Here we GROW!

It's officially summer and the vegetables are growing nicely.

After a crazy start due to weather and weeds, we are finally seeing some veggies thrive after many hours and extra hands that saved our crops from the wild weeds.

Natalie harvested our first beautiful bouquet of radishes in the colors of purple, pink, and white. 
Our lettuce and kale will be ready to harvest soon!

Our farm is definitely earning its name Back Acre....(back ache-r).
It's a lot of hard work, and it can feel overwhelming at times, but we pull together and give it our best.  The reward is seeing our hard work come to life.

Every time I see a new sprout coming up through the soil, it rejuvenates me to keep going.  I look forward to an awesome summer of hard work nurturing vegetables, working with my family and building relationships with others in our community. 

I also love that my children can be a part of this experience.  My son said to me...."Mom, we are farmers.  I like growing things and I like getting dirty."    My heart is happy.  :)

~Renee

"Look deep into nature and then you will understand everything better." ~ Albert Einstein

Selling crocosmia bulbs :)

Planted artichokes, chives, lavender and tomatoes this weekend, we also had lucifer crocosmia sales this weekend and got the field prepped for planting. We are getting really excited to plant :)

Hi, I'm Renee.

Thanks for stopping by our blog.  We appreciate you taking the time to read about us and our journey into farming.  I am very excited about our upcoming adventure. 

I am the wife of a farm raised cutie, and a mom to 4 wonderful children. 
I won't bore you with all my "When I turned 18 and went out on my own" stories, but I will give you a little insight to why I am here, wanting to be a farmer.

My hubby and I bought a house out here on 17 acres.  His dream was to raise cows and have a "hobby farm".  And me....I was along for the ride, I didn't really have a direction.  Our property had a chicken coop that was used as a storage shed from the previous owners and it was in pretty sad shape. But I grabbed onto the idea of someday having chickens.

My "passion" for farming came when I was on a mission to pay off my credit card debt and was coming across many blogs on simple living.  The more I dug into being debt free and simple living the more I was reading on farming. I've dabbled in gardening before but was more of a small hobby vs. food to live on.  It really lit a fire in me to become a farmer and grow and raise my own food. 
My husband has been building his herd of Hereford Beef cows over the years, and I finally got my first flock of chickens April of 2011.  We ventured into raising pigs for the first time this last fall, and I fell in love with the pigs.

We now have a freezer FULL of home raise pork and beef.  This is only the start. My goals are to raise meat chickens, and have an abundace of veggies (and some day fruit)  to can and preserve from the garden to feed my family.  I'm very excited about learning to be a bit more self sufficient and feeding my family healthy food.

My sister in law approached me with the "business" idea of growing veggies for our Local Farmers Market.  I'm very excited about this adventure.  So not only am I farming to provide for my own family. I'm hoping to encourage people in our community to support our local farmers by eating local, or even inspire them to grow their own.  Im excited to see what this next year brings.  I hope you keep checking in to follow our progress. 

Happy Farming~
                 Renee

Natalie

I am a mother of two amazing little girls, Sophie and Graci and my stud muffin boyfriend Jacob. 

I am a "knowledge is power" kind of person. I read every book, magazine and did hours of research online on and about everything nutrition and food intolerance related, because my daughter has food intolerances, hypoglycemia and something called SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth) which can be the cause of the other problems. She cannot have any grain, starch or sugar as it feeds & nourishes the bacteria instead of Sophie. Along my LONG quest for more information I slowly gained a new appreciation for how things are made, how they grow, how they are processed and packaged and what that means for our health. As it is now, my use of a grocery store is limited to fruits, veggies, meats and some almonds to make my own almond flour for baked goods and almond milk. After years of information gathering I decided to try my own garden this last summer.  With two little ones and not a lot of space to grow where I lived I decided to have a small 4x12' garden box. Soon after planting it realized that it was not nearly the size of the garden of my dreams. It produced enough to slightly supplement our vegetable needs. We also bought chickens to provide us with eggs and meat.

With all of these restrictions I find myself in the kitchen over the stove making every meal from scratch while still trying to figure out how the heck I was going to work and do all of these same things for them. For what seems like forever my sister-in-law Renee and I have been telling each other about our dreams for homesteading, bountiful gardens and raising our happy children. We found ourselves in discussions about our nations eating habits, unhealthy families and we wanted it to never be a problem for our kids. There are things this country could do about it and they were not being proactive. Knowledge IS power. I think that if everyone took the time to know who made their food, where it was grown, HOW it was made/grown and what really are those 26 letter ingredients they may rethink their choices. 

There was one day that I told my mom about our dreams and she thought that a huge garden would be good for everyone and that if we wanted we could possibly use part of the farm. I talked to my dad and after discussing things with Renee and our significant others we decided that this would be a great way to go. Not just for our dietary needs but for other families. Farmers Markets and maybe someday a CSA. We want to start small. However if we find a need to expand we will.
This years goal....truly back to basics. 

I was raised on a farm, I know this WILL be the hardest work Iv ever done. I will come home with blisters and a "back.. acre" (hehehehe) There may be days that when I get home I cry from exhaustion and pure frustration. I want my children to get dirty and know whats its like to grow their own food, because everyone should know how to grow their own food. I will teach my kids to be self sufficient and what work is. Nothing worth having has ever come easy. 

I am a tree huggin' dirt worshiper... I do believe its genetic.

This is just the beginning.

And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden...

You will find yourself a partner in the glory of the garden.