I hope you’re enjoying this series! In case you’ve missed the other posts, here are the links to read them: A New Blog Series: How to Fail at Farming (Or, Mistakes to Avoid if You Want to Succeed at Farming) Buy a Farm without Considering Your Own Personality and Passions Buy a Farm without Considering Your Kids’ Activities Buy Land Before Learning How to Farm Learn About Farming from Books (Not People) Buy a Farm Because You Think it Will Be a “Simpler Life” We didn’t specifically go looking for huge land. Originally we were looking at 2+ acre pieces. Most of the pieces we found were closer in to town, nicely…

I hope you’re enjoying this series! In case you’ve missed the other posts, here are the links to read them: A New Blog Series: How to Fail at Farming (Or, Mistakes to Avoid if You Want to Succeed at Farming) Buy a Farm without Considering Your Own Personality and Passions Buy a Farm without Considering Your Kids’ Activities Buy Land Before Learning How to Farm Learn About Farming from Books (Not People) I don’t know why I ever got the impression that farming was a “Simpler Life.” Let me start out by saying, loud and clear: Farming is NOT a Simple Life! You know what I mean, though, right? Picture…

I hope you’re enjoying this series! In case you’ve missed the other posts, here are the links to read them: A New Blog Series: How to Fail at Farming (Or, Mistakes to Avoid if You Want to Succeed at Farming) Buy a Farm without Considering Your Own Personality and Passions Buy a Farm without Considering Your Kids’ Activities Buy Land Before Learning How to Farm I mentioned in my first post in this series that we knew nothing about farming. This did not stop me from acquiring every homesteading book I could find. Before we moved onto the farm, I checked them out at the library. I practiced making cheese, making my…

I hope you’re enjoying this series! In case you’ve missed the other posts, here are the links to read them: A New Blog Series: How to Fail at Farming (Or, Mistakes to Avoid if You Want to Succeed at Farming) How to Fail at Farming Post #2, Buy a Farm without Considering Your Own Personality and Passions How to Fail at Farming Post #3, Buy a Farm without Considering Your Kids’ Activities Please trust me on this one, guys. I know how easy it is to become excited at the thought of owning your very own land. I know all of the ways that you can convince yourself that RIGHT NOW is…

Figure out who you are and what God is REALLY calling you to do. You can't do everything well. You will drop at least one of the balls you're juggling if you try to juggle too many. Is farming your passion above all else? Will any of your personality traits cause issues for you as you try to run a farm? Are there aspects of your personality that you will need to consider, to make sure that you choose the right farm for you?

If you’ve been following my blog over the years, you know that we bought a farm in 2010 with big dreams and goals. I had been reading every homesteading book I could get my hands on before that. Our oldest son said emphatically that he wanted to be a pig farmer (of course, he was only 8!). We had planted as many fruit trees and as big of a garden as we could manage on our tiny neighborhood lot. We were ready for space and a real farming adventure! We did end up having many farming adventures, and also many failures. Farming was a giant learning curve for us, as neither one of us…

When we first moved to our farm, I had a vision: that we were not going to feed our chickens soy or corn (more on the corn part another day). At first we found a a soy-free feed that wasn’t corn-free, and we went with it. Then we had the feed store make a soy-free, corn-free feed for us, but it was a little pricy. Then we found a feed company that made an organic, soy-free, corn-free feed, and we were stoked. It’s still expensive. It costs a lot of money to feed chickens right. When we’ve looked at the cost of the conventional, GMO-soy-filled feeds, we’ve been tempted…ok, my husband has…