live on a farm

I mean, really, who wouldn’t want to see a little guy like this everyday?

I don’t know if I want to own a farm, but I definitely want to live and work on one for a while. I love cows and goats and pigs and chickens. I really like getting dirty. I’d love to be out in a field all day picking vegetables, bottle feeding baby cows, and at the end of the day, cooking dinner with fresh produce. I want to go to Polyface Farm one day even though I think he mostly raises animals for meat. I think Joel Salatin is amazing. He does everything humanely and really follows nature’s rules.
My boyfriend found out about a program in Europe where you can work in a small farming community. You pay a small fee and your airfare. They give you room and board and you work with the community. I want to find out more about that.
In the mean time, maybe I can volunteer on a local farm, learn the ropes.

I’m DYING to live on a farm! I’m wondering if 43 is too old to have a change of lifestyle. Has anyone done this later in life?

I am not cut out for city life. This desk job is killing me. I always wanted to live and work on a farm, since I was a small child. I want to live sustainably, I don’t want to feel like I’m dependant on someone else’s hard work but my own! I don’t even like to eat food I don’t know where it came from. It grosses me out. I need physical labor to keep me strong, healthy and sane! I want to see the fruits of my labor. My great grandparents and many great aunts and uncles were farmers. I come from a long line, but the last generation, the one that bore me, decided they wanted “better” for their kids. So I got to watch the family homesteads be sold off to factory farms and vacationers while everyone shuffled off in search of corporate jobs. I want to get back to my roots. I feel like it is what I was meant to do. I feel like my body was built for physical labor and my mind for practical problem solving. That’s why my desk job makes me fat, no matter how much time I spend with a trainer, and it’s rotting my brain.

My mother says farming is horrible because you can never go on vacation and I admit I do like to travel. But I think if I got together with a couple other families, we could take turns going on vacation and being “on call”. The most successful farming family I know (distant cousins) owns most of their county and they have many of their adult children working for them, so they can switch off when they need to.

Anyway, I’m saving my money. The kids don’t want to leave their school and the husband (a musician) doesn’t want to leave his public just yet, but in five years the kids will be off to college and the husband, well, he will owe me.

We’ve decided to give up international city life for a year and are now living on a dairy farm in Taranaki, New Zealand. (Here are some photos taken from on the farm)

It’s been hard work over the calving period and we’re on the job 7 days per week, whether there’s sun, rain, or hail

But the great thing is that there’s so much space and “green” all around, and there are plenty of fun things for kids to see and do.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service has a GREAT database of sustainable farming internships and apprenticeships here: http://attrainternships.ncat.org/index.asp. I really want to do this for a season!

I found a KILLER website to help me along with this goal!
Organic Volunteers

SO far I have reviewed all of my options, I want to stick to the north west so I picked farms in Oregon and Idaho. So far I have applied to one for a summer internship. I can’t wait.

The website I listed is EXTREMELY helpful and FREE!!

I really wanted to work on an organic farm this summer, but my plans got all botched up when I withdrew from a class. I’ll do it someday, even if it’s not for many years!

A bizarre turn of events has altered my situation, and I am closer to living on a farm than ever. Of course, it will be a struggle to get there because my hubby would rather divorce than move, but with God’s help we are going anyway. The gang across the street is getting worse, and their confrontations with their enemies are happening right in my front yard (almost literally) and are getting more violent. My husband, as sweet and caring as he is about eveything else, seems to be oblivious to the dangers here, and doesn’t want to get our family away from here and out of this situation, even though I begged him to, and I even mentioned moving locally instead of to the country. He flatly refused… offering a divorce instead. I’m calling his bluff and getting our house ready for sale. Alone. I’m not even mentioning it to him until he asks why I’m painting and recarpeting eveything. He earns the living, while I keep house and homeschool. He says the one who earns the living is the one that gets to make ALL of the decisions in life. So, I’m playing by his rules, and I’m going back to work. My job, conveniently for the life I’m aiming for, is way out in the country in Tennessee, where my Dad lives. I’ll be bookbinding, which will provide a good living for us. I won’t have much time for the farming I want to do, but at least my children will. They so desperately want to live near their grandparents and have the land to roam and the animals to care for. It is fully worth every sacrifice I might have to make. Hopefully, DH’s threat of divorce was empty, and we can all go together.
I know this is what God wants for us, I just hope DH goes along with it.

Right now, this is my most desired and active goal. I even co-author a blog dedicated to communing/farming. http://paradisefarms.blogspot.com/

i’m also signing up for a organic agriculture certification at UGA this summer.