Once upon a time, a boy and a girl fell in love. It wasn’t love at first sight because they were only in kindergarten, but they did like each other as friends. This boy and girl went to school together from kindergarten through 6th grade, but then the boy moved away. The girl wondered about the boy off and on throughout the years as he had been such a nice boy, and the boy wondered about the girl off and on throughout the years as she had been such a kind girl.
Fast forward to their senior year in high school: the girl is singing on a cruise ship and the boy goes on the cruise with his parents. Boy meets girl again. This time it still isn’t love at first sight, but it is most definitely like! The boy asks the girl to go on a date, then to go steady, and when she tries to dump him because he just doesn’t fit into her plan for her life at the age of 17, he kisses her on a bench overlooking Snoqualmie Falls, and they fall hard! Now it is love, and the boy and the girl graduate high school and go to college together. At college, the boy and the girl both take their love of animals and nature to the next level by majoring in Biology. When the boy asks the girl to marry him on that same bench overlooking Snoqualmie Falls, she says yes. You might think this is where the story ends, but it is really just the beginning.
The boy and the girl get married. They are the best of friends and love spending time together, but the needs of life tend to get in the way of that. The boy becomes an electrician and the girl becomes a teacher. Things are going along well until the girl gets very sick. Many tests and many years later, the doctors determine the girl has Crohn’s disease, an auto-immune disorder of the intestines. The girl has a surgery and does better for a time, but they struggle with infertility. Finally the girl gets pregnant and gives birth to a beautiful little girl. She wants a healthier life for their daughter, so she starts to do research. She finds that an organic, whole-foods diet is what God intended for us to eat to be healthy. The boy and the girl commit to changing the way they eat and especially how they feed their children. On this road to health, the boy and the girl get a few chickens for the eggs.
The boy and the girl do not realize that chickens are the gateway drug of the farming world. Soon a few chickens becomes lots of chickens and ducks, and bees too! The boy and girl realize their little half acre lot is not going to fit any more animals, so they begin a search for land. They find a parcel that calls to their souls-it feels like home. Before they really know what has happened, the boy and the girl have chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, bees, guinea fowl, goats, llamas, alpacas, horses, and another beautiful little girl!
A friend offers to teach the boy how to butcher extra roosters and noisy guinea fowl. The girl is appalled! She can’t understand why the boy would want to kill their precious animals. The boy shows the girl the movie Food, Inc. and various other documentaries that show how animals in confinement operations are treated. Now the girl is truly horrified. The boy and the girl prayerfully consider becoming vegetarians, but with the girl’s Crohn’s disease that is not really an option. The boy researches and studies humane methods of butchering, and soon the boy and the girl are raising their own chickens for meat. Friends and family members are interested in these humanely raised chickens. Soon the boy and girl are raising chickens, turkeys, pigs and cows for meat for themselves and others. They also decide that their little garden can grow to become a Vegetable CSA that will provide food for others. One day the boy and the girl look at each other and realize that they are no longer the boy and the girl, but the farmer and the farmer’s wife. They still love each other deeply and wish they could spend every day working together and with their children, but the boy still works off-farm as an electrical estimator and project manager. They hope and pray that the animals and the land that they love can become the means of support for their family, so that they can continue to grow good food for themselves and their community.
Would you like to know more? Then come join us on our journey; it’s been a lot of fun and is getting better every day!
You can reach us via e-mail: farmers(at)adalynfarm.com
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