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How we created major curb appeal for FREE

The front corner of my yard has been an eye sore for a few years. I had big plans to put a persimmon tree there, surrounded with all kinds of beautiful flowers and a few blueberry plants mixed in. Then we decided to start building our farmhouse, and anything that costs money got crossed off the list real fast.

So I had two choices:

Try not to look at the eyesore, and hope everyone else driving by looked the other way too.
Find a FREE way to landscape it.

Well I left it for awhile and tried not to look at it. But finally, I couldn’t handle it any more. I had to find a way to make it look better, and it had to be for FREE.

The first thing I did was start collecting posts to build a mini corner fence. I was able to find enough round posts of roughly the same size, laying around the farm. Farmer and I did have to search through a few junk piles and pull apart some old fences though. But hey, usually “free” means “you have to work for it a little”

We gathered all our fencing posts and rails, and built us a nice, rustic, repurposed fence in the front corner of our yard. Farmer even used old bent up nails we found in the shop, so the fence was truly FREE.

I wanted a simple, round, two rail fence. So we:

Dug the holes 4 feet apart and 18 inches deep
Set all the posts in their holes and back filled the dirt. We packed it down with the back end of the shovel REALLY well.
Then Farmer cut the tops off the posts so they were all roughly the same height. He just eye-balled it because I didn’t care if they were perfectly level, this fence was going to be truly rustic.
He marked the rails where they would meet up with the posts and notched out a little semi circle so they would hug the posts a little better.
Then he help the rails up where I wanted them and pounded several nails into each junction.

So I had a beautiful fresh dirt patch with a cute farmhouse fence, and no trees or plants to put in it. Well, whenever I need plants for FREE, I have a fall back plan. If I can figure out a way to use plants that my mother in law, my aunt, or one of my close friends have, then I can always go get a few starts. I am limited on what plants to use, but at least I can fill my space with something nice, even if it wasn’t my first choice. Some of the easiest one’s to transplant that I use all the time are:

strawberries
quaking aspen trees
sumac trees
ground covers
daisies
vines
burning bush
black eyes susan
mint
herbs
willow trees
morning glory

A word of warning though, the reason these plants are so easy to transplant or get starts from are because they spread. Some of these are even considered weeds. So before you go transplanting all kinds of things, consider how much they spread and the work it will require to keep them contained if you don’t have much space.

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In this case, I actually found something in my own yard that would work. It was a pleasant surprise to find a MILLION, okay maybe not that many, sunflowers popping up all over in my garden.

Sunflowers are just one of those plants that EVERYONE likes, right? They are huge, and beautiful, AND you can eat the seeds. Well they also happen to be very easy to grow, and even easier to maintain.

2 years ago, I planted a handful of sunflowers along the back edge of one of my garden boxes. I left them completely alone and let them go to seed. The next year, I had a bunch of pretty sunflowers to admire. Again, I let them go to seed. So this year, I had more sunflowers than I knew what to do with! It was awesome!

Then all of a sudden, I DID know what to do with them. Transplant them to the front corner of course! Instant curb appeal for FREE! And transplanting sunflowers is super easy.

All you have to do is:

Dig a hole where you want your new sunflower to be.
Find a sunflower to dig up. The smaller it is, the quicker it will snap out of it’s transplant shock. Some of the big giant ones that I transplanted were very unhappy for a week or two.
Dig a big circle around the base. The less you disturb the roots the better. Then lift it out of the ground with it’s huge dirt ball attached hopefully!
Take it straight to it’s new home. Set it in it’s new hole, and press the dirt back in around the base.
Water the heck out of it for a few minutes so it gets a good soaking. And your done!

*Your plants will look sad for a few days. Some of them will look VERY sad. I even had a few laying down on the ground pouting. Don’t give up on them, give them a chance to adjust. Most of them will snap out of it and you can pull off any leaves later that completely died so they don’t look so unhappy.

So after a few weeks of growing, we were at this stage ….

Looking very nice yes, but could use something else to really help it shine.

Then yesterday, an opportunity was placed in my lap. I love it when that happens!

Farmer and I went to a nearby town to pick up some windows I found on craigslist for our new greenhouse (coming soon!). The guy and his wife were super nice. We started talking about gardens, what else would I talk about right?? And they took us around back to show us their beautiful vegetable garden and orchard. Then she told us they were moving and she wanted me to take a whole bunch of plant starts because she knew I would take care of them.

Whaaat?!?! Yes!!!

So we dug up a whole bunch of huge, beautiful, established perennials, stuck them in boxes, and brought them home. I am talking like $200 worth of free plants guys! All because I started talking to someone about my passion for gardening. And then she told me to come back and get more before they move out next week.

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Now I just want to say that this kind of thing happens to me a lot! I mean like several times a year. It’s not some fluke thing that I get a bunch of stuff for free! It is because I talk to people about it, and I express my love for gardening. If you were to give something away for free, wouldn’t you want it to go to someone you knew would truly appreciate it? I get all kinds of things for free because I let people know how much it means to me.

Well, one of those plants that she gave us was a HUGE established daisy. Daisies are one of my favorites and it just so happens that is exactly what I wanted out front with my cute little farmhouse fence. This one plant was so big I was able to separate into a whole bunch of smaller ones.

That sounds harder then it is … All you have to do is:

Dig up a daisy plant. Try to dig wide enough that you don’t hurt the roots.
pull the plant apart where it meets the root ball so that each portion still has some roots attached. It’s not going to want to separate! I used a shovel. As long as you aren’t hacking off all the roots then most of them will survive.
Plant your new little daisy as soon as possible
Soak the ground around it thoroughly
cut off the top of the plant so it can focus on re-rooting itself in it’s new home. Here is a before and after picture of what I cut off.

You can even do that to a plant that is still in the ground. Just dig down on one side and pull some of the plant off. Then fill the hole back up with dirt.

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So now I have this beautiful corner that greets everyone that comes to The Real Farmhouse. It was completely FREE, and even if I do nothing but keep it watered and weeded, it will come back bigger and better every single year!

Do you like getting things for FREE too?? Find out How I get almost all of my produce for free RIGHT HERE. Or check out How I get unlimited shade trees for free RIGHT HERE.

Do you have any secrets on getting things for free?? Let’s hear them!

~Farmer’s Wife

Family Life Farmhouse Garden Farmhouse Life Gardening How To's

How to start a gardening blog and make money doing it

So I have had a ton of people interested in how I make money gardening.

I LOVE to garden, it’s just what I do. So for a few years I have searched for good ways to make money doing it. I am a stay at home farm wife, with four young kids, and I help out on the farm a fair amount. So finding ways to bring in a substantial amount of income is …… well …. hard.

If you would like to see my complete list of 53 ways to make money gardening that’s not selling your fresh produce CLICK HERE.

Now I don’t want to confuse you, I DO sell my fresh produce, but I wanted people to know there are other options too.

But of everything I have tried in the last 8 years of living on the farm, blogging has brought the most money in the shortest amount of time, and I get to do it on my own hours.

I have been blogging for three shorts months now and it’s already brought in hundreds of dollars. My blog is growing by leaps and bounds, and its potential makes me so excited that I want to share it with other people like me. But my favorite part about this whole thing is that it gives new meaning to the phrase “work smarter, not harder”. Blogging is the epitome of that saying. If you do it correctly, writing a blog has the potential to bring in tens of thousands of dollars every month. Someone putting in the same amount of work hours as you, could be making nothing, if they aren’t being smart about it.

I am already gardening. I already write things down and take pictures. And I have years of experience doing something that I love and something that I am good at. Blogging about it has just added a step to my normal routine. I could have just as easily entitled this post

because that is essentially what I am doing. I garden, I write it down, I add pictures, and I share it with other people.

So if you are here reading this post, it probably means you have considered, or are considering, doing the same thing.

If you are here to learn about the technical side of starting a blog, you’re in the wrong place. I am the farthest thing from a techie you could ever find, except maybe your 65 year old dad who still writes letters as his primary form of communication…. No offense to the letter writers out there! I’m just saying that’s about where I am at on a technical level. My 6 year old son knows more about computers than I do, and we didn’t even have a computer at our house until two years ago. If you need to know the computer part of blogging go to pinterest.com and search “How to start a blog” and you will have more than enough information to get you going. So ya …. now that you know a little more about me, let’s continue!

What I do feel qualified to talk to you about is the OTHER side of starting a blog. The work it requires, and the “smart part”, not the “hard part” of blogging.

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When I first considered starting a blog, I had a few different motives.

1. One was that I wanted a place to be able to write down what my family and I were doing. I think journals are important and I needed a better way to keep myself doing that.

2. Another one was that I wanted to bring in a little more substantial “extra money”. I have a whole bunch of other side hustles that bring in extra cash, but nothing that makes more than a thousand or two a year. Upon researching a little, I discovered some people making hundreds of thousands a year blogging. Well, where do I sign up??? right!!!

3. And the third reason was that I have all this gardening and homesteading knowledge that I really really love to talk to people about, and I didn’t have a good way to share it. I truly believe that anyone can grow a garden if they are willing to learn. I also believe that there are people out there who want to know what it’s like to live on a farm. And I KNOW there are other’s out there with questions about gardening, homesteading, farming, homeschooling, and self sufficient living that I know the answer to. So I wanted to find a good way to share the secrets, tips, and strategies that I know, with people who actually want to know them.

It turns out, blogging has satisfied all three of those wants. And it all happened in a very short amount of time. Blogging has quickly turned into

and

So where do you start if you want to start a gardening blog? Well, in your garden! The best way to prepare yourself to blog about gardening is to start writing everything down and taking pictures when you do it.

People are smart. They know when you’re full of crap and they know when you’re pretending. The best advice I can give is to write about things you KNOW and things you DO.

The rule I made for myself when I started blogging was that I would only write about things I had done myself and knew to work. If you follow that rule, the things you write down will be authentic and full of emotion and passion. Your readers will love what you write because you will be sharing things that truly help them and are interesting to read about. No one wants to invest time in reading a blog where someone just regurgitated what they looked up online.

You might feel like you’re not enough of an expert on anything to create a blog about it, but you are! You just have to find out what that thing is. Maybe it’s not gardening, maybe it’s raising horses, maybe it’s coaching soccer, or maybe it’s doing laundry. Whatever it is, your readers want REAL stuff.

That’s actually one of the reasons I named my blog The Real Farmhouse. I wanted people to know that it’s not sugar coated, and I don’t write about things that didn’t REALLY happen to me. I write things I know a heck of a lot about.

Like my tomato academy. I have grown and sold tomatoes for long enough that I knew I had something to share that other people would want to know. I have tried a bunch of different varieties, all kinds of growing methods, fertilizers, cages, watering approaches, and anything else you can think of. And then on top of that, I found a way to sell them that makes me good money and doesn’t require a bunch of time. Now would I really have been able to write an 8 day e-course detailing all of that information if I hadn’t ever done it? Not a good one that’s for sure!

So when you are trying to decide what to write about, keep that in mind. And also remember that “it’s not about the quantity, it’s about the quality”. Man, I am full of all sorts of quotes today aren’t I?

Would you rather read a blog that has 100 posts with pretty good information, or 10 posts with “knock your socks off” information? Ya …. that’s what I thought.

Once you figure out what to write about, and you start writing down what you’re doing and taking good quality pictures of it, then you can start creating your vision for your blog.

What do you want it to look like?
What do you want your readers to get out of it?
Do you want to make money from it?
How much time do you want to spend on it?
What are your long term goals for it?

I found it really helpful to write things on paper, and actually draw pictures of what I wanted things to look like. That’s probably because of my general lack of know how when it comes to computers, but it really helped me make a plan. Then when it came time to create my site, I had a good idea of what I wanted to do, what categories I would have, and how I wanted things to look.

However you decide to do it, make a plan. It will save you time, headaches, and money.

Now I am also going to assume that you want to make some money with your blog.

There are a lot of conflicting opinions about this part. Some people think everything should cost money, some think nothing should cost money, and some people don’t really care.

First, let me tell you my thoughts, and then you can decide how you feel about it. I felt like with a gardening blog, it was better to offer all of the information for free. I didn’t feel like the people looking at my stuff were people that would want to pay big money learning how to grow a tomato. In general, gardeners are of a more frugal nature, and therefore are not going to be too excited to pay money for gardening information.

Also, I am happy to offer the information that I have for free, because I wanted a dedicated following that would come to me for all of their gardening needs. One of my original purposes of the blog was to share my knowledge remember??

That being said, there are other topics that would be more suited to charge for the information. It’s entirely up to you to decide whether or not you will charge for some of the stuff you write or not.

On The Real Farmhouse, all subscriptions and information will always be completely free.

So now you are wondering

The short answer is ads. When I launched my blog, I simply signed up with adsense, which is an ad agency. I put a few ads on my blog and then every time someone looks at my blog or clicks on an ad, I get paid. Like this ….

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It’s an excellent way to make money and be able to offer all of your information for free.

The negative part about ads is that you have to have enough traffic coming to your blog or you’re never going to make anything. Which is why what you write is so important. See, we are circling back around now …. If you write really great stuff, more people read your blog. The more people read your blog, the more you get paid. See how that works?

Another way I am starting to make money is through affiliate ads. Again, this is awesome because you aren’t hurting your followers at all. You are in fact helping them by telling them what things are worth their money. When you have a product that you use and love, you write about it. Then you put a link on your page allowing your followers to click on the product that you are recommending, and you get paid a tiny percentage of the sale because you’re “the salesman” that sold it.

I only promote a few things because I want my readers to know which products are the most valuable to me. If I put a thousand affiliate links on my blog, it would become obvious real fast that I was just trying to get them to buy things. Remember how smart people are? Yep, they will figure it out. So another rule to always follow is never sell something to your audience that you don’t absolutely love and would recommend to your best friend.

There are many other ways to make money with your gardening blog but remember, I only write about things I KNOW. And the two ways that I know are through ads and affiliates.

The last thing I want to tell you in this forever long blog post is how to get your stuff out there. You can’t just start with no following and expect people to come find you. But I will say that if you do it the “smart way”, not the “hard way”, that it doesn’t have to take years for your following to grow.

I use one thing to spread my information, and one thing only. And that is Pinterest.

If you write quality information that people like, and then create pictures that are nice to look at, then people will spread your information for you.

I am sure there are other platforms that would work just as well, but Pinterest is the only thing that I have used, and my blog has exploded with growth because

I never publish anything that I am not super happy with and that I know will help people
I write a title that grabs peoples attention
I take my own pictures and make them look incredible so people want to share them

That’s it. The internet will do the work for you if you can get the ball rolling.

So after all that, do you still want to start a gardening blog?

I can honestly tell you that I have loved blogging. If I didn’t have to deal with the technical part of it, I would love it even more. But hey, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses right?

If this was helpful to you and you would like to know more about garden blogging please shoot me an email at farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com and tell me. I would be happy to write more blog posts about it if it was of interest to you.

Also, if you are interested in my area of expertise the Tomato Academy, then CLICK HERE to read The Tomato Freaks Guide to choosing, growing, and selling “high end” tomatoes.

Good luck with your new blog!

~Farmer’s Wife

Farmhouse Garden Preserving The Harvest

How to make tropical pineapple apricot fruit roll ups

Fruit roll ups fly out of my house faster than almost any other treat. When we go to the store the kids beg for fruit rolls, and when I make them myself they are gone before I can even get them off the dehydrator.

I love them because they are good for my kids so I don’t have to worry about them eating 3 a day. They are also cheap and easy to make them myself especially when I can find the produce for free. CLICK HERE to see how I get pick up loads of produce for free.

Recently we have been experimenting with all kind of fun combinations. I even tried adding spinach to one awhile ago …. don’t do that …. just don’t.

But one that DID turn out delicious was the tropical pineapple apricot fruit roll ups. Apricot fruit rolls by themselves are pretty good, but when you add pineapple it totally changes them to a refreshing and surprising flavor. Top it off with a little stevia and there will be no puckering lips!

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So here is what you will need in order to make these delicious snacks:

Dehydrator
Apricots, Pineapple (I used canned crushed), and stevia
Magic Bullet or blender of some sort.
Parchment paper, a cutting board, and a pizza cutter

A quick word about dehydrators ….

They are not all created equal. I have used my fair share of dehydrators and each one has been very different. Currently I am using three different “old fashioned” ones that were given to me by three different people. They all look like this, more or less.

I call them old fashioned not because they are old (one is actually brand new) but because the design and functionality of the new ones are a MILLION TIMES BETTER!

The Excaliber 3926TB will be the FIRST thing I buy as soon as we are done building our new house and have a few pennies to spare.

Even though I don’t own one myself, I have used a friends and I need to tell you the difference real quick ….

The Excaliber has 9 removable trays so you can put big stuff in as well as small stuff. (Example: big bowl of bread dough needing to rise, extra thick jerky, large flowers, etc.)
The Excaliber has the motor and fan in the back so it dries more evenly, and doesn’t get damaged when stuff drips on it while drying.
The Excaliber has a timer. If you have ever dried food before you know how inconvenient it is to have to get up in the middle of the night to shut it off.
The Excaliber has square trays instead of round ones! When drying fruit leather there is nothing more annoying then having to cut strips out of a circle with a hole in the middle.
The Excaliber has a 5-10 year warranty depending on which one you buy.
The Excaliber is way quieter then others that I have used.

If you are serious about drying, don’t waste your money. Get an Excaliber and you WILL NOT be disappointed. If you’re still unsure, just read ther reviews. They are overwhelmingly positive because everyone knows it’s the best dryer out there.

The Excaliber 3926TB with 9 trays and a timer is $248.98 if you click on THIS LINK. It will easily pay for itself in one season of drying if you use it regularly.

If that seems like too big of a chunk to bite off then check out the Excaliber 3900 which does NOT have a timer. It’s $198.86 if you CLICK HERE.

Alright, back to our instructions ….

Wash your apricots. Open them up and remove the pits. Cut off any bad parts and toss them straight into your magic bullet. Yes, this is so easy I assigned my four and six year old kids to make the fruit roll ups.I love my magic bullet because it purees way better then my blender and the container is the perfect size for exactly one sheet of fruit leather. If you don’t have a magic bullet, don’t worry, a blender will work just fine but you may have to leave it on for awhile to get all the chunks out.
Once your magic bullet is full of apricots, add your crushed pineapple. I added 5 heaping spoonfulls but you could add any amount you want depending on your preference. And I kinda squished it down in a bit, then put the lid on and pureed it a little.
Add the stevia. Again, how much you add is all about what you prefer. You could use regular sugar also. I add 1 tablespoon of stevia to this kind of fruit leather, but I don’t add any sweetener to most other kinds of fruit leather. Then put the lid on and puree it all together really well.
Prepare the tray by wiping a small amount of oil on it with a paper towel. This will make it easier to get off when you’re done. *You will need fruit leather inserts for your dehydrator. I have heard of people using parchment paper but I have never tried it myself so I can’t vouch for how that turns out. If you need inserts for your “old fashioned” round dehydrator you can find a pack of 2 HERE. And if you need inserts for your excaliber you can find a pack of 9 HERE. These are useful for other things too, not just fruit leather. Like when you dry powders or herbs.
Pour your puree evenly onto the sheet. Smooth it out a little with a spoon so it’s as even as you can get it.
Fill all your trays the same way and turn on your dehydrator to 135 degrees F
Now I can’t really give you an exact time to cook it because every dehydrator is a little different and ever person likes their fruit leather a certain way, but I dried mine for about 10 hours. I rotated the trays after five hours because you have to do that on the round kinds. Check it every couple of hours and you can determine how dry you want it. You want it to be firm enough to not rip apart but not so dry that it is crunchy and brittle.
Let it cool just a little and then take the fruit leather off. Do it slowly to prevent ripping it.
Lay it on a cutting board and use a pizza cutter to slice it into strips.
Cut your parchment paper into strips roughly the same width as your fruit leather. You can use scissors, but it’s WAY faster to use a paper cutter and they will all be the same size.
Lay down a piece of parchment paper, then a strip of fruit leather on top, and roll it nicely into a “fruit roll up”.
Store them in the fridge if you won’t be eating them in the next few weeks. However, I do prefer them at room temperature because they get a little crunchy when they are cold so keep that in mind. You can also put them in the freezer for long term storage.

These are the perfect kid snacks for on the go. They are healthy, easy, and cheap. Enjoy!

If you’re interested in preserving then check out How to can incredible raspberries in 4 easy steps. They are my absolute favorite canned food!

~Farmer’s Wife

Uncategorized

The Tomato Freaks guide to choosing, growing, and selling “high end” tomatoes

If you have been here before, you probably already know that tomatoes are my favorite thing to grow. I love all the choices of colors and flavors you have to choose from. I also love how huge and lovely the plants get because it makes me feel like I am doing something right in my garden! And you may have already read

3 things you need to know about growing tomatoes that nobody ever tells you

My DIY beefy tomato cage video tutorial

2 things you need to STOP doing to your tomatoes right now!

You get the picture right, I loooove growing tomatoes.

Oh wait though, there is more ..… I know all the tomato growing secrets, and this is one of my favorites. Tomatofest.com has the largest and most impressive selection of organic and heirloom tomatoes I have ever seen. They have over 600 beautiful, unique, and rare varieties of all different colors, sizes, shapes, and flavors. In fact, this year I am trying out a blue tomato for the first time. Yes, blue! You can’t believe some of the stuff they have until you see it with your own eyes. CLICK HERE to visit this incredible organic and heirloom tomato seed supplier that is run by a couple who harvest their own seeds. If you aren’t buying your seeds through these guys, you are truly missing out on some great tomatoes.

So 3 years ago I decided to start selling them. I grow so many kinds, why not sell them so they aren’t going to waste?

Let me tell you, it was a very good decision!

I am now selling some of my tomatoes for $3 each. I only plant between 10 and 15 plants each year in a 12 ft by 5 ft area, and I am growing over $1000 worth of tomatoes!

I tried out a few different ways and places to sell them, and I have found the sweet spot. A place to sell them that pays me “high end” prices and I don’t have to sit there all day with my four little kids and sell them myself. It’s the best set up I could ever hope for, and I want to tell you how I do it so you can do it too!

It’s not a bunch of secrets or impossible steps, it’s just a few specific things that you need to know to be able to choose, grow, and sell “high end” tomatoes.

Because of how much information there is to share, I decided the best way to give it to you would be in a free email course. (all information on this site is, and will always be, COMPLETELY FREE)

So in this 8 day e-course I teach you everything your going to need to know

and everything in between.

This is a very in depth course for anyone looking to grow better tomatoes, and how and where to sell them.

Are you ready for this?? In 8 days you will be a tomato master …. more affectionately known as a

TOMATO FREAK!!

CLICK HERE to sign up for the Tomato Freaks Guide!

Join the club!

~Farmer’s Wife

Farmhouse Life On The Farm

The Perks of living on a farm

A few years ago, when we moved into our current home on the farm, I was very anxious to get our garden plot all set up and ready to plant. That is usually the first thing I think about each time we move, where oh where to put the garden.

We moved into the house in April so I didn’t have much time to get everything prepped before I needed to start planting. My plan was to build raised boxes with railroad ties since we could get them for free from a neighbor down the road. So the process went like this …. I wish you could have seen it in person ….

Step 1- Clear out an area about 6′ x 6′ of all weeds and other things that had been there for years (30 minutes)

Step 2- Shovel and rake ground level and flat (15 minutes)

Step 3– Retrieve one railroad tie. Those things are heavy people! and longer then I am tall. So to do that I had to squat down (high school weights class in action!) squeeze my fingers under one end of the railroad tie, mutter 1…2…3…, hoist one end up as high as I could (grunt) and push it straight up in the air, then tip it forward and let it fall. Of course our railroad tie pile was across the lawn from my new garden spot so keep going …. squat, squeeze, mutter, hoist, push, tip, and fall …. five times was my goal, then I rewarded myself with a walk to the house to take a few swallows of mtn dew, as if maybe that would help me instantly gather my strength for the next go around. About (1 hour) later I have all four railroad ties positioned in my garden spot.

Step 4- Bring wheelbarrows full of dirt and compost to fill the new box. Added bonus, my wheelbarrow had a broken wheel (which I guess makes it a “barrow”) so I could only fill it half full with dirt or the “barrow” sat on the wheel and it wouldn’t turn. Now before you feel too bad for me, know that Farmer took me to Lowe’s after this project and bought me a four wheeler trailer for future projects yay! This particular time, Step 4 took about (45 minutes)

Step 5- Spread and rake out the dirt so it can be ready for planting. At this point I just wanted to lay down, but I. must. have. garden! So (15 minutes) later I have 1 measly garden box completed

Total time: 2.5 hours

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Originally I wanted 8 garden boxes …. so I sat down to rethink my plans.

I think for several days.

Then, one day, something magical happened. Farmer got off work early. Whaaaat!! Then Farmer hooked up the bucket to his tractor, and he scraped and leveled and smoothed my entire garden area. (1 hour) Then Farmer loaded several railroad ties on his bucket and took them to exactly where I wanted them. He jumped out of the tractor a few times to adjust them but that’s about it. Meanwhile, I grabbed a lawn chair and my cold mtn dew and sat in the shade to admire the view.

Load, dump, load, dump (30 minutes). Then he drove down to the pond and scooped me some really nice dirt (30 minutes). He even pushed the dirt around a little with the bucket to level it out (30 minutes). I felt bad for watching so I followed behind with a rake to touch up (30 minutes and less-sore muscles).

Farmer’s tally: 3 hours for the ENTIRE GARDEN!!

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And THAT, my friends, is a PERK of living on the farm. And since there are so many perks, I decided to make a list…. because we all love lists right??

You can use farm equipment to do your yard work.
Farming is an acceptable excuse for ~~really~~ bad tan lines. More affectionately known as “A farmer’s tan”
Loads, and I mean literal truck loads of free produce during harvest season.
Dead corn stalks, miniature hay bales, old canning jars, and other common farming ~~junk~~ things happen to be very popular decorations these days.
Farming is also an acceptable excuse for being unrecognizably dirty in public.
Tractors are the perfect sled pullers in the snow.
Your cousin drove his car into a ditch? no problem! Grab the tractor.
Farmer’s are required to be able to fix anything, or they get fired.
Need a character building job for your kid? There are always hand lines or siphon tubes that need changing.
If you need to know the 10 day forecast including humidity, wind speed, and exact amount of precipitation at any given time (day or night), ask a farmer.
Any tool you could ever need is “out in the shop…somewhere?”.
Hay bales and hay stacks make excellent forts and battlefields.
If you ever need to move anything or anyone, you have a plethora of trailers to choose from.
It’s easy to tell people which house is yours, just tell them which large piece of equipment is parked out front today.
A farmer’s commute to work is generally less than 30 seconds …. on foot … out to the shop.
There is always plenty of “reality tv” for the kiddos.

I think I could probably go on forever about the awesome-ness’s (is that a word? It is now!) of living on a farm, but I am sure you have better things to do for the next few hours. Like …. reading more of my blog! Here are a few more farming posts you might like:

So you married a Farmer … what to expect from the farm life.

Twas the night before baling

How to raise farm animals when you don’t even like them.

Anyone else have a “perk” to add??

Happy reading!

~Farmer’s Wife