Harmony Family Farm

It was September of 2021. Like most people with an office job, my husband Robert and I had been working from home for over a year. We were juggling the demands of work, our young sons Robbie, Hunter and Wyatt, who were 6,4, and 3, homeschooling Robbie (because his charter school ended up being a nightmare), speech therapy appointments for Hunter, family get-togethers, and just being busy. Then it happened. We caught the Big C. We were down for the count. That was probably the worst I have ever felt with a virus. Shortly before we got sick, we bought these super comfortable chairs from American Furniture Warehouse to put in our front room. We cozied up in those and now they are fondly called our “covid chairs”. While sitting in said “covid chairs” reflecting on our realization of mortality, we had a moment where we looked at each other and said, “What the hell are we doing?” This was such a pinnacle moment in everything that has since happened. Looking at our lifestyle and everything we were trying to keep up with, we realized we needed a change. We needed to slow down, we needed simplicity. We were existing, going through day to day, caught up in our chaotic routine, not really living our lives to the fullest they could be.

“How cool would it be to have a homestead?” This all started with that simple little dream. We started looking at good states to homestead in, because we definitely did not want to stay in Colorado. We originally decided on Kentucky, so to Zillow we went, plugging in search after search, trying to get an idea of how we could actually make this happen. I made a Pinterest board labeled “Homesteading” and saved probably thousands of pins and I went down research rabbit hole after research rabbit hole. I am not going to lie, I became obsessed with the idea of having our own little plot of land. I wanted to get away from from HOA rules and constantly worrying if my decorative hay bales were going to offend somebody. Just because the HOA fee is very low, does not mean that they are not strict. We got violation letters for everything ranging from our moving van being in the driveway “too long” when we moved in to a single strand of Christmas lights being up in February. We had the audacity to leave them up until March when the snow and ice finally melted on that part of the house. And yes, I did get a letter about my decorative hay bales. I believe they said I was storing “farm items” or something along those lines. The idea of freedom was calling.

Come October we found out that I was pregnant with our fourth baby, and we were ecstatic that we were finally having a girl! We put the idea of moving to a homestead on the back burner. I started therapy to heal past trauma that had found itself leeching into our marriage. I left my OB that I had been with since before our first baby because, one, they kept asking me if I wanted to keep my baby, um duh, of course I want to!!! It was insulting especially because they knew very well what my stance on that is. Two, they treated me like caca because I refused to get the, let’s call them “cupcakes”. The kind of cupcakes that poke you and don’t feel good.

I think this is a good time to disclose that I am a very “crunchy” person. I am all about using herbs and natural remedies before using anything western medicine has to offer. I am a self taught herbalist and over the years my wonderful husband has been somewhat of a guinea pig. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you don’t need a degree in something to be knowledgeable about it and become an expert. How do you think traditional healers learned? It wasn’t at a school. In this wonderful day and age, we have the internet, we can order books on Amazon and get them the next day. I have a whole library of herbal medicine books now. Eventually I would love to become a certified clinical herbalist, but life is just a wee bit too hectic at this moment to do that. We try to eat very healthy whole meals most of the time (I put “try” because we all have those days where we are too tired, so we just order pizza). I think that food is medicine and pesticides and herbicides are our enemy. After the fiasco that was the last three years, I don’t trust those “cupcakes” either. Not a single one of them. I believe God has designed our world and everything in it (including us) to work perfectly in balance and humans shouldn’t be meddling the way they have been.

Now getting back to the story, I started searching for a homebirth midwife. There was no way I was going anywhere near a hospital to birth this sweet baby. I found some amazing midwives about an hour away from where we lived, and took a much more natural approach to this pregnancy. My boys were all very medically managed, so this new journey was very spiritual, eye opening, and completely amazing! With the boys, I was taking handfuls of pills to control hyperemesis gravidarum, and being hospitalized constantly for dehydration. This pregnancy, I was using a bunch of different herbs, visualization, meditation, breathing exercises and never had to go to the hospital once. On my worst days I would throw up maybe once or twice. Pretty incredible, isn’t it? Around this time, we made plans to remodel our master bathroom so I could have this beautiful environment to bring our baby girl into.

Well, when I was 26 weeks pregnant, I told Robert that I absolutely needed to get out of Colorado ASAP. Why not go for it and buy a house somewhere else with some land? To my absolute surprise, he went along with with this insane idea. The week he took off to refinish our bathroom was the beginning of our entire house update so we could sell it! My advice here is don’t wait until you move to get your house pretty. It was kind of sad getting everything how we liked it just to leave.

I was fully remote, and Robert was able to transfer easily to Texas. Which was the second state on our list as a good homesteading state. I found an amazing real estate agent here and he found a real estate agent to sell our current home, we renovated our house in 9 weeks which was rough, and some of the updates were on the sketchy side. Like using tile paint to make showers look pretty. We put it on the market Easter weekend and drove down to Texas to find the house with the best of both worlds, that being somewhat close to Robert’s office, and still being able to homestead. We got a house with 1.25 acres, and as much as I want 200 acres, I am so happy with what we have been blessed with. My midwives in Colorado helped me find a wonderful midwife down here, and everything was falling into place.

Man, did we cut it close. Hindsight being 20/20, we should have used a moving company instead of getting a Penske truck and a Uhaul trailer. I was 36 weeks pregnant, and people kept saying I was nuts. I’m pretty sure everyone thought I was going to birth baby Belle on the side of the road. I kept telling her that she can stay in until her due date if she wants to. It was the most wonderful feeling pulling away from the curb. Heading down the highway to our fresh start.

You know how I said I kept telling Belle that she could stay in until her due date? She did just that! I was shocked because all the boys came at 38 weeks. I went into labor the day before, and she came earth side, in the safe comfort of our home, with amazing midwives helping. I think the most incredible thing about this is she was born on the Summer Solstice! We have a baby for each season. After her birth I kept thinking to myself, “Wow, I just experienced birth the way God intended it to be.” And with that, we have set a goal. We are going to steward our little slice of Texas paradise in the way that God intended. No pesticides, no herbicides, low tilling, letting things be. We are coming up on a year in our home, and our first year of planting and bringing the soil back. Our house is a new construction, so the soil was decimated. Slowly but surely, it is turning into our oasis. And that was the beginning.