Don't Give Up On Your Dreams, Even if it's Hard

When Tracey was 11 years old she lived on a small hobby farm with chickens, rabbits, cats, and a dog.  She grew to love that life. Though she ended up going back to city life, she never stopped dreaming about it. When she married her husband James in 2006, they moved to a small acreage that they rented and decided to start a small hobby farm with chickens, goats, and donkeys.

Neither one of them knew what they were doing and there was no one to help them.

 They failed many times and spent a lot of money and still weren't further ahead.

Tracey just had such a deep love and desire to learn and she loved her animals. She simply chose what to buy based on what she liked. When that didn't work out, they moved on to raising broilers and raising layers because of the bad quality of meat and she felt bad about killing her babies that produced eggs. She figured it would be a better option. James just wanted to make her happy so he built whatever needed to be built to accommodate the critters.

They had to learn from many years of trial and error with building chicken coops, making feeders, and installing windows, doors, roosts, etc. before they started to figure out what worked for their little farm. 

Tracey started taking courses on doing her own taxes, permaculture, drip systems, and living off the land and did a lot of research on well-studied farming practices. Every few years she studied different types of animals, purchased some, gained experience, and learned how to use them to regenerate the soil and generate income. She also learned how to tap into many resources the government had at the time to teach her about fundamental things such as her well, dugout, and soil. After she read and completed a massive binder and completed her Environmental Farm Plan, they received funding to build structures, install fences, and plant trees.

James had a wealth of knowledge and skill to learn how to operate machinery, build structures and buildings, and many other skills you need on a farm like digging and installing a water well and an automatic waterer that worked off of solar. Eventually, he also learned how the online world worked and was able to start creating websites, educational materials, and courses.

It was by taking one step at a time, experiencing failure, and finding resources to teach and support them, that their farm got to where it is today.

They didn't give up and even though it wasn't in their roots growing up, because there was a need for it, they took the time to educate themselves through their own research, hands-on experience, farm tours, farm fairs, exhibitions, and courses.

They started changing their focus from purchasing what they liked to raising heritage animals and birds that would be better quality, healthier to consume, easier and cheaper to care for, and could live off of grass and bugs if resources of food were reduced or hard to source. 

And over the last 3 years, because of the need for others to start learning how to live off the land too, with the limited resources they were given when they started, they decided they wanted to help and decided to start sharing what they learned with you!