city girl . turned . country

A lot has changed since I've stopped posting on our blog. One major change: I am now a farmer. Yup, f-a-r-m-e-r. Not so much with crops, and definitely on the small side, but yeah, like Old MacDonald.

Ben's always been a farmer at heart, and had a lot of experience growing up with one of his friends who had cows and pigs. He even showed some of the animals at fairs. Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, the only time I ever experienced farm animals was when we visited my family in Kentucky or when we worked on a farm as part of a missions trip, but even then we didn't do much as far as the animals went. So this has been quite the adventure for me! Ben, on the other hand, has just come alive with it all. BUT, we have both learned a lot!

At first, it was just quite a few chickens.

Chicks, actually. (They are full grown in the picture). They were cute and fluffy and oh so tiny! Black, white, and yellow/red. We had some that are bread for meat, and some that are good egg layers. At this point, I didn't necessarily feel like a farmer. Most anyone can have chickens.

Then, we got Sunny and Payday. The pigs.

They are brothers. They were little and slept a lot, and to my surprise, they really didn't smell! Pigs are actually some of the cleanest animals. They are very careful of where they go to the bathroom, and only roll around in mud because they cannot sweat so it cools them off! Their pen was behind our garage, so beyond going to visit them, you couldn't even tell they were there. After the pigs, I felt a little more legitimate, not just anyone can have pigs on their property!

But what truly sealed the deal, what made it very clear that I was a farmer, was when I found myself waking up at 5am, in the dark, before work, putting on my boots, bundling up, grabbing a pail, and for the first time milking one of our animals. The moment I walked outside was when it hit me. There was no doubt in my mind: we are farmers with a capital F.

Our property isn't big enough to sustain a cow because of how much grass they eat, so the answer to getting our own milk and making our own cheese was goats! Nigerian dwarf goats actually. They need a lot less grass but give out a lot of milk for how little they are. We started out with Dolly,

but have since added Africa, Gus, and Miss Boss.

Thankfully, though, we have gotten better and learned a lot, and there are no more 5am morning milkings at our house :)

So, this farming thing, it's our new adventure. And, it's definitely growing on me.