Five Years as a Farmers Wife

I can't believe we've lived here for five years already!

When we moved in here I was less than thrilled about being in the country. I am a city (at least town) girl through and through. I liked being able to go to the store and get some fresh tomatoes for a salad if I wanted them. I liked being able to make a Sonic run any time without worrying about the cost of gasoline. And there were benefits to having neighbors close to you.

Can I just say that all those things I liked were not that big a deal now that I think back on it? We have had a lot of fun and growth while we've been here. When we moved in we had two sons and we've added another son and a daughter. That's a lot of life to bring into a home and they have all been wonderful additions! I think our family is complete now, but they are the BEST kids and the BEST husband a girl could ever ask for!

Our first summer here we tried a small garden and each year we tried to up it just a little. We had grand plans for our garden this summer, but 40+ days of over 100 degrees and a month with no rain, we didn't have any garden. Next year, we will have an awesome garden because we are starting now collecting all the things to make the plants grow AND we'll have our own compost to plant everything in.

Here's a pic of our 2nd garden (2007). Mark and the boys planting a few cucumbers. I'm not sure that any of this garden did very well, but we got better...
This would be our 3rd garden (2009). The top pic is just the tomatoes and pumpkins. The 2nd pic is melons and cucumbers.
Another huge difference is that when we moved in, the only animal we had was Roger, the beagle and we really thought that was enough. Today we have 5 outdoor cats, two indoor kittens, Roger, and two lab puppies as well as 19 chickens. We have also kept a goat alive for over a year before selling it to a gentleman who needed it for his male goat who was a little ambitious in the love department. AND we managed to raise up two pigs who are now housed in our freezer read for dinner.
With the house came 11 acres of land, too. We are still trying to be better land owners. We haven't really used the land to the best of it's ability at all. We did house 5 horses on it last summer, but someday we would really like to put alfalfa or some other small crop on it that we could use for our livestock. Someday we will get there. For now, we just enjoy our little trail that we have made and having plenty of room for little ones to run and play!
What can I say? We have put more life into this place than one would think and I wouldn't trade any of it for the world! I really think there is more to share, but it will take me some time to think of all of it...maybe this will inspire me to blog a little more. :)

Couldn't be more happy with how things are going!