It seems really silly to write about a farm I don’t have. It’s not even a farm, just roughly 5 acres of land in Manatee County, Florida on which I hope to have a couple goats, some chickens, maybe rabbits and one day sheep or a pig. I’m afraid of anything that can crush my skull with an errant kick, so I don’t think I want horses or cows. I also want a LEED certified house, hopefully Platinum, but given that I also want a pool I’ll probably settle for less.
This is a dream that I’ve had for a while. I don’t really know where it came from. When I was a kid, I loved the Little House on the Prairie series. I read and re-read them countless times, especially the parts where she explained in detail parts of daily farming life: making maple syrup, training a horse, plowing a field. There’s something really attractive about doing something with my own hands, something that I don’t get in my days of pixel pushing as a web developer. Do I think I have what it takes to run a real farm? No. Do I have what it takes to raise a little bit of livestock for home use? Likely, with book reading and asking experienced people for all the help they’re willing to give. And then going out and doing it.
But why Florida? Heat and humidity. I know California has a reputation for year-round sunshine and warmth, but that’s L.A. Here on the coast in northern California, where we barely saw the sun at all last summer, I’m so cold and miserable. It’s dry, it’s freezing (I have to wear socks, can you believe it?), and I want out. I want land that I can afford, land where my neighbor is close but not too close, where I’m close enough to town not to worry about surviving till the ambulance can get there, but not so close that I can’t walk in the middle of the dirt road without worrying about getting hit. It helps that my parents love the Sarasota area so I know that they’ll come visit. I’ll miss them terribly.
Our farm. Not just mine, but Matt’s as well. I worry that this is a dream that he’s just indulging me in, that he wants something else in life that’s incompatible with this. I ask him this regularly and he says he’s on board, that he wants the warmth and rural life as well. But we’re both techies and we both take the amenities of suburban life for granted. I’m scared that we’ll move out there and won’t make new friends, or that people will look down on us for being hippie Californians. I’m scared that we won’t have jobs and have to move back. I’m scared that the stress of living somewhere new will strain our relationship beyond what we can handle. I’m scared that without my normal gym schedule I’ll get fat and unattractive–hey, allow me some shallow thoughts. But I’m also really excited, hopeful for the first time in years that I really am going to do something with my life. I really hope it’s something we can make work.
If all goes well, around this time next year we’ll be moving to Florida. The plan is to rent in Sarasota/Bradenton for 6 months while looking for land to purchase. Theoretically, both Matt and I get to keep our California jobs (and salaries), flying back for one week every month. I don’t know yet how I’ll make that work with goats that need to be milked every day and chickens that need to be moved in their tractor. There’s so much I don’t know; it’s both frightening and exciting. I can’t wait!