The Dream....or dreams? A whirlwind of beginnings.

We're dating, before Jason is born. Jason is the only kiddo that Bud and I share together. (And that's probably a blessing from the Good Lord, as I can't imagine having a house full of little Jasons. You need to meet this kid...) Bud shares all these ideas and wants and desires and told me of his life ambitions that one day he wanted to be a farmer. Wrong thing to say to a girl who- HELLLO!!! Was a horse girl. Getting mud under my nails and dirty daily has never bothered me. Pretty sure Bud never dated a girl like me before and I'm pretty sure I scared the hell out of him at times.

I was a single mom of 3 kids from a failed marriage and a narrow escape of another terrible long term situation just trying to make it in life. Provide for my kids and survive. And I was doing a pretty damn good job at this considering my severe lack of confidence, lack of professional education, my ADHD, and working in a lumber mill. And that's exactly where I met Bud. I was throwing lumber like a Goddess into sorting carts from the Green Chain. (Totally pumping myself up for that one haha!) And he was fresh out of the military with the prettiest twinkle to his eyes....

I distinctly remember kissing him for the first time and smashing our hard hats together and running away like an embarrassed idiot to my car to go home. Because what the hell did I just do?! 😂😂 A few dates, some drinks, couple of parties with friends, meeting the kids finally and it formed into a relationship that I never expected. Neither did he... I think. Super long story short- the kids and I ended up moving in with him to his place 20 miles away. He rented this cute (ran down, but cute) mobile home on some acreage. Specifically added the property to the house just for me because not only did I come with 3 kids- I came with horses too. (Surprise! If Bud was smart he would have ran at that point...)

That next year was one of the best years of our lives. The kids got to experience freedom. From rubbing berries all over their faces pretending to be Ninjas with face paint, to hunting for snipes in the dark. They ran for HOURS outside through the trees and all over the damn place. Bud's sister and her husband had a hole in their hearts and filled that hole with the addition to the family with not 1, but 3 new fun faces to share life with us all. Our kids are pretty close to this day because of those early years. Our big blended family from many walks in life all laughing and sharing smores around the summer fires, wood cutting trips for our winter's heat, and years of shenanigans to come. There's no boundaries in our love for each other- regardless of the skin colors, cultural backgrounds, or where any one of us came from. A special kind of love.

Back to that dream of being a farmer....

Bud got his pigs. Two Duroc x Hampshire crosses. Beautiful piglets that QUICKLY turned into 500+lb beasts. Some of the BEST tasting pork we have ever had bless our plates. A learning curve for us however- nobody told us that we are supposed to process them when they're in the 175-250 lb range. Oh no.. we grew them out. A solid 9 month adventure of soy bean meal, pig grains, and mud pits. Those pigs ate, and grew, and ate, and grew to the point Bud would try to ride them. Our butcher was so impressed with the amount of fat on them when we brough them in finally that she bought the extra fat to use in her shop.

As if pigs weren't enough- we then built a chicken coop for our chickens that started out with 6 little bantam mix chicks from the straight run bin. We didn't even know what Straight Run meant. For those of you who don't- it simply means they have not been sexed and it's a giant co-ed bin of cute little peeping fluffy butts. The longer you stand there- the more you end up buying. They call it chicken math.

My favorite was a barred rock looking chick that the kids and I named Paisley. The youtube video we watched about how to sex chicks- was either wrong, or we failed the mission terribly. Paisley would grow up getting "her" nails painted and snuggle on the couch watching TV in the hood of my hoodies and ride in the pouch of my sweatshirt while I did things in the house. I learned when Paisley started to crow. Hello "Brad" Paisley, batam rooster. Bud picked out a beautiful vibrantly colored chick from the lot- didn't name it. But soon realized that his too was not a hen as we had thought- but Macho was an "El Macho". That sucker never stayed in his coop. You could be washing dishes and look out the window to see him flying around the yard, or sitting on the truck like he was King of the Hill.

So now we're 4 horses deep, because I simply can't just have MY horse, he'd get lonely. So my horse had a horse so he wouldn't get lonely. But then when we would go ride, his horse would get upset being alone. Queue horse number 3 and shortly after a 4th horse because Bud needed his own horse. (See where this goes?) Even if he claims he 'hates horses', he actually secretly loves them. This man even raced at a big production barrel race just to show his support for me. 💗You tell me he didn't like horses... not even a little bit. 😂

At this point we realized we had a full fledged hobby farm going on. Pigs, horses, chickens, attempting to garden, and getting so many eggs- I was washing 10 dozen eggs every 2 days. His chicken coop he built ended up being a chicken MANSION. And in the unspoken laws of ChickenLand- if there is room for chickens it must be filled with chickens. And feed stores- those bastards encourage it. You can't simply buy just one or two chicks! Many feed stores have a minimum of chicks that you can buy so that they can be together. It's not good to only have 1 chicken. So our 6 initial chickens ended up being nearly 100 chickens when we moved to our new location. Chicken math is dangerous. It gets out of hand quickly. If there is an 'AA equivalent' for chickens- we needed to check ourselves into those meetings and STAT! We named our slice of heaven in the run-down mobile home and 5 acres "Hope Farms". A name play on my husband's last name- and a symbol of the future. Farms as in plural so that anywhere we go in life- where ever we put our feet down can share that same name. The more we move on, the more locations adds to the "farms". Afterall, home is where the heart is. We are now in location 2 to Hope Farms. Settled until the kids graduate HS. Unsure what our future holds, but looking like Montana is in the cards. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it I guess. Until then, bring on doing this thing called life...

Farmer Hope got his dream of being a farmer..... Even if he ended up being the farmer of the most wayward selection of people and animals imaginable. Pictured above is our beloved Farmer Hope and Gary the Jersey cow that will be mentioned later on... the thrills of farming, and our wonderful farming attire. Suitable in all weather of course...

-Bre