Ryan and I met as people do now..  on an app.  I was still working on my house full time and he was still working in IT for a local collage.  I think we both knew it was something special from the first date.  Over the first year of our relationship a lot of our evenings were actually spent playing Stardew Valley, this created a wonderful enviroment for building our young relationship by working together and getting to talk about real things in a relaxed way.  Because we were "saving the farm" on stardew we got to talk so much about real farm things.  being self suffeciant was always really important to me and I already had my fair share of livestock experiance.  however Ryan having grown up in town didnt have that so i really didnt know how he felt about farming in general until we started talking so much through stardew..  Turns out he loves everything about the farm life and our conversations quickly became more about the real farm than the stardew one.  That game will always hold a special place in my heart because of how it opened up that line of communication for us. 

Ryan and I both long for simplicity and peace.  we arent after lots of money and super nice things, of course there are certain things that we enjoy but we both agree we would rather have less and work less than work all  the time and have no time left to actually live.  

My realization of this happened when I lived in NC for a bit.  I was a single girl, working like crazy and not having time for much else.  I even had what would be a dream home for me, 1913 bungalow with so much charactor and a fireplace in the kitchen.  I loved that house, but i was so exhausted I never got time to enjoy it.   One day enough was enough, I sold the house, quit my job and moved back to TN where dad spent a year or so helping me build the house Ryan and I live in now.   

I loved getting to have that time with Dad,  I learned so much and i got so much time with him.  we were always close but working on the house together really set our relationship apart.  He of course was still working so a lot of things he would show me how to do one or two on the weekend and i would finish thee rest while he was gone.  I got to learn how to do so many things from wiring and plumming to setting a window.  Those skills will be so valuable when Ryan and i start to build onto the house.

I think the realization happened for Ryan happened when he was still working IT.  Poor manegment can ruin what should be the best job...  That job had become so stressful due to office politics that Ryan seemed to be a shell of his former self.  I hated watching him go through it, having to sit by while he was under attack and all i could do was try to be there to cheer him up.  We hadent been together very long so it was actually pretty scary to go through something so difficult so early on.  After sevral months of office torture he had is "enough is enough moment" and quit that job to return to the grocery store he worked at as a teen.  some people thought he was crazy, but i thought he was so strong and I got to watch him transform back into his former self in just a couple weeks of being in a less stressful place. 

Fast forward a little while, he's at the grocery store, I'm working part time at a furniture store and we finally get married!   In keeping with the rest of our goals we wanted a peaceful, relaxing, NO STRESS wedding.  so we eloped at sunrise in Outer Banks NC.   It was absolutely perfect.  

We return home to live on the farm but quickly realize we are back to being stressed...  theres so much to do and it seemed we were wokring opposit shifts almost everyday.  we never got a whole day at home, and some days we only saw eachother for an hr in the day.  

So we started working on a plan..  We already wanted to farm together but could we make it profitable enough for us to both be on the farm full time.  Ryan was already selling more hand made furniture and flags than he had time for and the same with my sourdough.  

So we picked a few things we needed for a safety net and decided when we had that in place we would quit and dedicate ourselves to working together on the farm.

But things never go according to plan do they? 

Luckily for us this time it was a good thing!  We had already figured we could quit our jobs about June or July of 2024.   

Then in November of 2023 Dad got a big job in AL and asked if we would be interested to come for a couple months and do inventory for customs.  After careful consideration we decided to go for it.  We got all our current animals accounted for (Jesse and Felix came with us of course), the house taken care of to be empty a while and the house in town rented to a lovely couple. 

so here we are today, living in a camper in a factory parking lot in Auburn AL, happy to finally have some time together.  We enjoy getting to explore a new town and new thrift stores on our days off.   What was originally going to me 2-3 months is now at least 5 months, even though we are pretty home sick we are grateful for the opportunity to work longer.  We get to go home about once a month to see everyone but it gets harder to leave the farm every time.  

We are doing what we can to improve the farm from our camper.  We got our freeze dryer that they've let us set up in our office, we are really enjoying getting to try our all the different things we can freeze dry and share with everyone here.  we should be able to go back home with some long term storage food put away as well as a plan of what we would like to start selling.

We started a worm bin to feed our kitchen scraps to that way by the time we go home we'll have plenty of worms and some good rich soild to give our garden a kick start!

We are also taking this time to really focus on learning and planning for the ranch.  I read aloud on our long drives back home, we always look for new garden or farm books at thrift stores and we've started our farm book to keep everything strait.

Then of course there's this website. I know its a little premature to start a website now but I'm really enjoying learning how to build it and getting to write out our store like this, its helping me remember why its so worth being here.