Why did we create a blog?

Like so many questions, there’s a long and a short answer, and also more than one answer!

The short of it is, we have a lot of friends and family members who have said they love hearing all about what we have going on at the farm. But at the same time I don’t want to annoy everyone on facebook with a million updates that they’re not interested in! So I figured a blog would be a great outlet for those who are interested to keep on top of things, and those who aren’t interested don’t have to have their newsfeed clogged up with everything that’s going on!

We’ve also had a lot of the same questions, mainly from our city friends, about some of the things that happen on the farm, so this seemed like a great way to answer some of those questions. (With that being said, please comment below with any questions about farm or animal life that you have, even if it seems silly! The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask). It’s so much fun helping people understand things about where their food comes from. It doesn’t just magically get all pretty and clean and packaged on the shelf in the store!

Not growing up on a farm, we had a lot to learn too, and through books and pinterest and blogs we’ve filled in a lot of gaps in our own knowledge. It’s great to be able to pay that forward, to pass along that knowledge to others.

In doing a lot of that research though, we found that we’re actually in a unique situation too. So many of the hobby farm and homesteading blogs are written about families with kids and a stay at home parent, and focus a lot on that side of things. For Trevor and I though, we both still work full time. We don’t have kids that can help out. It can be tough to fit everything in! Right now we leave the house around 7:15 am and get home around 6. That’s nearly 11 hours a day, or 55 hours a week extra that I could spend doing things around the farm!

Now don’t get me wrong, I completely get that stay at home parents, especially those with a homestead or hobby farm, work hard. They may spend that same 55 hours a week doing things for their kids that takes them away from the farm. But I notice a lot of them are able to somewhat structure their day around getting a lot done during the day, while right now, we don’t have that ability. Our hours are 100% completely set, and we have to try to squeeze everything in on weekends or in the evenings only. Add in weather issues and that can make it even tougher. If it’s pouring rain all weekend, it sometimes means that some projects don’t happen or are majorly delayed. It’s especially hard during our long Canadian winters where it feels like the only time we see our space in the daylight is on weekends!

And while we love our country life, there’s still things about our city life that we’re still trying to balance with our new lifestyle. I’m always joking that what we need to do is win the lottery so we can have a country property with someone to help us when needed, and a place in the city so we can still do things like travel or go to sporting events or the opera or whatever, and not have to worry about how we’re going to get home after or worry about being away for so long! But since you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lottery, we have to work with what we have.

I figure we’re not the only ones who both work full time and are both “city mice” and “country mice”, so why not write about some of the unique struggles we face in trying to find that balance? Maybe our perspective can help others in our situation deal with the unique struggles they face?

Tanya