Yeah...I don't know about this blogging thing. I'm not sure I really have time to chronicle this journey, because I'm awfully busy just trying to survive it. But enough people hassle me on Facebook, that I'm going to do a test drive. We'll see if I have what it takes. We'll start with the back story...
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I did not grow up on a farm, and neither did my parents. You have to go back three generations to get to the farm - one family branch in western Kentucky, and one in southeast Arkansas - but hillbilly redneck in both directions. I grew up in a wealthy suburb of a mid-sized city, born to upper-middle class parents. I went to a private middle school, a "rich" high school, and attended the "rich" Episcopal church downtown. I went to a large university in the South and joined a sorority. I met my husband there, got married, and we eventually moved to the Mecca of Texas High Society, Dallas.
There we were, in our big house with a pool, pretending to be the perfect family with two perfect kids, and me a perfect stay-at-home wife who cooked gourmet meals every night. But the redneck blood was still in there... just waiting to boil to the surface. Three generations just wasn't enough to dilute it. First of all, I am a CRAPPY stay-at-home wife. I can't cook, and I can't clean, and I sure wasn't happy pretending that I could. I'm pretty sure I had the neighborhood ladies and my PTA friends fooled, but my husband and kids knew the truth. That was the first domino to fall.
Then we left the "rich" church to go to a "real" church. That's where I started to see the lie for what it was. That's where I started to realize this wasn't the way I wanted to raise my kids. You can only play "keep up with the Jones" for so long without loosing your sanity and your SELF, not to mention your sense of proper priorities. My marriage was in trouble, my kids were in trouble, and I was dangerously depressed. Changing churches and improving my relationship with Jesus was a start, but He wanted more. The rest of the dominoes fell that horrible year.
So we sold the mansion and moved to the country. Not so far out that my husband couldn't commute to work in town, but far enough to buy 3 acres with no homeowner's association to tell us what to do with it. We built a smaller house, and started on this new, calmer way of life. This time, I'm not building with dominoes. Those suckers just aren't stable enough.
After taking a year to get settled and adjusted, and to fence the pastures, we started getting animals. The first grade class at the school was studying the life cycle of an egg, and gave me the live chicks at the end of the unit. That's when I learned how much I hate roosters. As soon as they were old enough, six chickens became three hens. Mark built a coop, and two months later we were having to eat eggs twice a week just to make room in the fridge. That's when I learned that out here, conversations with neighbors don't involve trying to one-up each other. They give advice, and I pay in eggs.
The next year, I bought 4 baby Nubian dairy goats - Jasmine, Tiny, Socks, and Belle. I bottle fed them... because I had no idea just how hard it is to bottle feed four babies with only two hands, and I was too tired to have the sense to look at caprine supply catalogs for another way (now I know - one bucket, many nipples). I also learned that my children's old toddler coats work really great on shivering baby goats when it gets below 10 degrees. You just cut the arms off. Speaking of arms...mine looked pretty good that winter from hauling buckets of hot water out to the goat shed. Now I know to build the barn closer to the house when we get ready to up-size to an actual barn.
In the fall, I "rented" a buck for my girls, and that stud managed to get everybody pregnant in just 30 days. Sadly, Jasmine's break away collar didn't break away when she got hung on the fence. I found her that morning and had to deal with 120 lb carcass myself, since Mark was overseas on a business trip. Did you know there is only 6 inches of top soil in some parts of North Texas? Poor Jasmine had to be hauled away in a trash bag.
Fast forward to spring, and the other three had babies. Those wacky delivery stories will have to wait for my next entry. Right now, it's time to milk the goats.
