Hi from Deanna!  I'm new to the blog and loving it!  Found it through a post from rutie on the gardenweb harvest forum encouraging us to vote.  I came.  I saw.  I read.  I voted….repeatedly!

I live in western Oregon on 12 acres with my Dh, 2 cats, 5 pygmy goats and 14 chickens.  We have 4 grown children.  We both work full-time "off the farm" too.  I garden, can/freeze/dry all the local foods possible and we raised our own beef last year.  Dairy products are next on my list of things to find/make myself or at least closer to home. 

Much of what Suzanne writes, I can really relate to or have experienced here.  Coons, chicken football, demanding goats, etc. 

I'm looking forward to exploring the forums more soon!

hi guys! My name is Ali, and I live in western KY. I grew up in a rural area with my grandparents, we always had a huge garden and lived life simply. I miss those days! My husband & I live in a very small town, but unfortunately inside the city limits. We did manage a small garden this year, but we don't have much room. We are trying to find some land so that we can build a cottage and have a small farm. He is a butcher, and I am currently workin retail, but I am a cake designer. We just have to save the money so that I can open a shop!

I am learning so much from Suzanne's blog, and I can't wait to have a place where I can have a real garden and some animals. I grew up riding horses and I miss it so much. I also want some chickens, you can't beat fresh eggs! You guys are just gonna have to make me into a REAL farmer… (small scale). Since my husband is a butcher by trade we have toyed with the idea of opening a meat processing facility. Not sure.

Now If I could just master this grandmother bread!

Not sure what to say, but I posted on a forum, so figured I should check in here.

Married to Ern for 41 years & we'd happily do it again.  He's easy-going & self-sufficient.  I'm lazy & spoiled.  We laugh a lot & it's fun to live together.

We live in Midwestern Ohio, outside Springfield in a really big, really old farmhouse, on 8 1/2 acres.  Moved here in '83 with a slew of kids acquired in various ways with various results.  As kids moved out, parents moved in, but they're gone now.  The parents.  Bungee-cord kids, so that varies.  One daughter's family lives 3 miles away, and her two kids get off the school bus at our house, so I get lots of g-kid time.  We all kind of live in one another's pockets.

We let the house slide over the years, so now we're playing catch up on repairs.

Animal-wise only dogs & cats right now.  And bird feeding stations.  In the past we had pet muscovy ducks, non-pet geese (with whom I did not get along & which I gave away, good riddance), and Nubian goats.  Had a kid (human) on goat milk.  Folks with the milk goats thought we should try our own when we moved out here.  After a short time, we gave them back and offered to pay more for the milk  , but missed the goats, so we took two of the boys & had them as pets for years. 

Ern had some serious health problems for a while that tests couldn't pin down.  Blood tests, MRIs, then a bone marrow sample when they decided it was cancer of the blood.  Lots of wonky test results but nothing definitive.  Then Ern figured out he had gluten intolerance and he's been gluten-free for 5 years & doing well.  Sometimes we fix separate stuff, sometimes we modify for everyone.  (He has really bad arthritis of the spine & hips--damage from the gluten--, but he plugs along and uses his grabber.)

We gave up gardening the five years he was so sick, but we're back into it the past couple of years.  I'm the Queen of Good Intentions, but I'd like to build a chicken shelter over the winter then get just a few (a very few) chickens in the spring. 

I ran across this blog via Suzanne's romance writing but instantly fell in love with her wonderful farm-life posts.  I read for almost a year before posting to the blog.  A month ago I peeked in at the forums.  The whole site has such a friendly tone!  I finally drummed up the courage to poke my nose in.

Oh, and I'm a night owl. 

Hello. I just joined a few weeks ago and have been lurking around. Thought I'd better say hello. I LOVE this forum and the blog is so fun! I have already gotten several recipes and made the Grandmother's bread yesterday. I really am not sure how all this works yet.

I am married to a truck drivin' man for 31 years now. We have 2 daughters and a son and 5 grands so far. We live in N. Ga. at the foot of Lookout Mt. just outside Chattanooga. We have a 3 acre farm. I raise Lamancha and Nubian milk goats, a few cows and too many chickens and guineas. Also 3 dogs and 6 cats.

I stay pretty busy here. I am getting siked up to butcher 6 roosters sometime this week. Also will be butchering 3 bucks in Jan. Just had my steer butchered last month. Sounds like alot of butchering going on here. But we gotta get the freezers full! I also have market gardens. Sell lots at the farmer's market/ Can and freeze all our food. Make my own bread. Milk goats. I love this life.

I am thinking about homeschooling my 6 year old granddaughter in Jan. So any other homeschoolers out there with any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

Bye for now. Kris

Hi ya'll! My sweet friend Anna turned my to the CITR blog…and I have since fallen in love with all the animals…I hafta admit that I am not a "foodie" But somehow Suzanne's recipe's make me wanna at least try… well. Think about trying

off to look around! Nice to meet you all!