Disappointment
One thing that I have wanted to do for a long time is to have a small farm. I want a nice garden, fruit trees, a few animals. I want to live simply and be as self sufficient as possible - growing our own food and buying from local sellers things like produce that I don't have room to grow, fresh raw goat's milk, part of a beef cow, fresh eggs, etc. I want our children to learn responsibility and how to grow a garden and raise animals.
I have been intrigued by urban farming and have been planning, researching, and dreaming of turning our own little 1/5 of an acre plot into our "family farm". I have landscaped and gardened a great deal of our space already adding fruit trees and edible things. We have cherry, apple, persimmon, fig, and plumb trees, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, currants, and gooseberries. I have a nice little vegetable garden patch for the basics like tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, etc. It has been a lot of fun watching our "property" be transformed.
And then the first disappointment...the deer. We have a terrible deer problem here. They literally mow down everything. Already my newly leafed out apple trees, currants, roses, etc. are leafless. In short of deer fencing our entire perimeter, we are helpless. We have been racking our brains trying to come up with a solution. They are so brazen that they come right down the road and into our front yard right under the bedroom windows to eat their fill. It is such a source of aggravation. I haven't even attempted to plant a Spring vegetable garden because I know that I would get no produce from it.
And the second disappointment is very fresh. I have wanted to add animals (my dream is goats, rabbits, ducks or chickens, and bees) to our farm. I found on Craig's list a local breeder of Flemish Rabbits, a wonderful giant rabbit breed. We went and visited them and were hooked! We planned on adding a large rabbit house in one of my garden spaces. We had the plans for the house already and I started digging in the area for the foundation. We also found a local hobbiest who had too many pygora goats (pygmy-angora crosses, the breed I have researched and decided on) and was selling off some of her "herd". We visited and found two wonderful little babies that we decided to take home. The goat pasture would be in the corner of our yard and we would be retaining the hillside to prevent erosion. Phil begin working on the hillside. He moved a ton of concreted retaining bricks and we were all ready for the fill dirt to be brought in to level out the hillside a little. And then.....the cost of preparing for animals begin to add up, much higher and faster than we had originally planned for. Fencing, bricks, chicken wire, fencing posts, unanticipate costs, etc.. were turning the project into something we could no longer afford.
Last night, after spending more money on fencing, we decided that this wasn't going to be possible for us right now. It was a stretch to purchase animals and plan for their care but the prep work was pushing us past what we could resonable afford. We emailed the breeder and told her that we wouldn't be able to take the bunnies we had picked out. Phil is calling the goat person today to tell her we won't be taking our two little goats. Dissapointment doesn't even begin to describe how I am feeling today. It feels a bit like a crushed dream and I have really struggled this morning with being defeated. It is especially bad because we had picked out our animals and I had already begun to think of them as part or our urban farm, even coming up with names. So...we are left with materials to return to the store, a torn up yard, and of course, the deer eaten plants.
I have been intrigued by urban farming and have been planning, researching, and dreaming of turning our own little 1/5 of an acre plot into our "family farm". I have landscaped and gardened a great deal of our space already adding fruit trees and edible things. We have cherry, apple, persimmon, fig, and plumb trees, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, currants, and gooseberries. I have a nice little vegetable garden patch for the basics like tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, etc. It has been a lot of fun watching our "property" be transformed.
And then the first disappointment...the deer. We have a terrible deer problem here. They literally mow down everything. Already my newly leafed out apple trees, currants, roses, etc. are leafless. In short of deer fencing our entire perimeter, we are helpless. We have been racking our brains trying to come up with a solution. They are so brazen that they come right down the road and into our front yard right under the bedroom windows to eat their fill. It is such a source of aggravation. I haven't even attempted to plant a Spring vegetable garden because I know that I would get no produce from it.
And the second disappointment is very fresh. I have wanted to add animals (my dream is goats, rabbits, ducks or chickens, and bees) to our farm. I found on Craig's list a local breeder of Flemish Rabbits, a wonderful giant rabbit breed. We went and visited them and were hooked! We planned on adding a large rabbit house in one of my garden spaces. We had the plans for the house already and I started digging in the area for the foundation. We also found a local hobbiest who had too many pygora goats (pygmy-angora crosses, the breed I have researched and decided on) and was selling off some of her "herd". We visited and found two wonderful little babies that we decided to take home. The goat pasture would be in the corner of our yard and we would be retaining the hillside to prevent erosion. Phil begin working on the hillside. He moved a ton of concreted retaining bricks and we were all ready for the fill dirt to be brought in to level out the hillside a little. And then.....the cost of preparing for animals begin to add up, much higher and faster than we had originally planned for. Fencing, bricks, chicken wire, fencing posts, unanticipate costs, etc.. were turning the project into something we could no longer afford.
Last night, after spending more money on fencing, we decided that this wasn't going to be possible for us right now. It was a stretch to purchase animals and plan for their care but the prep work was pushing us past what we could resonable afford. We emailed the breeder and told her that we wouldn't be able to take the bunnies we had picked out. Phil is calling the goat person today to tell her we won't be taking our two little goats. Dissapointment doesn't even begin to describe how I am feeling today. It feels a bit like a crushed dream and I have really struggled this morning with being defeated. It is especially bad because we had picked out our animals and I had already begun to think of them as part or our urban farm, even coming up with names. So...we are left with materials to return to the store, a torn up yard, and of course, the deer eaten plants.
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