I kept our sheep a secret. After mentioning to a friend that I was thinking about getting a small flock, she looked at me with crazy eyes as if I had said I was going to burn my house down. I had just that day committed to buying my first two goats. A few months prior to that, I had bought some chickens to add to the ones I hatched a few months prior. And a few months prior to that, I brought home a team of ducks. Aaaaaand a few (say it with me) months prior… we had just abandoned our standard American urban life for a new home on the top of a mountain. 

My husband, Benjamin, and our four children (ages 2, 3, 5, and 7) moved to the mountains outside of Boise, Idaho, after two years of searching for the right piece of ground for us. Our must-have list included: at least 5 acres, private access to enough public land to hunt on, some kind of flowing water, a home or potential for a home, and it needed to be close enough to Boise to keep our landscaping business where we’d started it. When Ben showed me this home on Zillow one Sunday afternoon last April, I got a pit in my stomach. It checked every box and then some. I panicked a little inside, but felt some relief when I saw the list price – I knew my husband would never spend that much on a house. The two years we’d spent searching for our property combined with pandemic chaos, had only cemented my desire to move out of the city. But when it seemed like it might become a reality? Instant cold feet. I went back and forth for days, my brain, my heart, and my spirit raucously arguing day and night. And then, as suddenly as the panic had appeared, it dissolved into peace. I knew this big green house atop a mountain on 14 acres would be our forever home. Oh, and that scary list price? We could rent out the sweet, little bonus cabin on the property to offset our mortgage.

Fast and furious, we moved, fixed up a nasty well situation, and added a hefty amount of livestock and other animals to the land. It wasn’t exactly the plan, but I just kept finding “good deals” on animals, one thing led to another and now we have dogs, cats, ducks, chickens, goats, and sheep! We moved fast. We started out last year with one dog in our backyard and ended the year with nearly 50 animals in steep, heavily-timbered country. Someone asked me recently, “You weren’t raised a farm girl. So do you, just like, google stuff and figure out how to do it?” And yes, that’s pretty much how it works. We’ve researched fencing and lean-to’s and make-shift chick brooders. What kind of minerals goats need, the best heritage breeds of meat chickens, and greenhouse ventilation systems. And all the while, we keep running our business, homeschooling our children, and gleefully making memories every single day. 

There are obvious challenges that come with trying to farm at the top of a mountain. Our road in and out is treacherous at times. Predators abound. The snow comes and stays and I’m constantly second-guessing whether my chickens are happy enough here without bugs and green things to graze. I can’t wait to garden but I’ll need to flatten out a new plot for it, make sure it’s fenced well so deer and elk can’t snack on it, and our growing season is so short that a greenhouse is a must. We have very limited flat land so any animal we add needs to be hardy enough to handle these hills. But these challenges are special because they’re all ours. We’re not reading about someone else doing this. This is our very own life!

After less than a year of living here, I don’t even recognize myself. When my husband first found hunting as a primary passion, I was happy he loved doing it, but being the animal-lover I am, I swore I could never be part of it. Well, about a month ago we butchered our first lamb here on our property. I told Ben I’d be happy to process the meat with him, but there was no way I could be part of the initial kill. But to my surprise, when it came right down to it, I decided I couldn’t not be involved in every single step. I’ve grown to understand the sacred part of raising and butchering your own meat. There’s so much to say about the sacrifice and what it means to our family, even on a spiritual level.