For The Farm

Let's get honest here for a moment. I wrote this blog about a month ago and have been sitting on it. It's not like it's anything special, but it is a lot more personal than "how to" or business updates or flower porn. This is about our dream and the start of our journey towards that dream. Fingers crossed for a happy, and not too far off, ending!

We have a saying at our house: FTF. It stands for: For The Farm and it rules much of our family's decisions. We dream of owing our own little slice of heaven, our own little organic farm. So, when I think about getting my dirty, flower-farming nails done, I don't: FTF. When we think about going out to eat...(well, that still happens because cooking is hard, but as often as possible), we don't because: FTF. When we realize that our cars are getting a lot older than our neighbors', we keep driving them because: FTF. Basically it means that we try to save what we can so we can, hopefully, put all the extra into buying our dream farm.

Now, we live in a beautiful suburb in amazing Boulder, Colorado, in an incredible black and white home. Our house sits on about .2 acres and we have turned every square inch that isn't covered in house into garden. It is actually quite amazing what you can produce out of such a small space, even with a short growing season, when you combine tenacity; problem solving; and rotation planting. In fact, we have actually maxed out what I am capable of managing on my own (with frequent help from my husband and sporadic help from my kids).

Our greenhouse was probably the gateway drug to dreaming about growing our growing space (you can read all about our wine fueled online purchase of our beloved greenhouse in a series of posts I wrote, the first is linked above). This was going on three years ago and since then we've begun growing our dream of owning land.

Unfortunately, land is a pricy commodity around here (if not everywhere) and we've been shocked to learn that land within 3o minutes of our home runs in the 7 figures, which is a few figures more than we can currently afford. For better or for worse, I don't gamble or play Powerball, so I'd better step up my flower selling game--fast!

We've narrowed our requirements to something with at least 5 acres and less than 50 (though who am I kidding, like a hundred acres would ever be a deal breaker). Because of the hefty price tag, the land has to have an immediate money making option (air b&b? beautiful barn for weddings? greenhouse and or flower fields in place for growing?)--we're willing to get creative! Finally, the land has to be within 30ish minutes of our current home as we are unwilling to move the kids from their amazing school district so we're looking at commuting to the farm for the first decade.

We've visited a few farms over the last 6 months and gotten a taste for what is out there, nothing was perfect and if it was close enough to perfect the price tag was prohibitive. But, we have a dream, and a five year plan, and a lot of determination.

FTF