With a childhood in the city she never imagined her life like this, and now she just wishes she started sooner.

Caitlin Hill, the founder and owner of Farm Fresh Home Remedies, seemingly blossoms before your eyes when she discusses her joy, passion and business that does more than satisfy her income needs.

“If you’re happy in what you do and in your whole life, you’re healthier for it,” she said.

“I think this is the greatest gift. I can do this at home and make an income from it and be able to be with my dogs, cats and chickens all day. To me that is the greatest thing. I feel like it was really something that was missing from my life, living in the city. I just never knew it,” she said.

Farm Fresh, which is based just outside Bracebridge, produces all natural body, home and health products from ingredients everyone knows and understands such as rosemary, beeswax and avocado.

When she moved to Muskoka several years ago, her city friends told her she wouldn’t last. They never thought she would embrace the beauty and the treasures of the country.

“It’s been a dream. I’d never move anywhere else. It’s really changed everything in my life,” said Hill, who also met her husband Peter Vance in Bracebridge.

Even when she started to buy natural and organic products, her discovery of the ingredient lists puzzled her, and motivated her to research how she could do it herself.

“When I read the ingredients they didn’t look natural to me,” she said. “It just expanded from there, realizing how simple it was to put together really simple ingredients and make better quality products than the stuff we were buying in the store.”

Hill started with soap for herself and her husband made from the beeswax harvested outside their home. After giving her soap to friends and family, the response became so positive that she decided to sell it. Through it all her husband has tried everything she has made. As an arborist he is the perfect candidate, she said, for the different concoctions of hand and foot creams.

Now her operation, from the marketing to the manufacturing, includes soaps, creams, a cleaner and a salve. The product list continues to grow and the possibilities may be endless but, at least for this year, are limited to the thousand bar codes she purchased.

With natural ingredients, many of which are grown on her property, the products she makes are as natural as possible. To her there are a lot of products that say they are natural, but she believes if you can’t understand everything that goes into a product, then it’s hard to believe they are natural.

“I figure if I can’t understand what it is  . . . if it is not coconut or olive, something that came from a tree or its base then it cannot be that natural because it’s been through some sort of process to make it into this big long word,” she said. “I think it makes my products different.”

She added all of her products are also nut free.

With three cats and two dogs, the couple grows nearly everything they need for themselves and the business on their property. She said most of her inspiration was borne from the beautiful countryside, that she can’t imagine life without.

“There’s nothing better than having your hands in the dirt from the moment the sun rises until the sun sets,” she said. “It’s really the nicest thing in the world.”

The self-reliant couple owns 27 acres and has 1,000 acres of forest around them as a reminder of the importance of natural products.

Most of the drive to grow her own ingredients was to satisfy her own desire for the best possible product, particularly the dried flowers and herbs.

“I couldn’t find quality stuff that I was really happy with, so we started growing it here on a small scale. It started to flourish and now all dried herbs we use we grow ourselves,” she said.

Prior to the full-time operation she was a local graphic designer. When the business aspect of it grew and the design side shrank, she knew she needed a different opportunity to satisfy her soul.

Farm Fresh has undergone a few name changes, but the founding ideals remain true nearly five years after starting as a part-time operation. Her ultimate aim is to make these products for the people who live here year-round.

“People just don’t know and so I’d like to (educate) people to be challenged to think more about what they are using, not only in their body products, but in everything,” she said.

She has plans of holding educational demonstrations about her products at the Independent Grocers in Bracebridge and Huntsville.

“There’s a reason why we’re all dying of cancer and getting illness. I think it has a lot do with the things we surround ourselves with,” she said.

The products are available for purchase in Bracebridge at the Muskoka Natural Food Mart and Your Independent Grocer in Bracebridge. It’s expected the Independent in Huntsville will sell them soon, and her products are also available online. They are also available at the Gaudaur Natural Foods store in Orillia and at local health food stores in Newmarket and Barrie.