Who we are

Let me preface this by telling you a little about us...

I am a single mom to two boys and a teacher.  As of today - June 2012 - my boys are 7 and 14 years old.

January 2012

I was born and (mostly) raised in San Diego, CA. We were in the suburbs and I was raised with cats and dogs, nothing more. I did spend 2 of my teenage years on 40 acres about an hour outside of Spokane on a "farm." We had butcher pigs, chickens, dogs, 3 geese, a duck, and my horse. Other than the dogs, the animals weren't pets.  It wasn't a real farm but we had about 20 acres of alfalfa that we cut and bailed and the animals.  We only had the chickens for the eggs, we never ate them.

Besides those two years, I haven't been around farm animals besides petting zoos and county fair type things.  My oldest son and I lived in houses and townhouses San Diego before deciding that we wanted a change and we moved to the N. Virginia area.  My youngest son has only lived in houses and townhouses in the areas near the beltway (near DC.)

I knew that I wanted to own land some day and have chickens (for the eggs) and privacy and peace, but I wasn't sure if I could afford to do that on my single salary. Last summer I was looking to buy a home and was just hoping for a decent size yard.  My agent sent me some listings and I dismissed them as being too far from my work, but one said it had a couple acres.  I quickly did a google map check and realized it was the same distance that I was currently driving and started researching.

I ended up buying the home and we moved out to the semi-country. 

The back of our new house

My original plans were to get another dog (I've had Faith, a purebred pitbull, for 9 years), and some chickens just for the experience for the kids and the free eggs for breakfast.  I also wanted a garden, but otherwise I wasn't planning any "country" things for us.  Although we have a couple acres and we are surrounded by unoccupied acres on three sides of us, we do have a whole housing community across the street and there is a new shopping center a half a mile away from us.  We aren't really that far into the country considering it's a half a mile to the gym, the daycare, and to get milk and butter.

.My plans didn't go as planned... But I'm not complaining :)