Welcome to our home!
After spending the first few years of our marriage in a city apartment (the agony!) and then living in the woods of Alabama for a few years (so many snakes and scorpions!), we then rented an acreage with house that was WAY too big for us after a move to Missouri. Following a lengthy house hunt, we finally found the perfect sized home, with outbuildings, a chicken coop, an established garden and fruit trees, and a hilltop view on 3 acres outside of Springfield, Missouri in 2015. Bliss.
Since then, we’ve put a TON of work into our little acreage and made so many improvements that most people probably don’t notice, but we do. If you’ve followed along with us for any amount of time you’ll see we’re pretty obsessed with the animals, the garden, flowers, and mowing every 30 seconds throughout the long, hot summers.
Tasha is an Iowa farm girl that just can’t keep her hands out of the dirt. She was THRILLED to find a huge garden plot, fruit trees, blackberries, and grape vines already in production when we moved in. We’ve spent the last eight years digging rocks out of the garden, amending the soil (she swears by chicken poo each fall), and figuring out ways to organically combat the monstrous weeds and bugs that grow in Missouri. There has been a huge learning curve!
You see, in Iowa, you drop seeds on the dirt and they grow beautifully! You have to pull weeds a few times and chase off a few bugs, but it’s manageable. In Missouri, you must delicately start your seeds inside so they don’t drown, rot, or be eaten by birds during monsoon season. Once they are big enough to hopefully survive the deluge, you must be vigilant for bugs, disease, and constantly pull the vicious weeds to give your plants a chance of survival. Gardening in Missouri is not for the faint of heart.
After much trial and error in the garden over the past two years, we’ve nearly managed to control the weeds. We finally invested in the professional-grade garden fabric to smother the choking weeds and gave up hopes of no-till permaculture. It was a bit of a task the first year to lay out the fabric, cut it to size, and torch holes in the fabric for plants, but 100% worth it. At the end of the season, we pull out the plants, pull up the fabric, and store it for the following year. The garden gets a thin layer of chicken poo each Fall, and we let it rest for the winter, tilling it in the following spring before we lay the fabric back down again. In the years since (4 seasons now), we’ve rotated the fabric when we lay it back out again each Spring.
So far, we highly recommend this method. It really is only two days of hard work rather than an entire summer of heat stroke, sore bodies, and swearing you will never again grow a garden. It has also been extremely helpful with our travel schedule. I don’t have to find someone willing to pull weeds while we’re gone, just someone to water occasionally (as long as it’s not a scorcher like 2022), pick a few things, and monitor bugs while we’re gone.
You’ve probably seen the dogs and cats on the “About Us” page. They’re really the ones in charge here. Esma was the first animal we added to the farm. Obviously, she was lonely, so she was quickly followed by 10 chickens for her to guard since she is an Akbash livestock guardian dog. This grew to 20, then 40, then 60 chickens. It got out of hand quickly, chicken math does that. No regrets. We sell our eggs in the area. Typically anytime one of us gets in a vehicle, we have a cooler of eggs with us to deliver to customers wherever we’re headed.
A population explosion also happened with the cats. We started with 2 female mousers, then the following summer we had around 10. By that Fall we had between 20-30 and the following spring there were more than 40 and we were frantically catching mommas for trips to the vet for spays and finding homes for babies. This was a problem I had never encountered before. Sure we had cats on the farm in Iowa, they did their own thing and the population stayed far more manageable. I’m going to blame the harsh winters, coyotes, and wanderers. Apparently, those natural things do not occur at the same rate in Missouri. So to the tune of probably thousands of dollars, we now only have TWO cats, because once we started spaying, nature decided to take over and our population dwindled quickly. Circle of life, folks, what can I say? We love them, but they too are working animals and are free to go where they like, so things happen. I sure miss having kittens though – they’re so stinking cute!
Zara came to us when Tasha had a weak moment while Jason was teaching in China one winter. He found her on a farm by St. Louis (while he was halfway across the world I might add) and the next thing we knew, he was home and so was she. Thus began Tasha’s gray hair journey. We almost had Zara out of the puppy stage when Jack literally wandered into our yard. We found him sleeping on the front porch with the other two – some guard dogs! You only thought my hair was getting gray before! We don’t know anything about his background but he has tested all our patience and we love him. Even if he is remarkably naughty. He’s gotten better behaved with age but is still very skittish. We don’t know his history, so we just try to have patience with him and not make any sudden movements. He had turned out to be Tasha’s fiercest guardian.
You might ask how Jason plays into all the acreage nonsense. Basically, he’s been very accommodating and lets me try new things. Except for goats, he still says no to goats. But he did let me raise meat chickens one year…we probably won’t do that again. He did not grow up on a farm, far from it. He has always told me he doesn’t want to be a farmer, but he has learned to scoop chicken poo, dig in the dirt, pull the right weeds, drive posts, and be my muscle and support. So I mean, he’s kinda halfway there. Don’t tell him. I’ve got a good thing going. Plus, you can’t tell me he wasn’t happy playing with the torch when we burned holes in the garden fabric, and how adorable is he with that baby kitty?
The past couple of years we’ve made some big investments in the energy and aesthetics of the acreage.
In the fall of 2018, we installed a new, far more efficient geothermal unit. Having that system already in place was a huge perk when we bought the place. Unfortunately, the old system was original (20 years old) and in desperate need of an upgrade. We knew this going in and it finally died on us in the middle of an October cold snap. Figures. Two very cold weeks later we were thrilled with our new Water Furnace upgrade and super low power bills.
In spring/summer 2019 we added rock garden flower beds along the shed and chicken coop in hopes of slowing the erosion around them from the heavy spring rains. This is still a work in progress, but the wildflowers we have planted in them are GORGEOUS every year and the dirt quit running away where we have them done! Yay us!
In spring 2020 we added an arborvitae border along the fence line. We were hoping these trees would grow quickly and provide us with the privacy we once had. The land around us was broken up and sold and several houses have since popped up. Major bummer. The trees looked great and were growing rapidly, but unfortunately, the extremely hot and dry summer of 2022 killed nearly half of them while we were away in Spain for three weeks. Despite our vigorous watering once we returned, we couldn’t save them. We are still trying to decide the best course of action for replacement.
In spring 2021 we made a giant leap and installed solar power. It lives on both sides of the roof of the shed and made our power bills = $0. Yes we are making payments on them but that payment is less than our power bill was, so I call this a win. Someday it will cost us nothing AND we get to sell the extra power they generate back to the power company, so in the long run, we are hoping they will make us money. Fingers crossed.
Spring 2023 has us gathering information on planting the correct trees for our climate to replace those that died last summer, and more to create a new windbreak in the northwest corner of our property. We’re also looking for someone to help us with dirt work to manage the continuing erosion issues from heavy spring rains and a contractor to help us with repairs to our shed and its garage door. AND – we’re getting more chickens! Yay! Busy busy – and of course, our busy travel season kicks off shortly too!
All this to say that it’s always a work in progress around here. There is always something that needs to be done, we’re always trying new/innovative things, and I love it. It’s our testing ground and a mental happy spot in a busy, demanding world. Here we find magic.
