Home Sweet Home

 

After years of waiting and dreaming, I can finally say I moved into my own little slice of this planet.  As hectic as things have been with moving (and everything it entails), it has been tough to share some of our initial experiences out here.  In just a month, we have already seen so much and created an even longer list of things we want to do.

Before I start sharing our grand ideas, I want to give you a quick tour of our yet to be named little family farm. 

Our new farmhouse is set on a grassy hill on the outskirts of our 28 acre property. The 28 acres is made of 18 acres of grass farm field, 2 acres of pasture, and about 8 acres of “dry property,” meaning 8 acres of sagebrush and juniper.  With much consideration, and knowing that neither of us are farmers (at least not yet ;), we decided to lease out the larger field to be used for grass hay. The pasture and untamed winderness are ours to use.

The house is perfect. It's a single story home with a beautiful brick hearth (which means I finally have my fireplace, yay!!) and picture windows with breath-taking views! From the front room and the kitchen, you look out upon Mt. Jefferson. From the bathtub, you can see Mt. Hood! As for the rest, they overlook the property and the surrounding fields. One more great aspect: a HUGE laundry room. It has a sink, cupboards, drawers, built in hamper, the works! (It's currently being used for laundry and seed-starting :)

We also have a huge shop and a very quaint bunkhouse. It's rustic, having only lights and a wall heater, but a perfect size for a little guest house...minus the bathroom situation. Thankfully it's not too far from the house.



Bell our new farm cat



 When we left our old house, our little family consisted of Cam and myself, our two dogs, and three cats. But by the time we moved into our new home, we had accumulated four more! We inherited one 12 year old barn cat, and three Barbados sheep; one ewe and two rams, and the ewe was VERY pregnant. It has been a lot of fun watching them interact with the other animals (those still here waiting to be moved) and with us.



We have been here a month now and already we have created close to 3-years worth of projects we want to start! Our first is creating my vegetable garden along with planting our "orchard" (I'll call it that because I always wanted to say I had one, but really its just a few fruit trees, ha!). I consider myself truly blessed to be here and cant' wait to see what God has in store for us!

 



I also wanted to throw something else out there that I was looking for some feedback on.  I started this post by saying "our yet to be named family farm" but I do have an idea, actually it was my dad's idea. You see, the house is on the top of the hill of our property and just beyond the yard is a hillside of rock. Not just little rocks, I mean BIG rocks and hard-pan very near the surface. The only way to really dig in it is with a pick-axe, which I just had to purchase (I'll be sharing that experience soon).  So, my dad came up with, Stony Hill Farm.  So what do you think? Keep it? Chuck it? I would love to hear any feedback and/or any suggestions or ideas you might have! Creating a name is a fun part of this whole experience and we want something fitting and unique!

 

Mt. Jefferson from our couch in the front room :)

 

I'm looking forward to sharing what we've done so far and what we are hoping to do! Hopefully this was a good sampling of the joy we've experienced so far!

 

Enjoy!