UPDATE: "Wannabe farmer" explanation for my lack of writing lately

Sorry for the lack of content on this newsletter recently. With the warmer weather, I have been incredibly busy on my latest project: starting a self-sustaining hobby farm.

I live a pretty unique lifestyle being retired (well I guess a part-time writer…). It allows me to be a full-time parents to our three kids.

For the last couple of years we have lived completely off-grid in the middle of nowhere (we don’t even have cell service here and rely on Starlink). We built a nice home on a mostly forested 160 acre property.

Our plan was to eventually become even more self-sustaining and add animals. After we caught up on three years of travelling this past winter we decided to settle down.

For the last two winters I have harvested, cut and chopped all the firewood we need to heat our house (that’s how I plan to stay in shape in my middle age). Instead of sporadically cutting everywhere, this winter I decided to clear a dedicated one acre area to start farming.

And now in the last two months, we have acquired almost every animal that Old Mcdonald had on his farm.

First we adopted an amazing 3.5 year old golden retriever who has been the perfect farm dog so far.

Then we got sheeps and goats.

And last week, we went all in and got a calf.

We also built a rabbit hutch and have four bunnies so far that we plan to eventually breed. Next week we are getting 20 laying hens so we can start eating our own eggs again (we had laying hens in the past). And in the next months we will be adding turkeys and pigs.

Buried in all the excitement are the kittens we adopted to guard all the animal feed we are now storing. E-I-E-I-O.

My current project is fencing the one acre pasture I cleared so that all these animals can enjoy some freedom come April.

This might be a boring post but at least it’s something. I find it’s much easier to write or tackle important topics in winter when we can’t do much outside. So I might just have to accept that I will be a winter writer and a summer farmer.

I have other issues that I want to cover but expect only a couple articles per month until the snow starts falling again in the fall. I do plan to continue writing regularly on my local municipal politics newsletter which has seen a lot of growth.

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