I have answered the questions “where did you move to?” or “why did you move?” so many times. Here is our story.

It all started two and a half years ago after a certain election. There were a lot of people worried, I wasn’t, I felt I had a game plan. It kept tugging at my heart and over the next year it seemed everywhere I turned, every book I would read, was pointing the same direction. I had began sharing my heart with Aaron and he wasn’t too hard to sway to my side. Two years ago we became convinced, sell the house, owe less money, live under our means and start a sustainable farm. So the mission began, but on God’s timing, not ours. We began the process of preparing our house for the market. We got it “show ready” put it for sale by owner, showed it one time and nothing. After 6 months we decided to just stay put, if it really is where God was directing us then it would happen at some point. Even though we still kept an eye out for land or a fixer-upper with a little land we just couldn’t find anything that seemed right. About four months after I had taken the sign and flyers up for our house I started getting messages about the listing I had left on our local Varage Sale site. I made three appointments to show the house that week. I wondered why the sudden interest? I got on my real estate map and saw we were literally the only other house for sale inside our city limits at the time. We decided if it was God’s timing it would work out, it did. The third family never came to see the house because we went under contract that same week. Then everyone started asking “where are you moving to?” My only answer was “I don’t know”. It’s pretty much insanity, you know? To have 3 kids, 178,526,924.05 personal belongings, 10 chickens, 4 dogs, 3 cats, 1 guinea pig and not know where you’re going. My thought was “we have a camper if worse comes to worse”.
Aaron had this dream of 10 acres, he was always talking about it. I would laugh, there’s no way. With the outrageous price of land, that won’t happen. We would be happy with 1-3 acres with a little fixer-upper, or to put our camper on, we could make that work. You can be a sustainable farm on less. Plus our main goal was to live under our means. Crunch time was coming, our dear friends were fixing up a rental house, a big one, because they love us they offered to rent it to us, kids, chickens, dogs and all! I will not relive the massive amounts of drama that go along with a move of this proportion. Let’s just say I’m still traumatized.

We moved to a town 30 minutes away, I was lonely, lost and confused. God did amazing work in us during that time. We got to be part of a missional church plant and meet some awesome people.

I realized how much I love my quirky hometown and how much I did not want to live in the city. But God is faithful. Just like Aaron had 10 acres on his heart, God put six months on mine. Six months later, two days before Christmas, we closed on 10 acres, in my hometown, with not one but two houses.

On our way to closing!

The mobile home we live in on the day we closed.

How the rental house on our property looked at closing.

One for us to live in and one to rent out, this helps pay our mortgage and allows us to live below our means. Even though it feels like heaven here to me, most of the time I can’t believe it’s mine, I have struggled with my dream not looking like the American Dream. Our last house had an open door policy.

I was always the first to volunteer my house, we loved hosting and having people over.

This past weekend we moved two of out poultry houses we had left in our old neighborhood to our new place. One of the houses was on the city easement behind our old house. A friend of a friend was helping us out and asked it we used to live there. I proudly said yes, we worked so hard and loved that place so much I was proud to say it had been mine.

He asked us if we had moved to a nicer house. Aaron and I looked at each other and laughed, we answered “no, we live in a mobile home now.” It may not look like we upgraded, but to us, we did!

My friend Kim gave me four hens, a rooster and a super cute, little white goat named MeMe. You may or may not remember my goat owning dreams.
We picked up the chickens from her last weekend and they quickly made themselves at home, laying eggs and everything. MeMe however was put on hold due to being busy, weather and quite frankly my concern she wouldn’t stay in our little pallet pen.

Today was the day, despite an afternoon shower, we loaded her up and brought her home. Once she was settled in, I was feeling like a real live farmer. I mean with a goat, 24 chickens and two turkeys it really felt official! On that high, we began walking the property and planning where we would put a new, permanent pasture for her. I began to hear some sounds that didn’t seem right, like some sort of raucous was going on. Aaron and I investigated and found our poor neighbor/renter, with a bum knee, chasing her dog around the yard, hot on the trail of my blessed free ranging chickens. We of course ran over to help her catch the dog, but as the hens all found hiding places the poor rooster became the dog’s target. That handsome fella ran straight for the pond and dove in, dog right behind him. Just last week I pondered over whether or not chickens could swim, after having a dream the yard flooded and they were swimming around. Today I saw, for sure, chickens CAN swim. So imagine the rooster swimming across the pond, the dog swimming hot on his tail feathers. I say ” I’m going in!” Then my dear husband, always the hero says “no you’re not, I am!” He climbs in, grabs the rooster, chunks him to safety on the shore and starts after the dog. Aaron trips on a log and ends up neck deep, phone and wallet still in his pocket (his phone survived!). The dog gets away and runs for it again but not for long because she gets distracted by all of the cute little teenager chicks in a cage. Once distracted she was easy to grab and leash up. After that excitement (good thing all the girls had laid their eggs already) MeMe stayed in her pen a few more hours until she got bored and climbed out. I mean I can’t blame her, I wouldn’t want to go from a nice big backyard to a small little pen with nothing but two turkeys to play with either. She escaped one more time and then we realized she was going to have to go back to Kim’s house until we get her pasture built, I guess we’ll be doing that instead of putting up the pool next weekend. Even though I gained and lost a goat all on one day, I still feel like the real deal, I mean a crazy day like that means you’re a farmer, right?

Saturday my family was invited to the home of some new friends of ours from our homeschool group. They were hosting a gardening class with a couple of Master Gardeners, a veteran gardening neighbor and some other amateur gardeners like myself. I had the best time visiting and sharing with other folks of the same mind. We talked on everything from gardening, to politics, religion, homeschooling and child rearing. Even though we didn’t agree on it all, it made for some good conversation. I was even the second to last to leave.

The children planted seeds and flowers to take home and since we stayed so long they even got to bottle feed the baby goats.

Our friends put in a Giving Garden at their home and we all helped plants seeds and starters. It was a great opportunity and I look forward to more meetings with my like-minded folks.