Starting a farm..

One of the biggest questions we get asked is “so you just started a farm?” And the answer is, YES!

If you knew us 10 years ago, the last thing one would think of us would be “they will be farmers one day”. Sure we had a passion for quality food and Jeremy grew up raising animals through FFA and had horses at home. I on the other hand had ZERO farm/animal experience. Other than when I was growing up watching some cows being born at the county fair. The most animal care I had ever done was dogs, cats and maybe a goldfish here and there. So how did we end up with a farm?

We often joke now that our farm actually started years ago in our residential home in Folsom, CA. We decided one day to build a hoop house and start growing vegetables in a raised bed in the back yard. We were pretty proud of ourselves and our rain water collecting bucket we would use to water. Those were the years that we would spend many of our weekends at farmers markets stocking up on groceries and I would go to Whole Foods or the Co-Op to fill the fridge with the best quality stuff I could find.

When we had our first daughter, Jeremy started really diving into pasture raising chickens and the how’s and why’s. About then he started the “one day were going to raise chickens” comments and throwing around all of these plans for chicken tractors (mobile chicken coop, that a whole blog post I’ll save for a different day). I would laugh and shine him on, as I continued to spend a ridiculous amount of money on “Organic, All Natural, Cage Free, Free Range” chicken. Conversations of moving to the country so we could have more space started and one day Jeremy came home and said “Honey, I found our house!” Then before I knew it we were packing up our almost 1 year old and moving 60 miles south. Moving to a town that couldn’t be more different then what we were used to. We moved to a little town most people have never heard of, Walnut Grove, smack in the middle of the Sacramento Delta.

So here we are, on this huge 100 acre lot in an old farmhouse with a 1 year old and an idea that we wanted to raise chickens. So it began, Jeremy started building a brooder (house for baby chicks) and I kept hearing more and more “when we get our chickens…”. Then one day, he ordered chickens. Who knew that you could get chickens delivered IN THE MAIL?! And that was it, we were officially raising chickens that eventually we would EAT!

What I learned very quickly is that, farm animals DO NOT come with instruction manuals. Jeremy did a TON of research, figured out breeds and needs and all the best food choices (insert praise to husband here). But I will never forget getting our first 25 birds and thinking, what the heck am I supposed to do with these things? The answer.. we just figured it out. Figured out a good feeding routine, housing adaptations and eventually the slaughter process. And then we did it again, that time with even more birds and had to learn a whole new way of managing them. Then we decided we needed some goats and again we figured it out. Then boom, we added pigs to the mix (honestly this was the best decision ever, pigs are 100% my favorite animal to raise, and they are ADORABLE). Anyway, all of that over a course of 4 or so years, a ton of bumps in the roads and situations we couldn’t even imagine to prepare for, but we continued to figure it out.

Flash forward to today, we’ve raised hundreds of chickens, a few dozen pigs, we have some goats and now egg layer chickens, a couple ducks. Everyday is a learning process. Every new project or animal is a learning experience. Then just when you think you have it figured out, an animal will have an injury or something we built isn't working the way we need it to, so we again have to figure it out. Research, learn, investigate.. we are lucky to have soo many great homesteader/farmers to learn from and get ideas from.

Farming has a funny way of showing you your ability to adapt. Adapt to animal needs, weather, life, KIDS! There are soo many factors at play that honestly all you can do is go with it and FIGURE IT OUT. But we want it, this lifestyle, the reward, we want the farm. So that means we get all that comes along with it, the good, the bad and everything in between. We often say we should have named out farm “Lesson Learned Farm” because if it can happen, it will happen to us. But everything we have been through has taught us a lesson, given us a guideline for the next time or prepared us to handle similar situations in the future. When we say we are first generation farmers, it is more then just a title to us. We are learning as we go, starting from nothing and hopefully building this farm and set of skills that one day our girls can continue on with. As first generation we are the foundation of Honest Fish Farms, and we are pretty damn proud of that.

“It might be a hard life, but it’s a good life.” Every time I make a meal with vegetables from our garden, eggs from our chickens, meat from our animals, I am reminded how grateful I am that we took the leap. It hasn’t been easy, and it probably never will be easy but we love it anyway.

I sometimes still laugh when I say things like “I farm” or “my husband is a farmer”, because we both have been so many other things. But I think that is the beauty of it, we can, we can be all those other things and still be farmers. We didn’t wake up one day and buy a farm, throw on some boots and call ourselves farmers. We have worked and struggled and taught ourselves how to farm. All the mistakes and lessons we have learned the hard way, looking back at all of that, we are proud of where we are now. Proud to be farmers.

So there it is, honestly there are so many lessons and stories to share in the in between. And eventually ill get to them (the important ones anyway), but that is the very summarized answer to “you just started a farm on day?” Yep, we sure did, and its been a wild ride!

Until next time- Elizabeth.