When you wish upon a farm

Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

Sandy and I wished for years to have our own hobby farm. This year, after much consternation, we finally bought a small acreage just outside of Bryan/College Station. On the surface, it’s paradise. It’s heavily wooded with several clearings and a small pond. When we first moved in we were pleased to see such a variety of wildlife living here – deer, raccoons, armadillos, frogs, and birds of every feather. It brought to mind the Hundred Acre Wood from Winnie the Pooh, so we named it Southern Acre Wood.

We have grand plans of growing a huge garden, planting fruit and nut trees, and raising small animals such as rabbits, chickens, ducks, and perhaps goats or alpacas. It’s easy to look at the property and visualizing our dream unfolding in place. The place is perfect for what we want, with the exception of a few things we hadn’t planned on.

The property was wet and very swampy when we bought it. The drought hit about the time we moved in and it is now a desert, but then so is much of Texas. About a third of our little pond has evaporated, leaving behind muck, mud and huge piles of rotting leaves and limbs. We couldn’t see that under the thick covering of algae and duck weed that blankets the surface. Clearing that out is just another project in paradise.

The soil has a lot of clay, so right now it’s harder than concrete. Tilling and planting a garden is going to have to wait a while. We don’t want to start raising animals in this heat, so that’s also on hold for cooler, moister weather. In the meantime, this is an ideal time to stay indoors setting up our home. At least it would be if we could get the big box store which shall not be named (the name is two words and the signature color is orange) to do anything timely or correct.

We spent six weeks waiting for vinyl flooring to arrive and be installed. When the installers finally came, they took measurements, ripped up a section of carpet, and announced they can’t install vinyl in our house. We returned it to the big box store which shall not be named and ordered carpet instead. It took them another week and two visits from us to get that done. And now it will be about two to three more weeks before it arrives and is installed. In the meantime, most of our furniture and other belongings sit in storage.

We knew we wanted gas appliances in the house, so we ordered a propane tank from a local company and had it installed. We purchased gas appliances from the big box store which shall not be named, but they did not come with propane conversion kits like they told us they would. It took about seven weeks from the time we ordered the propane tank until we finally had working appliances in the house, but at least that part is done.

I’m very anxious to get outside and start cleaning up the property and preparing it for farming. The searing heat we’ve had lately has made that impractical. So I watch as the greenery droops and the pond dries up, wishing I could get out and do something. Since I can’t work outside, I’d like to at least be setting up the house inside, but again, we’re waiting on the carpet. We are trying to minimize what we have in the house until the carpet is installed. Without furniture in place, we can’t tell where we want to hang pictures and things. So, we wait.

Every once and a while I stroll our little acreage, my heart full of hopes and dreams of what could be but my head heavy, listing all the work it’s going to take to make our dream come true. There is a lot of underbrush to clear out, dead trees to cut down, trash to clean up and other things to take care of. That’s on top of cleaning out and expanding the pond, putting up fencing, building a deck out back, and many other projects that just keep piling up. Oh, and then there is the part where we actually build the farm and do things like preparing the soil for a garden and installing a chicken coop and rabbit hutches.

What we thought would take months will ultimately take years to complete. That’s fine, I guess. This is, after all, what we wished for; what we prayed to God and asked for. Rather than taking strides to transform this property we are now taking it in stride as we suffer setbacks and struggles. We are not deterred. We are determined. Every step has a lesson to learn. When it comes to starting a farm, each growing experience is just that – a growing experience.

We got what we wished for and now we must carefully fashion this dream and make it come true. With God’s timing and grace, we believe it will come to fruition. Be sure to stay tuned for future updates from the Southern Acre Wood.

(This column was not published by the Wharton Journal-Spectator.)