​As I looked out my kitchen window while washing dishes tonight I felt overwhelmed with a sense of awe.  Not 100 feet from my window stands our latest accomplishment, a real greenhouse! My hardcore other half, ever devoted to improving and growing our farm, spent countless hours during the past winter researching the best strategies and materials for erecting a small greenhouse that will meet the needs of our farm. With the help of family and great friends (Dale, Megan and Ben—we appreciate your hardwork and support so much!!), our new greenhouse, which now stands sturdy and HOT, staked with rebar and fitted with high-end light penetrating plastic, is ready to grow food! 

Becoming a farmer wasn’t exactly in my original plans when I moved away from home and went to college. I went to graduate school to become a wildlife biologist, a snake biologist to be precise. A knack for catching snakes, lizards and frogs and a heart devoted to their conservation propelled me into a nearly 7-year career working for the state of Arizona.

​As I poured my heart and soul into my work, I traveled extensively across our southern border state. I hiked into remote canyons in the Huachuca Mountains, throughout the San Rafael Valley along the border with Mexico, traversed the Sonora Desert, camped under the stars, and monitored snakes along the Verde River.  In my position, I met with ranchers to discuss conservation options for frogs and snakes. I worked with professors at universities to establish refuges for endangered frogs. 

While I lived in a small, 1 room Phoenix apartment, working and ‘living the dream,’ I grew a small container garden of heat stunted patio tomatoes, the full extent of my desert gardening. I think I managed to harvest 3 tiny tomatoes, the rest of which inadvertently became ‘sun dried’ during an extended work trip. When I eventually married my hardcore other half and we moved into our home in a Phoenix suburb with a 1/8 acre gravel covered backyard, he managed to extend our garden into larger containers, which oftentimes better served spring nesting Gambel’s Quails than our wilted zucchini and tomato plants. Back then, he used to threaten me that eventually we would have goats…. 

​“Haha,”I would laugh, casually brushing off his absurd assertions. I couldn’t imagine having livestock other than a couple of laying hens. “Who in the world wants goats?”…………

When our (then) small family of 3 made a difficult decision to depart careers and the desert southwest to move north toward 4 seasons, returning to our native roots along with woodticks and mosquitoes, I had not imagined that we would pursue a farming life. We landed on our northeastern Wisconsin peninsula during a record breaking warm spring.

​Without a plan, we submitted offers on two separate houses. Each outbid, we felt defeated. Then one day, during late summer, we walked across an old overgrown orchard where an old farmhouse, accompanied by its own retired outhouse, was encrusted with dirt and second-hand smoke and in dire need of a complete paint-job and flooring replacement, when my hardcore other half said, “You know, I could be REALLY happy here!”

​​In Phoenix, we had purchased a foreclosed home in need of deep cleaning and serious TLC. We knew we could do well with this property, if given a chance.

This northeastern WI home wasn’t huge. It wasn’t perfect. It was close to town. It had real POSSIBILITIES!!!

As we waited anxiously for news about our offer, I ran a 5K race in my hometown in central WI. We received a phone call of acceptance to our offer as I neared the finish line. I tossed my water bottle in excitement, and managed to club an old high school friend right in the head with my upward swing. Huge Ooops!!  My sincerest apologies were immediately followed with much celebration and excitement.

For those of you who have followed us since the beginning know that we started relatively small. We established a flock of laying hens. We put in a garden too large to manage initially. I became pregnant with our second child and the weeds won the battle. Our first goats arrived at the farm and by the second year, the herd grew and they grasped my heart in ways I never imagined. I will never NOT have goats again!!

​There is much more to tell you about how our farm grew to what it is today and what we dream for it to become in the future. There is much more to tell you about why we decided not only to feed our family but yours as well.

Today, as I look out at our greenhouse, which fried a few of our first seedlings as we figured out how best to manage its warmth and filtered sunshine, I see the potential of feeding our friends, of providing exercise to those who wish to help us with this endeavor, and, most importantly, of growing a dream.

I will never stop marveling at the first snake emerging from hibernation each spring, nor will I stop enjoying the call of the chorus frogs and spring peepers, marking warmer spring days. As my family has grown, and after moving from the desert southwest to the lush, green upper Midwest, I embrace the changing tides in my life.

As our farm grows and matures to feed our family and yours, I welcome you to join us. Join us through membership in our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) options, or visit us at the Sturgeon Bay Farmer’s Market this summer, or come by to see baby goats.

​Just as it takes a community to raise a child, so too, it takes a community to build and support a small family farm. We aren’t perfect. We will make mistakes. But we value good food and community. Not only do we stand by what we are doing, but we are trying to grow the best for YOU! Please, join us this summer with your support!

Lastly, our farm grown meals have included a lot of eggs lately! Our hens are laying a lot and there is no shortage! If you find yourself in need of farm fresh, free-ranged eggs, give us a call!

As we enter our 5th spring on this Northeastern Wisconsin peninsula, our 4th at the farm, Mother Nature has sent us several reminders that spring is a season not to be reckoned with. It is unpredictable and extremely variable.

This year, it seems that spring, angry and resentful of the mild, even-tempered and recently departed winter, has ‘roared like a lion’ ferociously and much more often than it has ‘baaa-ed like a lamb.’ Our ill-tempered, angry spring has gusted frigid winds and covered us in snow, only to give us short reprieves with a bit of sun and unsustained warmth. Our goats started blowing their winter coats (i.e., shedding) only to have to curl up in warm beds of straw during cold subfreezing nights.

​Spring, whether it arrives with the ferocity of a lion or the calmness of a fuzzy lamb, is accompanied with endless projects to work on across the farmyard. The farmkids have helped with moving compost and mixing soil for planting seeds. Weather may dictate whether we work indoors or out, but it will not stop our forward momentum of getting ready for the coming growing season!

In nature and the farmyard, spring is marked by love. Our male Bourbon Red turkey (a heritage breed turkey), Junior, displays love for our single turkey hen, Penny, through beautiful dancing, strutting and wing ruffles. He dances for the chicken hens too, though they pay him little notice.

​Spring break arrived a day early for Farmgirl as a spring blizzard descended on the peninsula and our farm. The recently departed 70 degree weekend evaporated into memory as predictions of 8-12 inches of wet, heavy snow scrolled across the screen. Snow fell and we were forced to pull out the ‘snow plow’ one last time. 

Farmkids and dogs, immune to the unpredictable nature of spring, delighted in the new snow and tossed snowballs and built the last snowy stately structures of winter-past. Inside, Farmgirl and I enjoyed an afternoon of egg dying for Easter while Farmboy napped one afternoon. We proved that farm eggs, variable in every shade of brown, white and green can be artificially colored. There was no need for us to run to the store to purchase white eggs from factory raised, caged hens!

As winter continued to roar outside, new farm tools arrived by mail. The latest and greatest to arrive, a Wheeled Hoe, was received with enthusiasm and a mad dash for the nearest screw driver! Our Farm-mechanics in training worked alongside Farmdad to put the new gadget together. In all its shining glory, it stands for all that we aspire to on our farm—little to no dependence on oil and gas to till our garden. 

While gardening and planting plans move forward into the growing season, so too are preparations for goat kidding season. Over the next couple of weeks, our goats will begin to have babies. We wait anxiously each season for new babies to arrive and we hope that all will run smoothly. We are putting together our ‘kidding kit,’ a box of necessities like dry towels, iodine, plastic gloves, etc., to have ready if and when the need might arrive to assist a goat mom with her new baby(ies).

​Following their stressful arrival amidst an angry spring storm of high winds and chilling temperatures, our chicks are growing and feathering out into chick-adolescence. Though they no longer look like the adorable little fluffballs, their feathers are coming in and they are maturing into little chickens. As they start to test their wings, they jump up onto their water holders and they race around their warm brooder. In just a few more weeks, they will move to a new pen where they can start to venture out onto pasture to capture bugs and pick at new green shoots. 

As our farm is growing and maturing and we are venturing into our first season offering memberships in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), our needs for erecting a greenhouse/hoophouse are meeting with success. Last week, with the help of a good friend, Dale, and supporter of our farm, we began construction. Framework was cut, pounded and fastened together. Soon, plastic will be attached and we will prepare to move our first seedlings of 2016 outside! This has been a long time in coming, or so it feels. So much of what we have already accomplished as well as what we hope to achieve here on our farm would not be possible without the love, help and support of our family and our closest, new friends.

While so much goes on around the farmyard, it is hard to believe there might be time for anything else. However, when snow flies and temperatures remain cold, I find it fulfilling to cross a few things from my ‘homesteading to-do list,’ like making homemade lotion bars. Though I have to order the (mostly organic) ingredients, I put everything together right on my stove-top. These homemade lotion bars, consisting of Cacao Butter/Shea Butter, Coconut Oil, and Beeswax nourish and moisten our dry, heavily worked hands/skin throughout the year. I also make sunscreen bars, a variation on these, for use during the summer to protect our skin from the sun. This year, I also ventured out and made our own chapstick. It’s a lot of fun, doesn’t take a lot of time and feels great on the skin. 

​I don’t know how many families out there still cook and sit down together each night for dinner, but it is something our family values and does most nights of the week. We continue to pull from our freezer and root cellar, the remaining of the 2015 bounty. As our supplies are starting to dwindle, I am getting anxious for the coming season, and I am hopeful I can remain patient for spring to release its lioness grip on us.