It All Started…
This cat is spoiled by this little boy
Some call us crazy. Some say “Oh, everyone is doing that.” Some admire us but would never choose the life we chose. Maybe we are crazy…..pretty sure we are. And there certainly are a lot of people out there doing what we’re doing. Do we want to be admired? I’m not sure. I think there’s a desire to be admired inside everyone. But that’s not why we did it. Or why we have continued to do it despite the obstacles.
I can’t actually recall what sparked the desire we had to opt out of the “normal” way of life. I have always been a bit rebellious and different; choosing to not just do something because everyone is doing it. I never wanted suburban life. There was something in Little House on the Prairie that always called to my soul at a deeper level. Something pulled inside me but “that’s unrealistic and just not done” messages kept me only dreaming and thinking that the life I wanted was out of reach. But in 2020, (obviously because we all reevaluated our lives in 2020) something stirred. And that stirring grew until my husband started noticing and taking interest. It was just a dream being lived out vicariously through others on YouTube and Instagram. I desperately wanted it but I never pressured him into making it happen or wanting it, too. Then, one day, he said, “So, if we’re going to do this thing, we need to start planning.”
What is the thing I wanted to do so desperately? Farm. And not just homestead, though there is nothing wrong with that. No, I desperately wanted to work alongside my husband. I wanted him accessible and walking with us each and every day showing our boys how to be men and showing our daughter how she should be treated by a man. I wanted to grow our own food, nourish our bodies and live a more fulfilling and abundant life. I wanted to create community and relationships around the table and educate those who had bought into so many lies. I wanted chickens, pigs (I’ve had a deep love of pigs since I was a little girl), a milk cow, a huge garden and the list goes on and on.
In 2021, we sold our house and bought 51 acres of hunting land. It wasn't pretty. It had been victim to a tornado several years prior so debris was still lodged in various places in the woods. But, it has a pond (water on a property is extremely important) and tons of potential. Besides, we took the Dougherty’s advice and ‘bought ugly.” We bought a 28’ pull behind camper with a bunk room for our four kids and moved into it in Feb of 2022. Our plan was to be in it 6 months. I laugh at that thought now that we’re staring 2 years in the face. The house we were planning to build (a kit from a timber frame company up north) turned out to be way more expensive to construct down here in the south. Contractors were not familiar with the building style and process of that type of structure and wanted to do so many extra things that weren’t necessary. We scraped that and lost some money. Then we turned to a barndominium. But we didn’t want a stick frame structure that simply looked like a barndominium. We wanted a post frame actual barndominium with a large garage attached so that we could process animals easily. We saw some floor plans but decided to design one that worked for us.
Well, to make a long painful story short, we learned a lot of lessons, lost money, waited FOREVER for contractors to get back to us until we finally found one who could do what we wanted, how we wanted and in our price range. More delays happened that revolved around the bank but in November of 2024 there were finally posts sticking out of the ground. We are on our way.
PS. I got my pigs
The three boys born on our farm in 2024.