This wasn’t the original plan two decades ago—milking cows, moving pigs through the woods, and figuring out how to fit 30 more pounds of ground beef into my old chest freezer in a real-life game of Tetris. But now, for our family, these tasks have become routine. Farming is our daily life.

Our first livestock purchase was a hodge-podge flock of laying hens. Isn’t that everyone’s first purchase? After that we acquired some dairy goats, and of course baby goats (kids) came about five months later. Next, we brought home a couple calves, because the goats weren’t keeping the pasture down. Then we raised our first group of meat chickens. After that we bought a couple heifers to breed. Now, we have all of those things—and a raw milk herd share.

Feeder pigs seem to make an appearance some years, too. One year we kept back a Duroc gilt to breed and try our hand at piglets. She had a litter of purebred Duroc piglets the first year, then a litter of Kunekune cross babies the next—so cute! Farm residents have come and gone over the first decade of farming. We’ve had years with a massive garden and tomatoes covering the kitchen table. We’ve also had years with just a few herbs in pots on the back patio. But over the years—through trials and tribulation—we’ve discovered what we enjoy raising, realized what we don’t like raising, and figured out what works for our family.

During the early part of 2022, we made a (some would say crazy) decision that drastically changed our farm and our lives. We decided to move our house, barn, livestock, and nearly everything else we owned to a new location. And when I say “new location,” I mean an entirely separate piece of land from where our home was built over 100 years ago. We moved to a section of property that had been in the family for about 60 years. Formerly cattle pasture, timber, some old livestock sheds, and a 90-foot concrete silo—this place we call “the silo” officially became our homesite and Flat Branch Farm in the spring of 2023.

Were the buildings falling in and falling apart? Yes.
Were the weeds and wild rose bushes and poison ivy taking over the pasture? Yes.
Are there more thorn trees growing on this 30-acre tract of land than the entire rest of the county combined? Yes.
Are we sorry that we went through with it? NO—not even a little bit.

To tackle the condition of our new, untouched-in-20-years land, we embraced goats to clear out overgrown brush, multiflora rose bushes, poison ivy/oak, and all the other native weeds that had been able to grow wild with nothing but the white-tailed deer to keep them in check. We continue to rotate the goats around each year, and they’re impressively opening up areas underneath mature trees, uncovering old fence lines that had been hidden for a decade, and eating invasive weeds and plants before they have a chance to go to seed. They’re also cute and funny—and hilarious to watch…especially the kids.

When we bought our first home and moved to the country in 2009, we had two very small children (2 years old and 3 months old) and just wanted to live on a little hobby farm. Soon after, two more children came along and we were a family of six—still operating on the hobby farm plan, but with more mouths to feed. We slowly grew our farm to increase our food production a little bit.

Over the course of those 13 years on our farm, we’ve learned so much more than just how to raise livestock. Together, we’ve experienced both great success and some really difficult challenges.

We take pride in our farm—not only in what it has grown to become over the years, but also in the exceptional products it yields. From farm-fresh eggs to better-than-organic meats to nutrient-dense raw milk, our commitment to quality is consistent.

We’ve also realized how important local farmers, food security, and land stewardship are.

Visit our farm store to actually experience the connection between a local farm family and your plate.