We bought a farm!
Greetings from our 8.6 acre farm! We have been eating “healthy” for two years now. Eating healthy has a different meaning now than it did when we began two years ago. Initially we eliminated processed foods, next I started researching what foods we should be adding, whether organic really matters, what foods help detoxify the body, what do I look for on a label. Long story short, the only way to be sure my family would have access to the food I wanted for them was to produce it ourselves. John & I took a weekend to get away in early March and felt the Lord was leading us to list our “luxury home” this spring. Well the timing was perfect and we sold our house in under 2 weeks. The search began!
We had been driving the areas around Montrose and looking online for months. We had a list of what our home must have: water for irrigation (it is very arid in Montrose so without irrigation water growing a large garden would be too expensive), 2-10 acres (space would determine how many animals we would be able to pasture if we decided to raise our own meat), covenants that permitted chickens & goats, preferably had outbuildings, and a house for us to live in. This property has it all, with character!
This is the house. It has been added onto and updated over the years giving it a lot of “character”. The foundation of the original portion is rocks, two bedrooms are on a floating concrete collar, and the 4th bedroom and sun porch are on a concrete slab. Ask my husband about the crawl space and attic access, it’s crazy.
We have several “out buildings”- here you are looking east at the grain silo, a block building which has a large shop and a finished room we are using for storage, and beyond the shop is our 30×60 metal barn with dirt floor.
This area hadn’t been worked in a long while. I cleared the circle area in a mere 3 hours on my hands & knees.
This is the view out to the hay pasture. We have 4 acres of hay, and two fenced grass pastures. Initially we will have a small tribe of goats (I’ll introduce them in another post soon), but we plan to pasture a steer or two and perhaps some lambs in the years ahead. There are plans for chickens and ducks too! The head gate for our irrigation is in the back right corner of the hay field.
We had water on our list of “must haves” and God answered generously. We have irrigation, a well for landscape water, and a spring which runs year round to provide water for our animals. We also have city water.
I feel we are living exactly where God wants us to. In my devotions during the search I was drawn to Psalm 37 which speaks of “dwelling in the land” and “enjoying safe pasture” and Isaiah 49:10 “They will not hunger or thirst, the scorching heat or sun will not strike them; for the compassionate one will guide them, and lead them to springs of water”. This was the only property we looked at that has a spring.
Our project list is unending, definitely in need of prioritizing. I have a small garden started thanks to a friend who started too many heirloom tomatoes for her garden (next post!), and we have a good start in preparing the pole barn and yard for goats. “It only took me two years to build my farming muscles”, said a kind friend to encourage me to keep working on our dream.
As the garden comes in I’ll share recipes for using the heirloom tomatoes (chili sauce, salsa, stewed tomatoes) and my experience learning to make cheese, yogurt, kefir, soap, and shampoo with the goat milk. Did I mention I have never milked a goat? This is the summer I am stepping out of my comfort zone!
Blessings from the farm,
Karen Hunter
http://www.pharmacytofarmacy.com
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My name is Karen Hunter. I am a wife, mother, health coach, farmer and pharmacist. I live on an 8 acre farm in Montrose, Co. where we raise ducks, goats and sheep. Our goal is to raise as much of our food as possible. The garden is in process. REAL health comes from eating REAL food.
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