Thoughts and Plans

Ok, I'm back and it's only been a week!!  yeah me!!  I have  a great post on cast iron pans and how to care for them, but the pictures are on the camera and the camera is at home and I am not!  So, let me tell you some of our plans for our farm.
Our main goal is to make a living, such that Dane can be home with us, working with and training the boys, and the girls too!  We feel that their is no substitute for time spent with your Dad, and with 6 sons Dane has a lot of boys who need his time.  We don't want to raise run of the mill young men.  You know this isn't a dress rehearsal, you only get one chance to raise your children and we want to make sure we do the best job possible.  Of course every parent does, but we have prayed and prayed about it and this is undoubtedly the way God is leading us.  It seems crazy I know, especially to people who know us and know that Dane has an excellent job with amazing benefits, but this "normal" life isn't what we feel we're supposed to do. 
We plan to raise beef cattle, and broiler chickens and eggs and vegetables, we plan on selling these items at farmers markets and to restaurants and specialty grocers.  We also want to have a small farm store were we can sell milk and butter and handmade items as well as jellies and jams and breads.  We know that there is HUGE amount of work involved, we know that keeping our heads above water will be difficult.  But we also know that when your in Gods will it's the best place to be! 
We have become disenchanted with what the world has to offer.  We have grown tired of movies and games and computer entertainment.  There is nothing lasting in those things.  If you play on the wii for an hour what have you gained?  If you ride your pony in the woods for an hour, you have gained an appreciation of the landscape, maybe you saw a new kind of bird, you worked with another living creature to get where you wanted to go, and maybe you gained a new insight on Gods beautiful creation.  There just seems to be so much more available to the children on a farm.  I'm not saying you can't have that in town or on a couple of acres, but it is harder.  We have gradually widened our horizons, we started in a small house with a small backyard, the we moved to Main street with a bigger backyard, that's where we thought we could have chickens, but we couldn't.  Soon we realized the children needed even more space to roam.  Then we moved to where we are now, 2.5 acres of dry land, although with all the mud it doesn't seem "dry" right now!!  This place gave us a taste to the farm life, we've raised chickens for eggs and meat, we've milked goats, we've planted gardens.  But we soon came to realize a taste was simply not enough, we wanted the whole smorgasbord!! 
We are getting close, almost time to start getting boxes and packing a few things, time to start painting and fixing up the house.  We are so excited it's hard to wait!! 
"Soon," I tell the kids, " Soon we will be on our farm!!"