People ask me all of the time why we choose to do what we do? We often hear about how it is crazy…or how we need to cut back. We hear about how we need to just buy our food from the store. We hear that it isn’t good to have out kids our helping with taking care of animals or working in the gardens.
Well, here is our story! My husband and I met while working for an air medical company a few years ago. We became friends and over time we grew to love each other very much. We found that we have the same goals, dreams, beliefs and love for each other. We dated only a short period of time before we had our 8 week long engagement.
During that time, we bought a few chicks from our local TSC and things took off from there. My husband’s grandfather had a farm while my husband was growing up. When his grandfather passed away, my husband worked so hard to take over the farm but thankfully God had a plan bigger than what he knew. My husband lost the farm.
While this was incredibly hard for him, it ended up being a blessing in disguise. My husband and I had just met at this time. What he didn’t know was that I had lost a farm that I had started to build with my family where I lived. I was also devastated. It was what brought us together and first got us talking to each other.
Fast forward some time and now we are happily married and we have animals on a farm together. As I said, we started with a few chicks, then added a few hair sheep (my husband and his grandfather always loved them), then a few calves (my grandfather and I always loved them), and it grew from there. Now we raise our animals, try new things, succeed in some areas and fail in others.
Our children are learning the value of hard work. They are learning to put others first. They learn the tough lessons about life and death. They are learning how to grow plants from seeds. They are learning that each plant needs sun, water and soil with nutrients. They learn how to help an orphaned lamb take a bottle for the first time. They learn how to syringe feed a calf that is sick and needs care to become healthy and strong. They learn about the embryonic development in an egg that we incubate and how to take care of chicks and ducklings that just hatch. They are constantly learning new things.
So people ask why? We do this because there is no better way to live. Yes, it is hard. Yes, we work at it every day….BUT….we are so blessed to be able to live a life we feel is one that is becoming a dying art!! May God Bless Farmers.