I am excited to begin this new adventure of bloging about my life and hobbies. I’m sure this site will be a work in progress for a long time but now is as good of a time to start as any. Although I have always had multiple interests I never would have imagined one of these interests would become farming; gardening, yes but not farming. I grew up helping my mom plant flowers and tomatoes. My summer ‘jobs’ typically included some sort of weed pulling. It always took me much longer than my brothers to clear the obnoxious green things from the earth as I loved working the soil with my hands until it was soft and perfectly raked. I bought my first house while I was in Graduate school and the first thing I did was attempt a vegetable garden and plant some flowers in a pot. I found myself getting married that fall so I didn’t harvest much of the produce but it was a good starting point. Then, a few years ago I got caught up writing a family food storage plan complete with 72 hour kits, evacuation routes, and other forms of emergency preparedness. I’m not sure where the inspiration for this project came from except that I had recently completed a book about an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) that basically wiped out all forms of transportation… leaving anyone without a garden or food storage starving (I know, I’m a bit crazy when I get a simple idea). As I was contemplating my abilities to become self sufficient and was combing through lists of storable fruits, grains, and forms of protein I just kept thinking, “if only I had a chicken my kids would never be hungry”. So, without even really thinking through the issue, I presented the idea to my husband, Logan. In the back of my mind I thought he would tell me I was crazy and say no way, but instead he told me I was crazy and said sure, I’ll build you a coop. We bought our first flock of 8 Buff Orpingtons and I began my journey of becoming an amatuer chicken farmer. Two years later I am laying in bed dreaming of living on 5 acres so I can have a cow (or two), a few goats, and possibly a horse for my 5 year old daughter, J5. My bed side table is now filled with plant catalogs and hobby farm magazines. Logan and I spend our free time driving around the county looking for property and discussing the logistics of becoming real hobby farmers. I can safely assume it will be years before we move to our ‘farm’ to grow old but in the mean time we will continue to make our fabulous current home a place of blossoming flowers, cackeling chickens, and sprawling vegetables.
In the Beginning
