Time to join the bandwagon!

Well, it seems like so many other cool people have blogs these days, maybe if I have one, I can be cool too!

The purpose of this blog is to share some of the real life happenings on the farm here outside of Catawba, Virginia. We started our journey over 2 years ago, moving from northern NJ to our 20 acres of paradise. The mission is to involve the children in raising as much of the food we consume as possible.

I grew up on a small farm in Oklahoma and then central TX. My parents were really into Foxfire, and back to nature, do it yourself life. That's why I think we should call the farm, Full Circle Farm. So here we are. My husband never lived on a farm, but when he was in highschool in Madison, NJ, he told his friend he wished he could someday move south and have a farm. So 30 years later....

We love our farm. Each of the 5 kids has some industry they are working towards. Thomas, the 14 yr old, is the honey bee man, and also the pig feeder and cow and calf man. We have 3 steers we hope to butcher next winter. We just slaughtered 2 of the hogs here with help of Grandpa over Thanksgiving. Patrick, the 11 yr old, is the chicken man. He currently has around 40 layers, and will increase his 2 flocks because we have more egg customers than eggs right now. We have raised organic free range meat birds four times over the last year, and learned how to do the processing ourselves. Dear husband Philip built us a Whizbang chicken plucker this summer. YAHOO! Maggie, our 10 yr old is the goat girl. She has a flock of dairy goats, Portia, a mini-nubian, her doeling, Clover, Quizzie, a nubian, Nita, a nubian-saanen, and Mama Chevre, a rescued alpine goat. Maggie and I love to milk, and are very thankful that Patrick has learned to milk also, so we can be away for a day, if need be. We use the organic, raw, unhomogenized milk for drinking, baking, yogurt and cheese. We sell the babies. Rose, our 7 yr old, has a little, almost 1 yr old jersey heifer (Priscilla) she plans on making into her milking cow when the two of them are older. Nora, the 4 yr old is still determining what area most intrigues her. She loves to help in the garden and in the kitchen and wherever else we happen to be.

The last 2 years have been full of learning experiences. Every day has some sort of spiritual life application opportunity. I hope to be able to share some of those lessons on this blog. There are a lot of funny things that happen in our life. Some not so funny. Some downright painful. And while the pastoral life is quite picturesque sometimes, there are moments that make you wonder why on earth did we decide to move out here? The promised land. The land of milk and honey. We are glad to be here.