Every farm has a story.
Ours started with egg picking.
In the 1960s, our family farm was home to 22,000 chickens and 200 head of cattle. Egg picking, feeding livestock and long days outside were simply part of life here.
After my dad retired, we faced a question many family farms eventually face: how do you keep the farm alive for the next generation?
The answer wasn’t obvious — and it certainly wasn’t immediate.
The farm has never been very good at standing still.
When the chickens and cattle were gone, we started looking for different ways to keep the land working and the farm in the family. Over the years that meant trying things we never could have imagined back when we were gathering eggs — including acres of catnip, a venture into pet products, and plenty of experiments along the way.
Then, in 2013, the farm turned purple.
WE PLANTED ORGANIC LAVENDER.
What began as planting and harvesting soon led to distilling. We learned how to coax essential oil and hydrosol from plants we'd grown ourselves, and in the process we became fascinated by what plant oils could do.
And because this is Michigan, and we spend a lot of time outside — one problem kept presenting itself — Mosquitos.
Buggsy started as something we made for ourselves.
We began experimenting with our own repellent for family, friends and anyone who came out to the farm and got eaten alive.
We weren't trying to start another business. We just wanted something that worked without the heavy smell and feel of conventional bug spray — something we'd actually want to put on before heading into the garden, working around the farm, sitting around a bonfire or spending an evening outside.
So we mixed. We tested. We changed things. And we kept using it.
Eventually, people started asking for it.
Getting from a farm batch to a bottle.
What worked for us on the farm wasn't automatically something we could put in a bottle and sell.
Turning our homemade repellent into Buggsy meant going back to the drawing board — researching ingredients, reformulating, testing, learning the regulations and occasionally wondering why we'd gotten ourselves into this in the first place.
But we knew what we wanted.
A plant-based repellent made for people who actually spend their summers outside. Something we felt good about putting our name on, and something we'd be happy to use ourselves.
It took time, persistence and more than a few revisions —
Today, we're still a small Michigan family business. We're still growing things, still experimenting, still outside most evenings — and still very aware that mosquitoes don't care whether you're camping, gardening, sitting around a bonfire or simply trying to enjoy your own backyard.
A lot has changed since those days of picking eggs.
But in some ways, not much has.
We're still working with the land, figuring things out as we go, and finding new ways to keep this family farm growing into the next generation.
Stay Adventurous.
MADE IN MICHIGAN BY PEOPLE WHO WOULD RATHER BE OUTSIDE.