12/07/2021
As I process the last of the produce our farm produced this year, and eat the last of our eggs. I am letting it all sink in.
It’s hard being a farmer, and trying to juggle working where you live. You tend to work pretty much around the clock. But it’s also hard juggling 5 kiddos still at home with another grown child that still needs your help a lot due to medical reasons.
The reality is Andy and I really do LOVE farming. But we love our kids more. With lots of blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice we built a profitable farm. But with that came extreme sacrifice to our family and kids. The hardest part of farming honestly was employees. Constantly trying to keep staff, or find staff, or reliable staff, it was the hardest part. I’ve heard the same thing from even friends who are self employed trying to find staff for their office. And yes we were paying more then most fast food places, and almost as much as Walmart.
Farming is hard and raising kids is hard. Putting the two together was honestly harder then I imagined. It’s okay to admit it’s too much. And we had to choose our hard. So even though we are not farming anymore we are still busy busy busy.
It has just changed to showing up for our kids, and transitioning out of farming. Actually seeing our extended family & spending time together.
We can always chose to farm again after our kids are raised, but we can’t go back to parenting young kids again.
There’s things I already miss about farming and a lot that I don’t. But I know that I will definitely miss all the amazing produce we grew. As we will be taking a year off of growing for ourselves. So you might see me at the farmers market in 2022.
Today I’m thankful for this journey of farming and all that it taught me. I truly do miss having a few chickens around. And oh how I miss the pig oinks and yes I miss Paul the pig.
But after a month of absolutely no farming our souls and spirits are starting to feel renewed. And we are at the beginning of feeling a bit more normal again.
Thank you for following our journey, and supporting us along the way.