Back Porch Farm

Back Porch Farm is a “real” modern day family running a “real” small urban homestead. We manifested (and continue to manifest) our farm to improved the health of our family, the land, and our planet. In addition, we wanted an earth-based environment to raise our child in, and to know where our food is coming from. You will not find glossy photos of us in your next issue of “Farm Beautiful”. As in other words, our goats’ poop stinks! Although, the turkey’s is worse. But our mission is to show other families that you too can grow much of your own food as vegetable, fruits, dairy and meat.

We have about 1.5 usable acres of sagebrush land. We have cleared each sage brush by hand to grow our little farm out of this high desert mesa, where we get about 8-10 inches of rainfall per year, and are in our 3rd year of intense drought. Randy (Plant Daddy) works 40 hrs/wk as the main bread winner, managing the Rio Grande Gorge recreation area. And he likes to have a day off on his weekends – imagine that! I (Farm Boss) am a stay-at-home mom of our lovable 4 year old daughter, Isla (Coop Captain), and I manage the farm. What this really means is I dream up and design all the new projects for Randy to do on his 1 day per week. I also have Chronic Lyme Disease which translates to less energy than the average bear. On top of this we have many extracurricular activities that draw us away from farm duties such as white water rafting & canoeing, hiking, skiing, biking, camping, traveling, etc.

In conclusion, we may have a farm, but we also have a life away from that farm. So our coop needs cleaning, our goat stalls need mucking, hooves need trimming, fruit trees need pruning, the compost needs turning, and our dog and cats are covered with dreadlocks. THAT is what I mean by a “real” farm run by a “real” family. And you too, with your pile of dirty dishes and bills going unpaid, could ALSO find the time to grow much of your own food. It means hard work, sure. But the rewards of pushing your fingers down into the cool, rich dirt to gently wiggle a sweet carrot out of the soil, and tasting the burst of flavor from that first bite…. oh my! And you will never have to wonder where your home grown food is coming from and what mysterious chemicals have been put into it.

We do not strive to make the farm much bigger or to support ourselves entirely from the farm. I enjoy selling my eggs, milk and goat cheese and other farm products, but am not interested in manning a booth at the farmer’s market. Randy loves his paying job and has no interest in leaving. And with my Lyme, I need to be extremely careful about over doing it (something I excel at), so we try to keep reasonable goals in our farming life. My goal is to have a self-sustainable barnyard where we have the needed gene pool, and roosters, to support fresh clutches of pullets and cockerels each spring, as well as turkey poults from our pair of Royal Palm Turkeys. I keep hens that will lay the eggs I want to put a splash of color in the 1 dozen cartons of eggs I sell, and who can tolerate our cold winters and hot summers. Unneeded roosters and tommies go to the freezer. Our milking “herd” of 2 nubian does will naturally increase as kids come into the world, but I would not want to handle more than 3 milking goats at any given time. Bucklings end up in the freezer (where last season’s buckling is now residing) and unneeded doelings will be sold. Currently we keep 2 hives of gentle bees, and would like to increase our apiary to 4. We plan to add a few more fruit trees to our 16 tree orchard and hope we might actually get some fruit this fall! But my dream of a pair of draft horses will probably never be realized as we have no pasture for true grazing and could not afford the hay year around. Draft horses eat a lot more than goats! The garden is at a perfect size now (BIG) and keeps us extremely busy weeding, irrigating, and putting food by during the growing season. We have our hands, plates, freezer and pantry full! As our homestead grows and “gets to know itself” better, I hope for more focus on education and community outreach to inspire others to participate in the growing of their own food too. As we say each night over dinner, we are immensely thankful for the 4 F’s: food, family, farm and friends!

So please follow us along in our journey to food sustainability and health as we bumble our way through the sharp learning curves and tremendous joys of homesteading. I’ll write about our trials and errors in the barnyard and garden, my experiments and successes in the farm kitchen, parenting my challenging, Scot-irish, taurean child, and the outdoor family adventures we experience. I hope you enjoy the ride!