To Grow a Farm

Emerald Acres Farm once belonged to another time and another name. Gnarled and vine laden apple, cherry and apricot trees still stand on parts of the old orchard. These relics, mostly diseased and well beyond their fruiting prime, cast aching shadows on dilapidated, tetanus-filled outhouses. Not only do they shelter us from the peninsular winds but they also remind us of working generations past. Sometimes, if we’re lucky during a wet, warm spring, we find a few morels (shhhh! Don’t tell anyone!) and wild asparagus emerging through the detritus and decaying limbs. 

Morel emerging from the orchard floor.

These made for a delicious meal!

Wild asparagus can be found all around the farm in the late spring!

​We landed at Emerald Acres Farm in the fall of 2012 and potential surrounded us as thick as the poison ivy. There was room for a swing set, a large garden, possibly some laying hens, and an area to cross country ski in the winter. We could walk, explore, and look to the stars.  We arrived without a clear plan yet full to the brim with ideas and dreams for our new home and property.

Farmgirl and her best friend, our beloved Pawnee, enjoyed exploring the farm throughout the seasons! (spring 2013)

Poison ivy grows remarkably well throughout the back half of our property. Thankfully, the goats enjoy foraging on the tender broad leaves!

​A working orchard is not set up like a farm for housing livestock or growing a large garden. Our outbuildings, equipped for large machinery and fruit sorting, stood erect and lifeless. The orchard, choked by wild grapevines and pock-marked by tree stumps of fruit-tree past, seemed to barricade any potential for tomatoes and spring greens. 

The orchard blooms beautifully in the spring!

We worked tirelessly to breathe new life into the property. We brought with us a love of the outdoors, animals, healthy food, and for our community. We included our daughter, and eventually our son, into every part of it. It’s a family life.

​Some would call us crazy. Some have told us we work too hard. But I ask you, “What work is too hard when it feeds your body and fuels your soul?”

Upon emergence from our first winter torpor, we dug into farm life. If you follow Mother Earth News, GRIT Magazine, or any number of other homesteading-ish media, you would recognize that we committed nearly every sin known to new farmers and homesteaders. We took on more than we could chew. We poured our savings into our new life. We exhausted our energy. We tried to do it all.

FarmerDave looked like a natural the first time he hopped into the seat of an old, borrowed tractor (2013).

The tractor proved much more effective in breaking up the sod (2013).

​That first year (2013), we plowed almost an acre of retired orchard with the intention of planting a garden. Farmer Dave (my hardcore other half) spent over 18 hours straight tilling the sod under, yet it wasn’t enough. His arms and hands felt numb; he felt certain he had nerve damage. Then, we borrowed a tractor from a good friend and co-worker which had a two-bottom plow. Big clumps of sod, still too big to plant, propelled us to scour the property for other long-ago discarded and forgotten tools. We discovered an old disc, buried in the aspen stand at the back of the property, overgrown with poison ivy. After digging it out, Farmer Dave MacGyvered it together with a few cement blocks, hitched it to the back of the tractor and attempted, yet again, to break up the sod. The old antique disc, held together by rotted wood bushings, flung pieces of tetanus as we pulled it across the field. Somehow, it accomplished the task and we followed with more tilling…We won some of the battles with the weeds, but they won the war that year. 

We plowed over an acre to establish our first garden. The sod and wild grapevines were impressively strong and resistant and put up an amazing fight for survival (2013)!

Many farming artifacts lie scattered and forgotten around the property. Fortunately, we recovered and retrieved a few and returned them to a farming livelihood.

​We intended to order a dozen layer pullets (pullets are young laying hens) but accidentally ended up with a mix of 63 pullets and cockerels (boy chickens too young to be considered roosters). By late summer our birds started laying and we brought home our first goats, which we knew little about feeding, let alone milking!

I was likely the most excited Farm-mom to ever receive her first shipment of baby laying chicks (2013)!

Farmgirl helped me with situating our new laying chicks in their make-shift brooder in our laundry room (2013).

Baby chicken butts are the cutest! These little fluffballs were eager to start eating and drinking right away!

I'm guessing this was one of our White Rock cockerels. He sported a bit of attitude right from the start!

Finding our first egg laid by our new hens was super exciting! We cooked it up and all three of us shared that first egg! It was WONDERFUL and fresh (2013)!

​The summer of 2013 was fraught with struggles, exhaustion, and exhilaration! We remodeled a garden shed into a goat pen. Farm-Papa (my dad) turned a set of old salvaged wheels and a well pipe into the axel and frame for a mobile chicken coop (which eventually transformed into a goat house!). We set up electric fencing and only got zapped a few dozen times…. Most importantly, we learned how to fix it when something went wrong… We learned that keeping too many cockerels (young boy chickens) was not a good idea and figured out how to butcher our first chickens ‘on the fly.’ Thank goodness for how-to videos on You-Tube! After finding nibble marks in the top of all our broccoli plants, we realized that our toddler daughter (at the time) loved broccoli and took bites out of the top of each broccoli head!

Farm-papa working with Farmer Dave to construct our mobile chicken coop. This building has served us well over the years (2013)!

Our new-found goat passion started with these 4 girls. We have learned so much from them (2013)!

We were super excited to be moving our new coop onto pasture with our young chickens (2013).

During that first year, we learned about having too many cockerels. We separated these guys from our laying flock and they enjoyed a lot of time foraging on their section of pasture (2013).

As it turns out, Farmgirl was a natural when it came to working with our goats. She loved going on walks with them around their pasture (2013).

​Somehow, we survived that first year on our new farm. For some crazy reason, we did NOT give up. In fact, we dug in even deeper the following year. During 2014, we re-plowed and expanded our garden! We had our son, born at home, on a beautiful summer day. We started to sell a few veggies at the local farmer’s market. We added more laying hens to our flock. We raised meat chickens. We got some more dairy goats, including a couple bucks for breeding. Our first goat kids were born on the farm. We reached out further into our community and started our first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).

Big sister Farmgirl holding her new baby brother, Farmboy, born at home on a beautiful summer day!

Harvest from our garden has increased each year as we try new varieties and work to improve our techniques (2013)!

These were our first meat chickens raised on the farm. We've learned so much about how to raise them and how to incorporate them into our pasture management. We have gained a greater appreciation about where our food comes from now that we raise so much of it ourselves.

These Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats arrived in late summer 2014. Their milk is sweet and wonderful and allows us to make fantastic yogurt and chevre (goat cheese).

It was so exciting to have our first goat kids born on the farm in 2014! It is amazing to witness the birth of new babies.

With each passing year, we have worked hard to improve our farm. We build in efficiencies where and when we can. We learn better ways to raise our animals to improve and maintain their health as well as ways to improve pasture health. We spend hours reading, learning and planning throughout the winters to prepare for summer growing seasons. We seek mentors and attend workshops to learn more about farming.
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For us, the luxury of driving to the local grocery store to buy our eggs and milk is outmatched by our preference for the daily Easter Egg Hunt to retrieve fresh eggs and the 'splash-ping' sound of milk streaming into a metal milking bucket. Homemade yogurt and chevre from the freshest and sweetest milk cannot be beat. Veggies and fruit picked right off the vine and dug from the earth provide us the freshest and flavor-packed food available. The struggle to find life balance among family, friends, work, and the farm is real and ongoing; however, this lifestyle that I am describing to you is ours by choice. We are so thankful to have the opportunity To Grow a Farm!