a new life begins.

Wednesday night, under the cover of darkness, we moved ourselves and our 99 hens and began our new life! We chose to do the moving at night because as soon as darkness falls, the hens go to sleep. In this state they are completely out of it and are very easy to grab, put in crates and transport. It's less stressful and traumatic for them and in turn, for us. Earlier in the week while I was packing up the camper, Nate was at the new farm setting things up for them. We stacked all of the crates in our mini van and off we went on a new adventure.
It was hard to drive away from the farm that started everything. The farm where we spent the last 2 years learning and growing. Where so many experiences were born. But many new changes and experiences are on the horizon.
So...where did we go?
For over a year now, we've been trying to make things work out with a well-known organic farmer. He raises organic grass-fed beef and organic grains. He's very knowledgeable and we have a lot of respect for what he's done and stand to learn a lot from him. The farmer, 'Farmer R', has been running this whole operation by himself (which is A LOT of work) for many, many years and he's getting tired and is in need of help. We will spend time helping him and learning the ins and outs of raising cattle. It's a whole new learning curve for us. We have a future vision of a sustainable, multi-faceted, multi-farmer farm where we have a group of people involved and we produce a little bit of everything.
We have moved ourselves and our hens here but we don't actually have a house yet. Luckily, a good friend of ours, also lives on the farm with her family and is letting us stay here until the housing situation works itself out. The good news is that our hens are settled into their new home on the farm and are doing well and we're staying in a real house with a wood burning stove, a REAL SHOWER and a REAL KITCHEN. I'm seriously in heaven.
After a most stressful period of freezing, worrying, packing and moving, we were able to relax a little and spend christmas with our family. There's no rest for the wicked though.....or, I should say, the farmer. This morning we started our new lives as cattle farmers, complete with the 2 of us being covered in manure by 1pm. Ah, life is good.
We still have a long way to go like getting into a house and moving the rest of our stuff from the old farm but for now, in this moment, we're here. We finally, finally made it and we can now take a deep breath and let it all sink in.