Why We Started Blackbird Creek Farm

Yeah, we’re a little crazy and even a little eccentric. Maybe we don’t look like it but we have those labels going for us. In the Spring of 2019 we moved our little family, of just three at that time, to a camper on 35 acres that hadn’t been cared for in many years. With super spotty electric service to an old barn, and no well on the property.

Why, you may ask….
Well, it all started about two minutes after we got married in the Fall of 2011. We began talking about things that we would like to do in the future and Adam revealed to me (Amber) that he wanted to take a bee keeping class the following winter. To which I replied, “Sure! As long as we can go to this organic farming conference I’ve heard about.”

We attended both the bee keeping classes and the conference the Winter of 2012 and we were hooked. We knew then and possibly even way before then, that we wanted to own a farm someday. Not just any farm though. There was this idea bubbling up inside and through us that it wouldn’t just be a “farm”. We wanted to do something so much more. We started to put together a vision of what our future would look like. Our vision became something we rather obsessed about and one that many of our friends and relatives tolerated and often rolled their eyes over. We began to seek out classes and conferences and started hanging out with like minded folks who shared a passion for what we would soon learn to be “Regenerative Agriculture”.

Regenerative Agriculture is a method of farming that works to actively enhance the ecosystem of a space through the utilization of specific farming methods. Learn more about it here. We have learned that it is not only ecologically sound but economically viable. Two things that appealed to us greatly as we have had more than just a few folks tell us “don’t quit your day jobs” with a little laugh and a lot of warning in their voices. While we definitely seek out advice from trusted councils in our lives, this journey has taught us to not give too much credence to the naysayers. Where there is a passion there is a drive and a will to make things happen.

So, we started to come up with a plan. We were incredibly fortunate to have a good friend give us a wedding gift of a financial class that started the week after we got married. Once we had a goal and something to look towards, we decided the first thing we needed to do was to pay off Adam’s student loans and a truck loan so we could become debt free and start saving up for a farm.  Now, we are not independently wealthy nor did we have incredibly lucrative careers. Adam was, at that time an arborist, and Amber still continues to work in horticulture as a gardener/designer. What we did have was determination and goals. We reached our goal of becoming debt-free seven months earlier than we expected. Granted, we didn’t have any children and we both worked two jobs and ate “rice and beans” during that time… But we did it. And started to save like crazy.
 
Like every good story we have had lots of life happen over the course of the past decade. Cars die, children born, hospital stays and multiple injuries and job changes. The point is, we didn’t let anything deter us or squelch our dreams and our passion.

Early in January of 2018 I (Amber) received a phone call from my mom letting me know that a longtime neighbor of theirs had passed away. Another neighbor turned out to be the executor of her will and through a long and often nerve-wracking year we finally signed papers to buy the farm in December of 2018.

The summer of 2018, while we were waiting for the farm to become ours, we got the idea to raise 100 broiler chickens, and start them in our garage-turned-chicken brooder. There they lived the first three weeks of their short lives. We then transported them to our friend’s farm to live out their existence. We awoke extra early each morning for 5 weeks to drive out to move, feed and water our birds before heading off to work. They were worth every mile of pavement we drove that summer.

Before we moved to the farm in April of 2019, we determined that we would start our livestock acquisition. We purchased 120 chickens, 4 geese and 14 ducks. The chickens came to our house in town prior to us moving and we turned our little garage into a chicken brooder. Our neighbors were both amused and possibly a bit horrified. However, they were somewhat used to our “farming in the city” escapades as we had three beehives and seven egg layers on our tiny plot of ground already. There was just enough grass left in our yard to make one pass around the backyard with the push mower since the rest of the yard was covered in vegetables and fruit trees.

Since we no longer need to drive 20 minutes each way to take care of our farming endeavors we have once again decided to expand our chore load. We are incredibly excited about the opportunity to grow and raise food for people in our community through offering shares in our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. It is our mission is to provide food that is accessible to all and nurtures our bodies and God's creation.

So, maybe we are a bit nuts, but then again, all great inventors and trail blazers were considered eccentric during their lives. We have some big footsteps and leaders in this movement to follow and we just hope that we can continue do our small part.