Our Newest Adventure – Hobby Farm Life

These days look a world apart from just a few months back. I awake in the morning with the sun, and immediately bundle up. Its mid-November and the air is crisp and stinging. Gunner runs full speed at my side and it’s out to the animal barn to scoop buckets of sweet-smelling corn feed, tend to chickens, collect the eggs. Then back to the barn, load up on more feed and head toward the pig pens. There are currently 6 pigs, but our sow Mavis is pregnant, so we are expecting anywhere from 12 to 16 piglets in the very near future. Life is anything but calm and relaxing these days.

I finish dishing out pig feed and hop in the pens to snuggle my favorites. Time doesn’t stand still around here, and I know it’s time to start hauling 5-gallon buckets of water. Moving homes in the fall doesn’t allow much time for water improvements before freezing temps hit. I move two at a time, sometimes 3 or 4 times a day, up from the garage down to the barns, but it makes me smile when the pigs make slurps, and eventually I throw together a makeshift sled, and things get a little easier. After feedings wrapped up I stockpile my arms with as much wood as possible and start the trek back up to the house. I’ll return another 4 or 5 times to stock the days pile enough to keep me warm until the hubs comes home, I have small arms. It’s a stark difference from clicking on the thermostat which I used to keep so sneakily set at 72 degrees on occasions. HAHA But this new life is simple. Not easy. But gratifying. What more could one want? 

A month ago, we had one acre to our name, and our only animal was our precious dog who was fresh off a nasty knee surgery, and we were contemplating heading west. Covid empowered us to change our living situation and my journalism degree was new and shiny so heading for a bigger city seemed inevitable, but still not right. We had been talking about our forever plans to own a big farm in the future, but realized we would really like to start the journey sooner than we’d planned. We weren’t sure where we were going but we didn’t think it would be here. Ends up we were meant to stay in southern Michigan at least a little longer.

On Halloween 2021 we moved to what we refer to as our hobby farm and closed on the sale of our old home the day before Thanksgiving. It was such a fast and hectic blurr. After remodeling our first home over the 5 years we were there, we decided to immediately jump into redoing the new 4-bed, 3 bath house. Not only were we getting the new house and its new projects, but along came the pigs and chickens. The house became a project in itself, tack on the outside maintenance of 5 acres and new animals and ZERO prior knowledge, and you could say overwhelmed was a thing! 

The small backstory

Most people assume it was in our plans, and perfectly preconceived, but the truth is just two weeks before we decided on our new place here in Michigan, we were scoping out 30 acres in Colorado! We always planned that our next move would be VERY FAR away either south or west, funny how timing and the way the universe works is always something special. 

I was blessed to be beautifully connected to this land through friendly acquittances id made back in my teaching days. 6 years ago, Id laid eyes on the shell of this unique earthbound home and told Breton it would make a perfect home for us. Little did I know, 6 years later we’d be calling it our own. But it was absolutely manifested. We did house projects to increase our sale faster than we could count, we chanted affirmations daily, journaled about future resources, and did everything we could to make this work. Our house sold in 24 hours, but by then we’d been in our new place a month. All in all the entire process from finding that the house was being sold, to moving in, was a short two months. Whew. We had a TON of help, and it’s true what they say, it takes an army, so thanks to all of our helpers over the years.

People thought we were crazy

Blindly dedicating ourselves to this tiny farm with living beings that would need shelter for winter right as winter hits was SCARY. Moving into a home and nearly gutting it out while living out of an unfamiliar living room was SCARY. And promising each other we can do this when we each have jobs, side projects, and other obligations was SCARY. We’ve always been SO BUSY, always traveling, never stationary, did taking on a homestead fit in? I don’t think it would have mattered; we were clearly making it happen.

There’s an empowerment that comes from living simply. There was a dream we’d both been laminating on for years. That was all the motivation we needed. The place knocked off nearly everything on our list, we had to jump.  And we might have been scared doing big things, but that’s all apart of the journey. 

Life now

We took on a 5 acre sanctuary complete with a sustainable earth bound home, a tiny tiny house with a legit root cellar (creepy), collections of fruit trees, black berries, raspberries, wild growing grapes, and a mess of other natural grown goodness. We also took on two breeding pigs, two juvenile pigs, 16 chickens, and 4 roosters. Winter rolled around and our breeding pigs were of course, pregnant! And now well into spring our life looks a world different from where it started.  

It’s now June and the 30 x 30 raised beds are filled with promising harvests, the brooding room in the barn is stocked with 8 new Olive Egger Chicks, there’s 4 new Bresse chicks acclimating into the already established Bresse flock of 5, and there are now 11 Kune Kune pigs chilling in their pen which grants us the perfect view of them from the front door. We’ve learned a library worth of new things and skills! Like how Kune Kunes are known to be the friendliest and smallest of pigs, they’re truly the best! 

Things I’ve learned so far

Along the way yours truly, successfully and single handedly delivered a liter of pigs, learned to administer chicken first aid after a gruesome cock fight, raised up healthy baby chicks, installed heat lamps and proper shelter for winter, started a garden full of seeds indoors, I even made an emergency chicken area one weekend my hubby was gone with what I could find in the garage.  And that’s just farm stuff! The house looks like an entirely new place. Life on a small farm is how you say… ummm..productive! 

Of course, there were hiccups along the way, a long list of house things that were broken or needed replacing that we didn’t foresee. We lost our breeding boar to pnemonia over the winter days after the piglets came, our first large livestock loss was hard. Then the neighboring property we planned on expanding on ended up being developed almost immediately after we moved in. Another surprise. There were lots of oh shit moments. Crying moments. Head in your hands what did I do moments. But in the scheme of things, it’s all priceless. 

We pinch ourselves every day, but we also know this was no accident. Each of us eager to possess farms and animals over material items and others’ rites of passage. Our dream life is one of peace and quiet filled with food grown ourselves, and nature thriving in every corner. Our goal when we leapt on acquiring this place was to be as self-sustainable as possible and begin to make it to a way of living that’s nearly obsolete of first world dependencies. 

Of course when two people with ZERO farming experience jump in head first we were bound to be slowed down a little, but there’s something about hauling a sled of wood across snowy hills for heat, collecting eggs in the morning fog, eating berries from the garden, ebbing with the set and rise of the sun to properly harness the energy of our hobbit home, all the little things that take so much, all of it has brought us more lessons, memories and enlightened perspective in ways we never dreamed would be at our fingertips before either of us reaches the age of 30. 

People will tell you your whole life that you can’t have it all. But your picture of having it all might not be the same as someone else’s. So always. Yes I can. Yes you can. If you want it all. You can have it all. It’s all in how you choose to want it. 

Our journey will only grow from here and we will be doing our best to share the best bits, and the not so best bits. But if you ever feel like your wants are too big, like you don’t know enough, like you could never possibly do it. Let us be your proof. You can do anything!