It’s no secret that Jimmy and I plan to move near the Charlottesville area in the next couple of years, buy a farm, and do our best to homestead it. Wait, maybe it is a secret on this here blog. Have I mentioned that before? No? Well here it is, folks:
The grand plan
Sell our Norfolk house, find Jimmy a job in Charlottesville or nearby, buy some land in Louisa, Crozet, or somewhere just outside Charlottesville proper. Start a small farm, start a small family. Live off the land as much as possible. Grow our own food. Have some animals to keep us company and help out with things.
For the love of a goat
We’ve been enamored with goats for a while. They’re so mischevious and funny, Jimmy will use no other soap than goats milk soap, and our love for goats was totally cemented when we discovered The Fabulous Beekman Boys (can’t wait for season two!) and I read Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s hilarious, suspenseful and moving memoir, The Bucolic Plague. (Bonus points for you if you get the pun because no one I’ve ever mentioned the book to knows what bucolic means, not even my former journalist boss. Really?)
I have never raised animals before (Kyla doesn’t count, she kind of runs the place) and I plan on trying my hand at a bee colony this spring (thanks mom for letting me use your yard), but goats are a whole other matter. They’re smart, they do what they want, they’re faster than me, and they kick pretty hard. Goats seem a little intimidating. Yet Jimmy and I are bound and determined to raise goats when we get our farm going.
Looking locally
There’s a local brand of goats milk soap that we love and use whenever we can get our hands on it – Tasha’s Own. My friend Lisa sells it at her yoga studio, which is usually where I find it, but then in a conversation with my sister Grace last winter, I found out strangely enough that one of her friends from high school, Mairin, is actually part of the family that makes the soap! Cha-ching! Goat connection!
I emailed Maureen, Mairin’s mom, last summer and asked if I could come visit, and maybe if we could work out some sort of goat teaching arrangement. I’d build a website or scoop goat poop and do other stinky farm chores if she’d let me hang out and learn some of her goaty wisdom. She was understandably busy with a huge CSA to run, something like eight children to tend to, not to mention dozens of chickens, some goats, sheep, dogs, and more animals running around. I emailed her again last week just to see if things had slowed down since the crops aren’t doing much this time of year, and she invited me out to the farm. Babies were being born, she said! She didn’t have to ask me twice.
Friday morning I headed out to their Pungo farm to spend some time with their family and meet the goats! Yes, that is me milking Edelweiss, one of the Saanen goats in their herd. She was very accommodating to my fumbling hands. I think I got at least a tablespoon of milk in the five minutes I sat there hamhandedly trying to milk her. Poor Edelweiss. I’ve got a lot of practicing to do. Maureen and her daughter Rose showed off their impressively muscled forearms – Popeye muscles they called them. Twice a day milking a herd of goats will do that to you apparently.
There were so many baby goats around. They are darling. So curious and playful. This is one of the most handsome baby goats that was there. He was practically polka dotted all over his body. This one is a Nubian goat – you can tell by their floppy ears. They are… shall we say… less accommodating to being milked than the Saanens. While the Saanens helpfully positioned their hips to allow for easy milking and contentedly munched away while Maureen milked, this baby’s mom was sure to tuck her teats as far from everyone’s hands as she could, and even succeeded in kicking Rose and knocking over the milk pail. Naughty goat.
I really can’t think of a better way to spend a Friday than by getting baby goat kisses from a goat wearing a sweater. Other than maybe watching baby goats play…
What’s next?
I am doing tons of research in my spare time about farming, goats, bees, how to choose agricultural land, irrigation… I really need to know it all before we can make this move. I hope that I can spend some more time with Maureen and her family in the next few months. Just being there on the farm confirmed in my heart that we are taking the right path, Jimmy and I.
I don’t expect a pastoral scene with baby goats frolicking around me all the time, while my vegetables safely rest nearby, free from deer and pests, and I effortlessly cook up a homegrown, gourmet meal in the kitchen. I know farm work is hard work. I also hope that it will be extremely rewarding work. The kind of work you can sit down after a long hot day, and know that you did something worthwhile. I want to get there.
The Liberty Garden
I’m excited to be a part of some pretty cool stuff happening over at Robb Wolf’s site. Today he rolled out the concept of The Liberty Garden. Stop by his site and read about it. We’ll be pushing out some awesome content about how to source local food, how to start a community garden or host a plant swap, how to find clean, humanely raised meat for your family, how to grow your own food, and more.
I’ll be doing regular profiles on what we’re calling Liberty Growers: small family farms, local CSAs, humane animal growers, people who are practicing sustainable agriculture and helping to change the food system in this country. I’m excited to be able to feature Maureen’s family as one of our first interviews, and show the world their wonderful family farm. I’m also beyond thrilled that Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms has agreed to let me come up in early May to interview him and tour the farm. Life feels kind of amazing lately.
What’s up with y’all?
I know it’s been quiet around here, other things have been brewing. Work is good and busy, I’m cooking yummy food for Jimmy, practicing yoga frequently in my home office, snuggling on the couch with the dog, doing a little knitting, doing a lot of reading.
Life is good. How about yours?
What have you been up to lately? Any favorite goat stories to share? Know a farmer I should interview for the Liberty Growers stories? Tip me off in the comments.
About the Author
Can’t wait
All our best wishes are with you. xo
Love those pics and your awesome plan. Can’t wait, you know I will come visit!
You better!
Baby goats!!!!!!! OH my cuteness! The goats I got to goat sit were teenage or older, what I would have given to have some babies around. Your plans for a homestead are great, and I’m very much on the same page as you–but PhD work, etc. will probably get in the way for awhile. Can’t wait to hear about your tour/talk with Salatin! I met one of his partners at his farm last spring–pretty cool. Definitely a different ideology (religion-wise) than mine, but they’re doing amazing things for farming in the area.
He’s definitely revolutionized the way people look at local foods! Good luck with your PhD!
Love all the goat pictures, and wish you the best in your farming endeavor. I recently read a book that a New Yorker wrote about leaving her Manhattan life to marry a farmer. They started a CSA in upstate New York that offers a full diet to it’s members. The book is “The Dirty Life” by Kristin Kimball. She was a travel writer before she became an organic farmer, and I thought the book was very well-written. It made me eager for spring so I can start my little backyard vegetable garden again.
I actually just bought that book! I can’t wait to start reading it!! It’s on my coffee table right now.
I think this sounds wonderful! I really am envious! Goats are so fun just watch out ’cause they like to jump on everything and could ruin your cars, etc.
I think it sounds awesome. I am so excited for the two of you. Living in the cornfields is not as bad as a lot make it seem. It’s peaceful and fun. If you have woods nearby its awesome to go and have hiking adventures. I am very thankful that we have chosen to not have our children in town or in a city, rather out in the country. There are so many learning opportunities available. Abram will be joing 4H this summer, and his animal he gets to be sponsored with is a goat. This of course means that we will be raising the goat on our land, and I am needing to learn too.
My neighbor Tina has alpacas, llamas, sheep, goats, and chickens and roosters. She spins yarn and works at craft shows, she sells eggs at her home, and she shears the sheep. The alpacas are amazingly sweet, and have funny attitudes.
With fourwheeling, go karting, snowmobiling, and doing donuts through the yard in the winter, tanning and swimming out in the open, huge bonfires and parties, and growing great gardens. Why wouldn’t you want to live in the country. I’m praying for you guys to find the right place, at the right time, and that everything will be smooth, and when it’s not smooth that you guys will have good laughs in the meantime.
Love you guys, and pray for you all the time.
Tina and Gabe
This all sounds great! Baby goats are so cute and that goat milk soap is glorious.
I’m actually trying to find someone around here who has their own bees because I have HORRIBLE allergies and I do not like taking any kind of medicine. I’ve heard that if you eat honey that is local to the area, that it really helps with the allergies by introducing you in a nicer way to the allergens. Sounds like a good excuse to eat honey to me
Good luck with the big plans!
I’ve tried the local honey thing, but I found no discernible effects. Granted I have hay-fever type allergies of the horrific, ass-kicking, want to die in the spring time sort, so there may have been an effect, but it wasn’t enough to make me want to live.
But it is a good excuse to eat good, local honey. I’m going to give it another go this year.
This is a really great story, the only connection I have with goats is that I’m a capricorn, I sometimes have goat cheese with my salads, and just recently bought soap made from goat milk from my local famers market on dam neck across from landstown commons. I love to draw them though. Your appreciation for the modern sustainable and farmers life style goals is much appreciated. After researching more about the food industry lately, especially in America, it is definitely life and eye changing. I think twice when I’m buying and cooking food these days..
That sounds so exciting! I read another homesteading blog: http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com/
and I really appreciate all of the hard work that goes into running your own farm. I can’t wait to see yours:)
I can’t wait to come visit your farm so you can drag my butt out of bed at 5am to play with cute animals !
Hi, Amber – Since you asked, I just wanted to remind you about Michael Astera and his efforts to make sure that the food we farmers grow is as nutritious as possible. Michael’s blog is at
http://thenewagriculture.blogspot.com/
I think Robb would flip out reading about how any mineral deficiency in soil truncates the possibility of full nutrition from the products of that soil and how full mineral balancing maximizing the nutrient content of products from the soil, giving us truly nutrient dense fruits, vegetables and, yes, meat animals.
Jerry Brunetti is another eco-ag great (Just ask Joel Salatin about Jerry, or me, for that matter!
Jerry was one of the original “The Farm, not the Pharm” thinkers and speakers. He’s available through agri-dynamics on the web
Keep up the very good work! (PS It’s lamb time here at the farm! Boy, are they cute! I’ll share some photos with you when I get a chance to put them up.
Stay Busy!!
You, my darling, are a real inspiration!
I bought Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s book ‘I Am Not Myself These Days’ at an airport years ago and loved it, I can’t wait to get hold of this one (about to order it online), such a fluke that you mentioned it, I had no idea that he had another one out (I’ve also got his novel, ‘Candy Everyone Wants’ – I love him!) I also didn’t realise that he was part of the Beekman Boys! They advertised it here but I never got the chance to see it – I’ll have to track it down now!
Get Corgi’s!
I love your dream! In fact, I have the exact same one!! Charlottesville is probably the best location for my someday farm.