Hi there and welcome to the farm! I wanted this first blog post to be an introduction so you could all get to know us a little better. We (Justin and Jackie) started the farm back in October 2020. Yes, we were those people that up and moved during the pandemic. It just happened to be the right timing and who are we to argue with God's plan? When a 20-acre piece of paradise comes your way, you find a way to say yes! Before we get into actual farm things, let me tell you a little bit about us.
Justin grew up on a dairy farm about four miles away from our current farm in Allegan, Michigan. He went into the Army after high school and recently retired from the Army National Guard in 2023 with over 20 years of service. He now works for the local county in the Emergency Management department. The old saying is true with him, you can take the boy off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy.
I (Jackie) grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on the shores of Lake Superior. I loved the outdoors growing up and was always doing something on the water in the summer or on the snow in the winter. No farming background for me but I do love animals! After high school I moved to the lower peninsula and attended Ferris State University for Criminal Justice. After graduating and spending a few years doing random things, I finally found my forever job with the Federal Government. I work as a regulatory investigator and get to travel all over Michigan, and sometimes to other states.
Now back to the farm. We were going to start slow with a few chickens and maybe two cows. Well, if you know anything about us, that was a nice thought but in reality, we jumped right on in. Within that first winter we welcomed 20 chickens, two donkeys, and four cows. It might not seem like a huge amount but when you're starting from a set up that isn't really for any of that, it was! Our farm was previously a horse farm, so we had a good-sized barn with six stalls and two pastures with three sided shelters to work with. We turned one stall into a chicken coop and two stalls housed the donkeys. The cows were more than happy to occupy the three-sided shelters.
We had some animals, but we didn't really have a handle on what exactly we wanted out of all this. So, we sat down and came up with a plan. That plan has been tweaked over the years, but the initial thoughts are still our base of the farm. We wanted to be able to have a small hobby farm that helped sustain ourselves and our extended family, if they wanted. I will be doing individual posts on how we chose our specific animals and things, so look for those.
Next, we needed a name. Having the last name Johnson pretty much meant that all the farm names we could think of were already registered with someone else. So, we got creative. We already had two cattle dogs prior to owning the farm. One is a blue heeler, Paige, and the other a red heeler, Bear. They both hate cows, naturally. We took the B from blue heeler and the R from red heeler, and alas B & R Peaceful Acres was born.
I hope you come back again to see where we went from there!
Commentaires