week 52: looking back to look ahead
this week on the little dream farm
What a year!
In 2024 we set out to simplify everything here on the farm.
Rather than continuing to go a hundred miles an hour with projects and animals and partnerships for the farm and adding new plants and trying to grow and do and have and be more…instead we set our focus on doing less, well, and enjoying what we have.
I’ve been asked a handful of times this year for advice on buying land, starting a farm, hobby farming, land leasing and farm partnerships, and starting and growing gardens at scale.
I had to pause in each of these moments and really take it in that just a few years into this farming life, with so many various experiences under our belt, that now others would come to us and ask us how we’ve gotten to where we are.
Funny to think that just a few years ago we really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into buying our very first farm and moving from the city to the country.
To each of those people I had a chance to talk with and share my perspective and lessons learned, I found myself telling every single one of them: go slower than you want to and allow it to take longer than you think it should.
For the record, David and plenty of our neighbors gave me this same advice when we bought the Little Dream Farm. And of course, my ideas and my eagerness to do it all flew in the face of that advice.
We charged full speed ahead in our first two years here on the farm, upgrading things in the house, planting a massive fruit and veggie garden, learning to keep and care for chickens, adopting two donkeys, leasing our land to a local farmer, having our pastures mowed and maintained, testing our farm’s soil and fertility, looking into all the possible options for conservation and land management, growing thousands of flowers, exploring the possibilities of us operating the LDF as a working farm, growing dahlias, and mastering all the general upkeep and maintenance of the farm.
We’ve done all of this while asking ourselves the hard questions:
Can we see ourselves here for the long term?
Have we exhausted all of our options for the best use of this farm, both for us as a place to live and for the land and its potential?
Knowing what we know now, is there a better mix of home and property to suit our needs?
Is there a place better suited for the life we’re building, and if so what is stopping us from taking the steps to go find it?
And so in our third year on the LDF we set out to see if we could find what we think we’re looking for.
We sat down together and created an ordered list, broken down into sections. The first section details all the features of our dream home. The second takes into account the land, the property, and the acreage. The third details the surrounding area. Now when we look at places, we use this checklist to measure how a place stacks up to what we want.
We went to see a handful of properties this year. Twice, we submitted offers that didn’t end up coming to fruition. It can be hard not to look at all that searching and the hours spent in the car going to see places and the time that went into those two different offers as wasted time. So many times this year I asked myself, what the heck are we even doing?
It’s easy to talk about the beginning of something. And certainly it’s easy to look back and recount in reflection. But the messy middle—the in between—is where all the goodness is to be found…and I don’t think we talk about that part enough.
That’s exactly why we’ve chosen to share this part of our story with you throughout this year.
Yes, we truly and absolutely and definitively love where we are. And we also have a curiosity and a hunch that there’s something else in store for us, too.
And now I can open a listing and know within the first few details or photos if it’s a yes or no. We can show up to a place and have a pretty good hunch right away. Chris will tell you that if I don’t start snapping a bunch of photos as soon as we walk up, it’s a bad sign (haha!).
Turns out what feels like all that “wasted time” spent seeing so much of what we don’t want has really helped us refine and define what we do want.
I say to Chris constantly, I’ll just know it when I see it. I trust in that because it’s the same measuring stick that’s led me to all the good things in my life today…to include Chris and all our animals and this farm. Chris, on the other hand, is a little more pragmatic in his way of thinking. Somehow we balance each other out.
Many years ago before Chris and I were even dating and while we were still getting to know each other as friends, he said something to me that I’ve never forgotten.
He said, “You don’t have to know what you want for the rest of your life, but you do have to be preparing yourself, so that when moments present themselves, you’re ready.”
And we’re approaching our life here in exactly the same way.
This year we’ve struck this balance of focusing on being present and enjoying everything we have right where we are, while readying ourselves for what we think we may want in the future. That way, when the right opportunity comes along—whenever it comes along—we’ll be ready.
For me, its made our days here on the Little Dream Farm that much more precious.
Looking back through this year, thankfully we have so much to smile and laugh about and to be proud of and to celebrate.
Back when we were under contract for this farm but still living in the city, I spent all those months in between thinking about all the things we would do to this farm once we finally moved.
Today, I spend far more time thinking about what this farm is doing and has done within us.
The way its filled our lives with new meaning and purpose and the way its shaped our days and created rhythms and how its softened our hearts and brought us closer to nature and opened our eyes to the cycle of life around us and our place in it.
As we’ve looked to the year ahead I recently told Chris I very much want just two things for us in the coming year: for us to take a good long vacation off the farm together, and for us to have a heck of a lot more fun.
I can’t wait for what’s in store.
We’ll see you in 2025!
Thank you so much for meeting us here each Sunday for the weekly Farm Note and thank you for coming along for the ride with us! It’s an honor and a privilege to write this Farm Note each week, and I look forward to more Sundays together in the new year ahead.
From Chris, myself, and all our furry and feathered creatures here on the Little Dream Farm, Happy New Year to you and yours!
Need a planner for 2025? This one is my go-to for keeping track of all the things!
Do us one favor? Give this post a heart so that Substack will share it with readers on the Substack network and we can gather more great friends here together! Thanks!
Share this little dream life with someone you love:
Not yet subscribed? Get the Farm Note delivered straight to your inbox!
Happy New Year to you and Chris, the furmers and donkeys and chickens! Here's to a New Year and new adventures and experiences! Thank you for sharing your life!
Here's to health, happiness and lots of fun for us all in 2025! Thank you for sharing life at The Little Dream Farm with us every week xxx