We are one year into being on our farm together. CackleBee Farms. The farm where Drew grew up. The farm he left when he moved to Colorado. The farm he and I decided to move to in summer 2021 and plant roots to grow a new generation. One year down, who knows how many more to go. Our first year here has had ups and downs, but hard work always pays off, especially when we work as a team. So let's catch you up on our move last year to where we are today.
The decision to move to Mississippi was honestly a tough one to finalize. Living in the big city (Denver) was starting to have its setbacks for us. During a visit to Mississippi in the later summer of 2020, I remember Drew and I taking a bike (4-wheeler ATV) ride to the cow pasture at sunset. It was in that moment I felt total peace. After deciding to be closer to our families, we went back and forth between moving to Michigan, my home state, or Mississippi, his home state. With Drew having land in Mississippi and an increasing need for him to come home and help the farm, it was decided: we were moving to Mississippi. By spring 2021, we rented U-Hauls and made a few trips to move everything to storage units in Central Mississippi, since our new home wasn't ready - it was delayed due to Covid-19. In April 2021, Drew moved there while I stayed behind for another month. In late May, I joined him in Mississippi.
With our house not ready, we stayed in his parent's camper parked in his brother's driveway. They all live on the farm too. We roadtripped to see my family in Michigan (woohoo!) and drove to Colorado to get our bees. August was hot, and Drew (and friends and his brother) worked on getting water lines put in throughout our homestead and the plumbing installed. In September, we expanded our family with Rue, a 10 week black lab puppy from Colorado. That same week, our home was ready for us to move in. We had a few lawn chairs, a bed, one dog, and one puppy. Five days after we got Rue, Drew found a 7 week old mountain cur female puppy on the side of a highway. We kept her and named her Luna. So now we were at 3 dogs. Life felt chaotic. In October, we brought over Drew's old cat, Smoke, that had been staying with friends and family. Now we had four fur-babies, a mortgage, and a farm. Fall and winter 2021 were kind of a blur honestly, it was all about trying to stay afloat, trying to stay sane, and for me to learn new farm things. One of my favorite things about the winter was Drew's parent's dog, Onie (pronounced Oh-Knee), walking over daily in her sweater to see the girls and hang with her best friend, Jade.
By early 2022, we started to figure life out. The girls (the dogs, we call them "the girls") were in a great routine of being inside and outside, running the pasture, swimming in the cow pond, and sleeping on one of the many dog beds in the house. Drew built Smoke a cozy loft inside the shop, complete with his own cat ladder (we call it a cadder) and cat door. Calves were being born, bees were adjusting to their new hives here, I learned how to drive a bike (ATV), we were spending more time with Drew's family (they live in the area too), and Drew started making the family patented farm tool, The Twister Fence Tool. Rural life was a REAL thing now; our town has people very few people and no street lights and no businesses other than one small church.
This spring, we started a vegetable garden, I learned how to mow the lawn - yes, I never mowed prior to this year. With all the work that has to be done, sometimes it was really hard - still is. Our downtime was spent cozied up on the couch watching Netflix shows, kayaking and seeing alligators, fishing in the pond, and driving the bikes in the Back 80 (the 80 acres of forest behind his parents' house).
Summer has been hot but bountiful. We added chickens to the farm; today we have 15 chickens. Drew and I built a chicken tractor. The girls love rural life and running around. Rue and Luna are best friends and Jade is the queen. Smoke sunbathes on the front porch and keeps the field mice population low. Recently, we've had a yellow and white stray boy cat around and we call him Mr. Butters. The pasture is filled with cows and calves. Everyday, I take the time to learn from them, about them, for them. We haven't extracted honey yet because we need to build a honey house, but we only have so many days in the week and it is hard to prioritize one build before the other. The garden is a success! Our deep freezer is full of homegrown vegetables and the counter is covered in pickles - we learned how to can. It feels very, homestead-ish saying that, haha. Oh and I was taught how to drive a tractor and bushhog! Just call me Farmer Jackie, hahaha.
So that pretty much catches you up on the first year of living and learning on the farm. Our critters, especially the girls, are constantly exploring every twig and blade of grass on the farm. They are constantly exploring the backyard, the pasture. When we have free time, Drew and I like to go through the woods (we found a terrarium once) or ride around the property and eat pecans and look at plants.
Here we go, today is August 1st, 2022 and this is where the life of the (new) blog begins.
