is all right here.”
Herbs grown include Comfrey, Calendula, Yarrow, Lemon Balm and Plantain.
Other products are obtained through organic suppliers and other resources.
“I like Caligula Flower, but I kill it every year,” Candice said with a laugh.
The family still breeds goats, catering to the pet market.
“They are technically meat goats, but their price is so high because of what they are, they sell higher as pets,” Candice explained. “We sell mostly to people with little urban farmettes like we have and who are doing the same thing we are.”
