ABOUT
LOCAL. HOMEGROWN. ALWAYS
THE SEED
It all started with a goat. Well, twin goats to be precise. You see, I had this picture in my mind of a cute little goat, who I would name Gertrude, that would follow me around the yard as I weeded and gardened. For years the hubby said no way. Then one day, I joked to my husband that we should go look at a couple of goats for sale down the valley. He said yes, and we wound up buying twin wethers who we affectionately named Arlo and Clyde.
I have no idea why he said yes that day. Maybe it was a loving gesture to cheer me after months of struggling with health issues, or maybe it was a moment of temporary insanity. Whatever the reason, getting those goats set us on a new course.
A FEW GOATS LATER
Not long after we brought home the fellas, I had surgery. During my recovery, I passed the time reading about the care of goats. These books and websites led me to more farming and homesteading information. Before I knew it, I was reading everything I could get my hands on about organic farming, permaculture, and nutrition.
We got dairy goats (one I did name Gertrude, and she is the queen of the herd) and Kunekune pigs. We raised even more poultry for eggs and meat production. We added bees.
Then we really lost our minds and got a dairy cow. Eleanor quickly became my favorite in the barnyard. She patiently worked with hubby and I as we fumbled through first time milking and first time being milked. We loved the dairy cows so much, why not add beef cows too? We have settled on a heritage breed because they finish nicely on grass.
GROWING ROOTS
Our children’s doctor had warned us years earlier about the dangers of artificial dyes and chemicals found in foods, so we had already been trying to avoid those and eating more organic produce; but the more I read, the more we realized we wanted things to change. We wanted to have an everyday role in the food we were eating and feeding to our children.
We had raised assorted poultry over the years, grown gardens, and raised a pig or two, so, being the naïve and eager hobby farmers that we were, we jumped in with both feet.
TODAY
Grass fed beef, pastured pork, organic dairy and vegetables: these are things we feel good about eating and feeding our family, so we raise them ourselves. It is an amazing feeling to sit around the dinner table with your family and eat a meal grown by your own hands. Caring for our families, the land we live on, and the food that sustains us, is definitely work worth doing. So, that’s what we do, and we have been loving almost every minute of it. (Let’s be real, mucking out a stall in below zero temps, is not fun.) Not all the moments of this life are romantic or easy, but they are all completely worth it.
