TEN YEARS AGO TODAY, at 5:58 PM on December 21, 2015, we pulled through the gate at Green Acres with a U Haul, our children, our dogs, our cats, and a dream. Darkness had descended on the entire farm, but the excitement in our hearts couldn’t dim the joy we were all feeling as we pulled through the gate and followed the gravel driveway down to our new home.

The Outdoorsman and I had lived in Houston, Texas for fifty years, but had dreamed of living on a farm our entire lives. Our fifty-year-long-dream had finally come true. We owned our own slice of heaven-on-earth in Central Texas.

The last ten years have been the hardest, most rewarding, most challenging, most peaceful, most beautiful, and most amazing journey we could possible imagine. The learning curve has been unbelievably steep, but the level of satisfaction has also been very high! Thankfully, the incredible beauty of our property and the enjoyment of our adorable animals have both outweighed the extremely difficult years of severe drought, the epic and unexpected ice storms of Central Texas, and the high level frustrations of fencing issues that occur in tandem with farming.

I will be the first to tell you that it is not ideal to wait until you are a fifty-year-old to BEGIN your farming journey. It is a physically and mentally demanding process that definitely would have been easier to navigate with more youth and vigor, however, our dogged determination has made up the difference for us, thank goodness! This would not have been possible without the grace of God and our cooperation and patience with one another as we learned.

Thank you for joining us on the incredible journey on Green Acres over the past ten years. We are only beginning and have plans to write more about our adventure in the coming years! 

The Head Hen