This past week I have been blessed to be able to travel on over to Nebraska and Missouri to visit my sister, brother and parents.

My first stop on the trip was Nebraska where I visited my sister Tiffany and her little farm out in the country.

It was REALLY humid over in this part of the country. Where I live in Eastern Washington it’s dry and desert like and HOT. I am not a fan of the humidity, but maybe if I lived there for a long time I would get used to it. Not sure.

She has 9 acres, 3 lambs, 4 kids, 500 strawberry plants and 16 chickens. And she has just moved into this farm 6 months ago.

So what is the first thing a country girl like me wanted to see? Why her chickens of course…she had some breeds I have never seen before like brahmas.

Those girls have fluffy feet and are SO beautiful.

Then somehow it was suggested that we each take a picture with a chicken on our shoulders. Bah-ha-ha.

Have you tried to make full grown chickens sit on your shoulder before?  It’s not easy. At first I was concerned for my sister.

Then I mocked her. Yes, I am the nice sister aren’t I?

But then it was my turn.

I didn’t really want to do it. The last time I tried to do this at home, it didn’t end well for my shoulder. Totally got pooped on.

But I always succumb to peer pressure around my sisters and mom. So I agreed to try it.

Eventually we were able to get some chickens to sit still for our photo.

Oh yeah, I still got it!

Then my sister gave me a tour of the rest of her farm.

I saw her sheep. She has two female and one male. They plan on breeding and selling for profit.

She has many outbuildings too – including this building where her chickens go in at night currently. But soon it will be my sister’s shop and she is building a huge chicken coop.  It’s in the building process . The plan is a red barn style coop. Here’s how it looks in it’s buiding stages:

Along the tour I also noticed this plant growing around her property. Anyone recognize it?

That’s right – its WEED! Marajuana. This was the first time I have seen the plant in real life..and I laughed so hard. They are not allowed to cut it, or its considered harvesting it, but they can spray weed killer on it if they want to. Its growing all over apparently. Makes you wonder about the previous owners…hmmm..

My sister also had a big idea for her boys. These boys need to save up money to go on a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints mission so she created a project for them to earn money every year until then. She purchased and planted 500 Strawberry plants after having her soil tested and found that it was perfect for it. This year she will not be able to harvest them, just removing the flowers so they can make more shoots. But for the next 8 years she will have her boys sell the fresh organic strawberries from a fruit stand in front of their house and save the money for their missions. I love how she is teaching them to be frugal and save money to do Gods work.

They also have big plans to plant an orchard next year and increase their stock of animals. They have a lot of work every day to do, and I was a bit overwhelmed by it all. But it was so fun to visit her and see how she lives. Plus she cooks like no-one I know! I loved having a farm fresh home cooked dinner.

Being at her home made me still want a farm. Even though it was hard work. Even though I know when I have my farm I will work from sun up till sun down and fall exhausted on my bed at night. I still want this life. Right now it’s just a dream – but I am working on getting out of debt, and figuring out my plans now to get to this dream. It’s gonna happen…with a lot of faith, sacrifice and hard work.

After visiting with my sister we visited some of my church history sites in Missouri and then off to my parents home in the middle of Missouri.

My mom & dad have 6 chickens, a huge lovely garden and over 200 acres.

My son was with me and was really excited to explore all those acres for snakes. This is the son of mine that begs me daily to have a pet snake. And it’s just never gonna happen. I don’t like snakes one little bit.

Well, he found one. A big one too. I was pretty creeped out, but Grandpa thought my son was the coolest kid ever. He even took him shooting. It was pretty much paradise for my boy.

On the bright side, I know now who I will be calling if there was a snake on my future country farm. This boy. It certainly wouldn’t be the happy husband. He would be screaming just as loud as me I think.

Hope you are having a great summer friends. Things might slow down a bit on the homesteading posts, since I will be hanging out with my munchins, doing some traveling and enjoying the summer. But I have a lot of fun ideas brewing in my head that I can’t wait to share with you all so check back!

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