After the wedding we took a week long family trip to PEI with Jon's sisters and their families. The year we got married we did a project growing salad mix with the farm we worked at. On August 10th, an orange kitten appeared in the field and we kept him - Samson! At the beginning of September I changed jobs and worked for the winter with Andrew Bishop, who became a great mentor for me. In March of 2015, we assessed our life and our goals and decided to move to Manitoba to join my Mom's business Brown Sugar Produce. We arrived in May 2015 and hit the ground running, having the best year ever on the farm and many successes. We moved into a farm property 25 minutes away and began setting down roots at our dream farm. In April of this year our strength was tested when our buildings burned down and we learned so much about ourselves and each other as we battled our way through a tough situation and came out the other side as better people.
It's been a memorable 2 years and I feel like we've made real progress on our goals. Our dream to have our own farm is a reality and we are part of a successful business which is a huge help as we move things forward. We get to dream more than ever now as we plan the new building that we will put up this year.
If you asked me 4 years ago why I quit my well-paying and perfectly acceptable job running an organic fresh department at an independent grocery chain, I would have said we were chasing a lifestyle where we could put our hard work and efforts towards something that we are passionate about. Our dreams are not unreasonable. We want to grow healthy delicious vegetables, raise a few animals for our own use, and spend each day working together outdoors and running a successful business and growing our local food community. I used to describe it as "waking up each day and doing stuff", and if you use that description we've achieved that! Today (when Jon wakes up, one of us has a penchant for waking up at 5 am and blogging!), we will spend the day together "doing stuff". The "stuff" consists of things we need to do, things we want to do, and things we have to do -- "Stuff" required to keep the farm ticking along. The list today includes cleaning the porch and kitchen, doing laundry, cleaning out an old barn that is going to be torn down and salvaging useable contents, weeding the garlic, checking the tunnel, tending the hens and rabbits, planting a tree, watering the flowers, harvesting stinging nettle and drying it, a trip to the hardware store, and an errand to pick wild ladyslippers. Sounds like a banner of a day to me, and I'd rather spend the day at the farm labouring with my husband than anywhere else on earth!
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