For the first few years of our marriage we lived in a highly populated city. Close neighbors and lot's of traffic. It wasn't ideal, but it was what we could afford. After that we moved to a suburb and a much quieter neighborhood. Tim often told me stories of his childhood in the country and what it was like being raised on a farm. I spent every summer at my Grandparents cabin in the mountains of Utah, so I had a bit of "country girl" in me, but I didn't realize how much.
While in that house we started a wholesale ceramics business and soon realized we needed more room. I also wanted to have a place to teach ceramics, and so the hunt began. Tim was focused on getting out of town into the country and I was setting my sights on another subdivision. I was convinced that I would be scared all the time living in the country. I thought I needed the security of having neighbors right outside my window.
Probably due to divine intervention, we ended up buying 2.7 acres in a small town about 30 miles outside of the city. The house had a daylight basement in it with a full one bedroom apartment that I could use for my ceramics studio. The back of the property was all forest, which Tim loved.
Soon I began to relax and realize that I felt completely at home in this little town. And it wasn't long before I knew I would never want to go back to the city.
From the time we moved in Tim wanted to raise chickens, and for some reason I was totally opposed to it. But a few years ago I finally caved in and said fine. In no time at all I was completely smitten with those little chicks. I swore I would not name any of them and, of course, they all had names within a year. (Mostly thanks to our grandchildren).
About a year later I was diagnosed with a gluten and soy intolerance. Suddenly my world was upside down. In my quest to find foods that were okay to eat I learned a great deal about real food and what our bodies need to thrive. We were already eating eggs from pastured chickens so we just switched their food to organic feed. It was harder to find organic food that we could afford for us to eat. Soon we were growing as much of our vegetables as we could and buying our beef from a farmer nearby.
The more I learned about real food, the more I wanted a farm. I spent over a year looking online at farms for sale in Idaho, but moving to another state without jobs at our age was too risky. So finally I gave up. About this time Tim suggested we "farm where we are". Kind of like "bloom where you are planted". He said we could log the back of the property, plant a pasture and raise a couple of cows. One to keep and one to sell to help pay for the next ones. We already had chickens and if I wanted to, we could raise a couple of goats too.
It has been a slow steady process since then. Logging in the summer of 2013, having to wait until December to burn the slash piles. Then we spent the next year picking up sticks (by hand) that covered the ground from the logging activity. Finally the land had to be plowed, leveled, limed multiple times, and then seeded.
And then we waited and prayed while a beautiful lush pasture grew in 2015. It was amazing.
After all the fencing was done we made arrangements to buy 2 cows with calves from a friend. Tim was so excited he ran out and bought a ton of hay to be sure we had the right nutrients for the new cows. (We were told they couldn't eat our lush new grass as their sole feed. Later we learned that wasn't true) Anyway, after loading a ton of hay onto the trailer and bringing it home to unload, Tim finally sat on the edge of the trailer in a cold sweat holding his chest, and had a heart attack in our driveway. Thank God I was there.
He spent sometime in the hospital, had four stents put in and has become a new man - well almost.
I had serious doubts that we could go forward with our plans, but he hit the ground running. As I type this he is putting the finishing touches on our beautiful new barn that he built mostly by himself. I am in awe of this wonderful man that made a dream come true for me.
