The Aspiring Farmer Blog

Whew, it's been a little longer than normal since my last Farm Dreams post. We've been going through quite a transition over at Little Seed Farm. Not only are we still adjusting to living and managing a farm in the middle of nowhere in TN, we're also adjusting to having no direct source of income.

As of the end of September the…

The Aspiring Farmer

This post should really be titled "Making Something Out of a Giant Blackberry, Honeysuckle, Wild Rose and Poison Ivy Bramble". 

When we first found our place a year ago it had been uninhabited for…

The Aspiring Farmer Blog



After just over five months on the farm we’re slowly chipping away at providing the day-to-day essentials for ourselves. By day-to-day essentials, of course, I mean things like bread and beer. Baking and brewing are two things I’ve taken to doing on nights and very early mornings when I have a little bit of free time. Until a neighbor dropped by with a book on breadmaking we were still eating stale baguettes…

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When Dusty first asked me to write for Farm Dreams he asked that I write about the emotional side of moving away from the city and starting a farm. It's a huge transition and one that comes with a lot of responsibility. Previously, we literally had no responsibility. Paying the bills was about it. No car, no home, no kids, no pets, just us and our day jobs. Sounds nice to some, but that lifestyle drove me…

The Aspiring Farmer Blog

When we first moved out here we were so busy that we couldn’t even find time to visit farmer’s markets on the weekends. We were shopping at the typical grocery stores, reverting back to foods…

The Aspiring Farmer Blog

There aren’t too many male animals on our farm. I can count them on one hand. I like to joke with Sweetbreads about “my team” of guys around here. The house cat (Levon), the male guinea (Guinea-Cent), our Silkie rooster (Elvis), and that’s about it. Until Saturday we also had a little buckling that was still nursing off one of our milking does (Mayday). Mayday came to us with two one month old kids and for the…

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In New York we loved cooking, it was a nice way to relax after a day at work. Frequently, we would cook together. Going out to eat was always a good way to try new foods and drinks, but it was never a pressing desire. It was taken for granted. If I look back at our time in NY I was generally eating about 5-7 meals per week outside of the home, which was FAR lower than 99% of everyone else we knew. Now that we’re…

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If you’ve read our personal blog recently you know that we recently lost a cat to a curious guard dog. It was a tough loss, particularly because the cat was given to me by my sister and we had only had her for a few weeks when it happened. I decided to post about the incident on…

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When we first started down the road of small-scale farming I thought we would be alone in our battle. In many ways we are, but over the past few months we’ve found out that there’s some people on our side, and they all have practical experience. These wonderful people are Tennessee’s extension agents.



Extension agents are the folks that work for the state universities and are dedicated to helping out…

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Dogs, after escaping, decide on a little nap near the well-house.

Before we got our LGDs we…

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Like everyone else that works a M-F job, I always look forward to the weekends. Back in the city it was a time to hangout with friends, go out to eat, get some beers and genuinely relax. I volunteered for a few charities and by most standards led a productive life. For some reason that drove me crazy. I felt extremely unproductive. The weekends were fun, in a way, but they weren't a good way to make up for a…

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This weekend we got busy laying out the garden for the two of us. We are planting ~50% more than we think we will need so that one of two things happens. Either 1.) We get too much for us, and our neighbors, friends and animals…

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The past few days have flown by. We've been busy putting up fence, building a temporary goat house and getting a goat! We weren't planning on getting a goat this weekend, but a confluence of events led to us milking a goat at home in the dark last night and waking up to milk her again this morning.

Last week we were online looking at goats from nearby farms. We happened upon some goats at a place in the…

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"Say hello to your feathered friends". That's what we were telling our LGD Sophie as we loaded in six guineas and three laying hens into their chicken coop on Saturday. Part of Sophie's job on the farm will…

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Well, it’s really going down this Friday. We’re packing up the truck and heading out early Saturday morning. By Sunday night we’ll be settled into our new home in TN. Well, new to us anyway. On Monday morning we’ll wake up for the first time without having to leave anytime soon.



It’s really started to sink in these past few weeks. Saying goodbye to long-time friends. Having last meals at our…

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Saturday was a 21 hour day and gave us a little dose of the farm life. Firstly, we’d been sick all week with a cold passed along by Sweetbreads’ best friend’s baby. Note: Drinking too much wine around a sick child is a surefire way to catch a cold. Not a big deal, we thought. Just a minor cold and we’d be over it in a few days. Well, that little sucker stuck around all week and before we knew it we were…

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Considerations in Choosing a Farm Location

Since we finally locked in a location and started telling friends and family about “the plans” we’ve been getting a lot of “Why Tennessee”. Not in a bad way, just in a “Wow, if I ever had to pick a farm location how would I ever choose” kind of way. If you have land in the family then you don’t even have to give it a second thought. You take what…