Making Room: How Our New Barn Extension Will Improve Life for Our Animals
Life on the farm is always evolving, and with the growth of our herd and flock, we’ve decided to make some big improvements to our barn setup. What started as a plan for a simple run-in area has turned into something much more exciting—and beneficial—for both our animals and daily farm operations. Instead of leaving the new barn extension open, we’ve decided to fully enclose it and transform it into a dedicated space for our sheep and goats. This means: Individual stalls to keep them comfortable and secure A milking stand to make milking our sheep and goats easier and
Excited Anticipation
As the weather has been such a tease lately, I am struggling with excited anticipation for spring to really be here. Not only will I finally get to hold our miracle baby girl (I will explain that in a minute) but I am prepping for growing season, and lambing season is well under way. These are some of my favorite times in life. So back to our little girl. My husband and I went to an infertility clinic for 6 years. We had one doctor tell us that we shouldn't have any issues. Then after the years went by with
Dreams
It is the time of the year where we look at our farm and dream about what it can be...what we want it to be. It makes me feel like a little kid in some ways. I literally find myself driving and day dreaming about what it would be like to have our farm completely self sustaining for our family and profitable enough to make a living from. I am not afraid to work hard and my husband works harder than any person I know. We dream big. We have huge aspirations. We don't care about making a ton of
More Changes Coming
So of course I have been horrible about blogging. I always feel weird sharing what I am thinking and feeling. I never know exactly how much to share. Life has so many ups and downs and starting a farm is just plain tough. Yet we have so many blessings that we are thankful for. My husband and I have been praying and asking God to put a hedge of protection around our farm and to guide us when making decisions about the farm. We really want more than anything to make our farm a blessing for our family and those
A New Year
It has been almost a year since I last wrote a blog. I don't even know exactly where to start. Life has not been what we thought it could be or should be. Things clearly are not what we believe they should be. I literally feel like I am carrying the weight of the world. I try every day to find joy in little things and to dare to dream about our farm. I try to find hope and stay positive. Today, I am struggling with that. I am trying really hard to count my blessings. We have had
It’s Been a Long Time
So, it has been a long time since I have blogged. It's been a long time since I have shared. Honestly, life has been tough. Things have not been what we would have wanted or expected. I guess that it how life goes though. No one knows what will happen the next day, the next month or the next year. We have been through a lot of tough times. We have had a lot of personal struggles. Over the past year we have had health issues (and yes, some of them related to COVID). I had 2 miscarriages. We
One Day at a Time
Life has been completely crazy over the last few months for everyone. Our entire way of living as a society was changed and came crashing down for a lot of people. I think my version of these last few months was probably very different than most people and I am very thankful for everything that we had. That doesn't mean that it has been easy though. The past few months, life has been busier than ever before for us. My husband is working a job full time from home and helping us to make our farm what we have
Update After Awhile
With the way that the world has been lately, we have gotten away from taking the time out to write a blog. As I thought about it, now, probably more than ever, we should be blogging. This is an unprecedented time for us, for our children, for our farm. My husband and I are both healthcare workers. We work a lot of hours and are so very thankfully that we have jobs during this crazy time. At the same time, we so badly wish that we could be home and taking care of our children consistently and offering them
The Times They Are A-changing
The times, yes they change. But we can choose that we will either change with time, or we can get stuck in a rut, spinning our tires, and never moving on from where we are currently at. My wife and I sat down a week or so ago and had a long heart to heart about our farm. As we talked and really communicated with each other for the first time in quite a while about the farm, we realized that we were both overwhelmed and not happy with the way things were going. So, we decided to make
Getting Started
Neither Sandra nor I come from what you would call a “farming” background. Yes, both of us had grandfathers that farmed on a small scale, but nothing more than what one would call a gentleman’s farm. I lived on a small farm until I was 7 years old, and my parents had pigs, a horse here and there, a cow occasionally and a smattering of chickens. Both of us have a love for farming, but neither of us had a farm and the equipment passed on to us or available for us to use as we started farming. Getting