The farm we bought had a mind of its own.
Indeed. When we first drove into the driveway, we were impressed — by the mess. It was wild. The house looked like it was falling apart. The many barns were falling apart. The real estate agent said, “Let’s go look at the land first.” We drove up a dirt road, through a wide grass and flower filled meadow, to the central point of the most beautiful 96 acres we had ever seen. Forests of locusts and pine; a gurgling brook; two ponds, one ringed with cattails the other with birches and beaver lodges; and a mountain — our very own mountain — with a big boulder dropped on top.
Even before we had driven back to the house, the farm had us wrapped. We barely noticed that the roof leaked, that the windows were painted shut, that there were no locks on the door, and that not one room was habitable. We were in love. We bought the farm “as is.”
And so our adventure began. All along the way, the farm has pulled and prodded and tugged — telling us what to do and how to do it, providing us with the tools and resources and odds and ends we needed to do so.
In real life, Jordan was the one to hear the farm calling us to have a cow. In Happy If Happy When, his character Hank sings a song “Ghosts in the Barn” that describes this experience — once you are here, you just want to participate.
At present, we have one ox, three cows, four cats, nine hens, a small greenhouse and a large vegetable garden. Who knows what the farm will want next?
Happy If, Happy When 