Sometimes you have to look back to see how far you've come. It's been almost fourteen years since we purchased our country property and took the first step toward building our small farm life. When I say building, I do mean building. It's been a lot of hard labor over the years, and I'm so glad we started this journey in our forties when we had a little more energy! It's nice to enjoy the slower pace of winter, but I get restless this time of year as spring fever takes hold and I grow increasingly impatient to start this year's garden. While I"m stuck in the house waiting for the snow to melt, I always get some much needed inspiration in looking back at where we started and where we are today.
I've said it a few times before, but it really is amazing to think that the push we needed to make our move to the country was our first backyard flock. It wasn't much more than a year after getting those first three chicks in March 2010 that we bought our farm property. The first couple of years were a whirlwind of non-stop projects. Building a new Poultry Palace was first on the to do list, and shortly after moving our backyard flock to the farm, we welcomed 24 new chicks and a whole lotta roosters - but that's a story for another day! There was existing landscaping and some flower beds around the perimeter of the house when we bought this property, but there was no vegetable garden. Growing a big garden was one of my highest priorities, and it was a major undertaking putting in the garden. We cleared stumps and blackberry, built raised beds because of the heavy clay soils, put up a deer fence, and got busy growing! Once we had the chicken coop and chicken run all set up and the garden built is when the fun really began. I immersed myself in the many joys of this life, and I became quite obsessed with learning how to preserve food, cooking farm fresh meals, and photographing my garden harvests and rainbow eggs.
After we had the basics established and it felt like everything was running smoothly here, it was time to take the first step toward building a new house to replace the humble but well-loved manufactured home that came with the property. We had a two-phase plan. The first phase was to build a 600-square foot accessory dwelling unit (ADU). The second phase was that we would move into the ADU while building the new house. In order to save on costs, my husband built the ADU gradually as time and money allowed. It was almost two and a half years from groundbreaking in spring 2018 until the building was finished in the summer of 2020. After it was finished we used it for extra space for hobbies including my soapmaking, which is why we refer to it as our hobby studio.
We took the next few years off from major building projects, but there was still lots going on here. When the pandemic happened we were all the more thankful to have our many enjoyable pursuits here to keep us busy and give us lots of happiness and fulfillment in our day to day routine of growing food, caring for the flocks, and the many responsibilities that come with having a rural property. Turkeys had joined the flock a couple of years after we increased the size of our chicken flock, and it wasn't long until I was not only a crazy chicken lady but I was also quite hopelessly in love with my turkeys as well. The size of the turkey flock grew gradually year by year, and eventually the time had come to build a turkey barn to provide a better shelter for our independent minded turkeys that shunned our first couple of attempts at housing them. In 2022, I was approached by a publisher to write a book about raising turkeys on a small-scale. I had been blogging about our farm experiences and writing articles for various farm life and chicken magazines for several years, but having the opportunity to write a book about a subject that I am passionate about was a dream come true. I poured everything I learned about raising turkeys over the past seven years into this book in the hopes of inspiring others to raise turkeys and to make their life with turkeys as enjoyable as mine has been. "An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Raising Backyard Turkeys" is available now everywhere books are sold (including on my shop page).
Perhaps the most exciting project since moving to the farm happened in 2023, when it was finally time to tear down the old manufactured house that had been our home for 12 years and build our new house. When we initially bought this property there was a list of dreams in my head and an even longer to do list to turn those dreams into reality. There have been lots of hard days along the way to get to where we are today, and we aren't done yet. We are now to the point where it's time to rebuild the garden fence and the raised beds after they've served us well for many years. With every year that goes by we learn and adapt and implement changes to make things work better and more efficiently here, and I have a feeling that this coming year is going to be our best year yet! No matter where you are in your journey, I hope that our story inspires you to keep growing and challenging yourself and taking steps to make your dreams come true.
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