Hello one and all! Since we survived the snow extravaganza and came out of it unscathed, I am sitting down to express my gratitude to the universe. My heart goes out to so many who were affected by power outages, water shortages, and frozen pipes. Some people are still struggling with the after effects of this nature drama.
On the homestead, we hunkered down and got through it. It took lots of shoveling, animal tending, and clean up every time someone tracked snow into the house, but we made it through and now are enduring the great melt. The snow clean up will now turn into mud clean up, but it brings us one step closer to spring and that makes me feel so happy! This year, instead of complain about the mud, I want to put my boots on and play in it. Ha!
Moving forward, yesterday I picked out some wildflower seeds with Megan to plant in our little front yard as soon as mother nature allows. Travis and I even accomplished getting the living room and hallway painted, which is something we have been meaning to do for quite awhile. The walls were plain white, which there is nothing wrong with that, but we painted over the white with a mellow, softer color of white that has a tiny hint of tan in it. That will go over so much nicer with the wood floors we are planning to install. Things are very slow going right now around the farm because there are always costs. It costs to feed a handful of farm animals, especially ones that are special needs and have medications like Chewy the pony, Willow the horse, and the senior dogs. It takes cash flow to buy materials to make home improvements. It also takes cash flow to pay the mortgage and car payments, and get the farm business off the ground. Right now, the business has its wings expanded and is ready to fly. This spring and summer will prove to us if it is able to take off. By next year we will know how high up it will fly and each year after that it will hopefully be soaring! There will always be hardships along the way but that is what makes the journey so interesting.
One particularly exciting goal that we accomplished recently is that we purchased a drone to help us film some of the sights in our area and over our farm, to give people a better perspective of the beautiful area we live when we make YouTube videos. We managed this due to money we had saved from our farm income last year. We can't wait to share more of our gardening, canning, home made breads, animal work, home projects, beautiful scenery, adventures, and whatever else comes our way. We are about to get busy! We will be joining farmer's markets and making deliveries as well. We hope to use the drone and our newer camera and filming equipment to expand our YouTube channel and share a lot of what we're doing with others interested in the same things that we are.
I am getting excited and looking so forward to all of this! We love to work hard when we are doing what we love. So many of our dreams are becoming a reality and it feels super surreal and exciting!
One of the ideas I have been looking in to is becoming a small licensed animal rescue/sanctuary here on our little farm. I just finished doing some research on whether or not I can license and expand with what I have to work with currently. Sadly, I can not get licensed at this time. The requirement is to have 10 or more rescue animals, which I do not have. On our three acres, we will not have enough room to take in anymore horses, but if I decide to eventually take in more mini ponies, goats, or pet pigs, etc. (maybe even dogs), I can re-apply. Whether I can take in that many or not really doesn't matter so much because even if I can help one animal at a time, that is such a blessing and I am happy to do it! People will still love sharing in the stories and seeing the images from the animals we have, and will have, in the future. In the meantime, I will continue to share the animals and set up fundraising pages for them if I need help. (The pony I took in last year required five vet visits for x-rays, blood work, skin graphs, and more. He now requires daily meds that run about $200.00 a month. He is an example of a rescue on our little farm.) I will re-visit this scenario later. This year, the focus will be more on the planting, harvesting, produce, and getting familiar and comfortable with filming and documenting all of it.
Feel free to comment if you have questions or if there is something in particular that you would like for us to share more about. I hope that many will cheer us on and follow along in all of these endeavors! I send my blessings and love to everyone reading this blog post today.
Feel free to follow along with us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
Stay well and take care,
Amy Darr
3 Corners Farm
Mosier Oregon, U.S.A.
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