I may not know you yet, but I’ve decided to share my life with you. I hope you can enjoy it. We are a family trying to build a mini-farm. We recently purchased an abandoned horse farm and we are fixing it up. We are bound to make mistakes along the way but we are here to for you to share our memories and hilarious moments because there’s no way we can make this stuff up. Many times we have claimed that we should have our reality tv show because many things have happened to us and if it could go wrong, it had. We always end up laughing about it eventually, but in the heat of the moment, I’m not always sure how we survive.
I’d like to take this time to introduce our current family and farm. My husband is David. He is, we like to call, a dysfunctional veteran, we say that with love. He served in the Army and is a jack of all trades. He knows a little about everything, but not an expert in anything. He only knows enough to get himself in trouble most of the time and he stays breaking things or getting hurt. For real though, this farm would not operate without him. He is our fixer-upper guy, our Maintenance crew, our pool boy, Gardner, and stay-at-home dad. He is a devoted husband and an amazing dad. In true military fashion he little to no patience and most of the time a semi-short fuse and uses curse words like an athlete uses oxygen!
Catarina is the oldest child and her claim to fame is that she is a self-proclaimed favorite. She and I have that in common!
Then there’s little David. He is the spunky fun one. He works so hard and is hilarious.
Mariah is next in line. She is the mysterious one. She is clever and always up to something.
Last are the twins. They are the youngest and most needing energy and attention. They are the root of chaos and add to the humor of our household.
Then there’s me. I’m not your average mom, wife, or coworker. I’m kind of that person you think you have figured out and then I throw a wrench in it. I work full time away from home, I help with the farm, and I raise the kids and manage the home. My husband says I’m a unicorn, I’ll take it as a compliment!!! I am very social but also can be extremely awkward, sometimes on purpose to see how people react. I grew up near Louisville Ky. Technically I’m from Indiana, the “sunny side of Louisville”.
The farm! We currently have three dogs. Our oldest is Meeko. He is 9 years old and is the alpha dog, also the smallest dog. He is the one to be afraid of and the one not to mess with. Then there’s Sheeba. She looks terrifying and she could be if we give her the right command. Ultimately she’s the big teddy bear and protector. The newest is Harley. We recently got her to help Sheeba man the farm. Harley is spunky and a trouble maker, but overall a really good puppy. She enjoys chewing things and chasing the goats. We currently only have two goats. There’s Flynn Rider who is the larger of the two, he is brown and white. He is the more skittish one and likes to follow the lead. We are still trying to get him to warm up to us! Then there’s Esquire, he is the smaller of the two. It is black and white. He is more friendly but also better at escaping through very small spaces. Both goats are still kids and still learning about the farm and the family. They don’t seem to love the dogs, but they do seem to enjoy when David and I sit with them!
Well, that is our immediate family and farm. We have a few more animals arriving over the next few weeks that we will introduce upon arrival. If you are following along, we hope you enjoy it.
Our goal on this farm is to build up our livestock to be sustainable. We have started to convert our household items and clean supplies to products environmentally friendly. I find it important to instill ethics about environmental impacts and sustainable living in our children. We thrive to someday have enough dairy goats to convert all our household dairy consumption to goat milk. We would like to maintain chickens for eggs and eventually expand to add some meat chickens to our farm too! Recently, doctors told me I had negative reactions to sugar so I’ve converted to honey. This leads me to our last goal, to have beehives! Hopefully this will be up an active come spring 2022.
Our mission is to not just provide for our family, but to help others too. I've started making household products and we share all excess produce locally. My husband sells microgreens at the farmers market and we donate what's left to those in need every week. I plan to expand my business once things pick up to allow the option that when products are purchased the same product will be given to someone in need. This is an evolving concept and we are still working out the details. Ideally, we will be able to offer products and fresh produce/meat to local families in need withing the first 3 years. Not only will we give them quality products and real food, but also teach them how to sustain the lifestyle in an affordable manner.