Our Farm

During the summer of 2010, we decided, as a family, that some major changes needed to be made in our lives.  We had been "stuck" in an increasingly stressful {2+ year} loan modification process and things were NOT working out in our favor. It was time for us to get "back to basics".  We knew we wanted to become more self reliant.  We were willing to make whatever sacrifices we needed to make in order to spend less money, spend more quality time as a family, and make lasting memories for our children.
We called on every for rent/sale sign in our neighborhood hoping to stay in our same ward, but we never felt like any of the houses were "right".  It took a lot of patience and prayer, but we finally found a rental less than a mile down the street, and for some reason it didn't take much convincing on Chris' part to get me to go look at it. It was in a neighborhood we drove through on occasion, that made us both think that "one day" we would settle down in something similar- you know, the kind of place you live in for the rest of your life... where you grow old and your children grow up and out of...
On our first drive-by, I wasn't completely sold on the idea. It looked too big from the street, had an obnoxiously long driveway and after peeking through the fence, the yard was huge. Huge yard = LOTs of work. I took a picture of the house from the street and sent it to my mom with an "um...yeah, right" text. 
However, the rent was cheaper than our mortgage payment had been and the backyard was well equipped with a play set, horse fencing, a chicken coop, a built-in BBQ on a large patio, mature fruit trees, garden plots, and everything was on an auto-watering system.  The inside of the house was builder-basic, with blah tile floors, too-pink-of-a-beige paint job, toilets that are "testy", out-dated light fixtures, trim that needs re-caulking, a layout that makes furniture placement difficult, and overall felt like a home we could easily live in. :)
The owners had taken in an elderly parent or two and had to find a single level home that was more accessible and had tried to rent this one out for almost six months before we came along. They told us they had asked their friends and congregation at church to pray that they would find renters and that we had called the very next day.
Well, we moved in at the beginning of June and our first two goats, Snickers and Eleanor Rigby, both Nubian Boer crosses, were delivered that same weekend.  Eleanor came to us pregnant, but sadly, the baby didn't survive. It still makes me cry. Since then, we've added two Nigerian Dwarf wethers, Randy and Oreo, and three more girls- Princess, a female Nigerian Dwarf, Heaven- a purebred Nubian, and Kiwi- a Boer.
We made some improvements to the chicken coop and collected layers. Our five Rhode Island Reds came from craigslist, and the Three Stooges, aka, White Leghorns came from a family friend who rescued them from another family's Easter basket. Gertie, the yellow Bantam (Ezra's chicken) came over from Grandma's house where she was lonely.  The eight Amaracaunas came next. We have since added another 10 baby chicks from the feed store- four more White Leghorns, two rust colored Frizzles, a  Silver Wyandotte, two Barred Rocks and a Buff Orpington.  In addition to the chickens, we had three Guinea Hens. They were a little too noisy ( Chris hated them), so we just re-homed them, but they were so fun to watch and we would collect their polka-dotted feathers.
Three rabbits came home from the feed store early on. Fat Jack Ears, Francis, and Bean. Only Bean (Ezra's) survived the summer- yes, we let them burrow and supplied them with an endless amount of frozen water bottles, and warned the boys ahead of time that the heat might get to them. It was sad.
We've learned some valuable lessons on our "farm". Goats can get through chicken wire quite easily, they get nasty diarreah if they eat chicken feed, and they'll bite the buttons off your clothes-including the giant rhinestone buttons off your favorite jeans. Chickens will peck relentlessly at shiny toenail polish, lay their eggs wherever they darn well please, and every once in a while, find themselves in the car, on the way to school, because they hop over the fence using the garbage can near the back gate, and are wandering aimlessly around the driveway when mom is running late for carpool.
Our determination to plant a garden cost us the rental of a rototiller, and countless hours with the shovels and picks and even bare hands, scraping the sad excuse of a garden bed into furrows.... and nothing grew. So, add to the list of things we've learned: Replace your "dirt" with soil or use a raised bed instead.  We've been composting- with both a home-made system and my dad's "for real" set-up.  We keep a gallon-sized bag near the sink and toss all our egg shells and banana peels into it. Most everything green goes out the back door for the rabbit and when I clean out the fridge of unwanted leftovers, it all goes out to the chickens. I love that I don't feel like I'm throwing money away by throwing food away! We then clean out the animal cages and enclosures on a regular basis and throw the mounds of poop into the composters or into a pile in the garden that eventually gets worked into rotation. We are very much looking forward to planting again in February!
We also have pink grapefruit, lemon, peach, apricot and apple trees.  They aren't huge, but they certainly produce!  Things we learned here: Little boys think it's fun to have "wars" with anything easily launched- unripened fruit included. They also like to stab all the grapefruit with large bamboo sticks, and they think they're such good helpers by doing so! "Look! I can fit three on here!", and citrus trees have gnarly sharp thorns.
I'm pretty sure our boys are in Heaven here. They're learning to work and play hard, as are Chris and I, which is exactly what we were hoping for.