Farmer Jen

I have had this dream since forever. I have always wanted to live on a farm, run a farm, be a farmer.  I know to most people that just sounds absolutely ridiculous.  

My Papa lived down the street from us my entire childhood.  My papa was an urban farmer.  From the front yard it looked like every other house on the block.  Once you stepped through his back porch the world changed.  Even though I was never particularly close to my papa, my Uncle Peaches also lived there and he was a second father to me.  In the back yard was hand built raised beds, filled with mostly rhubarb, but other veggies on occasion.  My only concern was the rhubarb, its still my favorite veggie.  Raw with salt! mmm.  He also had pens, and coops filled with foul, and birds of all kinds.  He had quail, pheasants, ducks, chickens, and fancy chickens, along with coups with pigeons.  I remember fresh egg being sent to our house, and refusing to eat brown eggs.  gross.  My mom fed them to me anyway, lying saying they were from the store.  They were delicious by the way, and I am not a big egg fan.  He also had this great big giant snow ball bush, that I was in love with.  His backyard was like the secret garden to me.  All hidden behind a fence, that the cold cruel world outside never saw.  It was our safety.  Because in the front yard, hid the drug dealers, crack heads, and I cant tell you how many times we were approached by grown men in that neighborhood, with ill intent.  

I guess thats where my fantasy comes in.  To be a Farmer, or master secret gardener at least.  When we bought and moved into this house, I had every intention of having a garden and growing my own food.  If we didnt live in an homeowners association, I would also have a few goats back there as well. But I digress.  The first year didnt go so well.  We have a crazy dog who likes to eat all my tomatoes.  Not only that we tried to plant in a plot, and the soil back there is tough and full of clay.  I knew, we had to have a fence to keep the dogs out, and my veggies in.  Last year we went BIG.  Chris built me my own little secret garden! Its surrounded by a fence, with a gate that latches.  We have 2 raised beds, and working on a 3rd this year.  He built me a beautiful bench, which I painted pink.  The bench is surrounded by colorful pots filled to the rim with flowers! (The flowers attract bees, which pollinate the veggie plants and gives us veggies). We are even working on putting a planting table out there for me.

  

Right now we have lots of veggie seedlings growing on our covered deck.  They are doing much better than I thought they would.  I had a lot of trouble with seeds in the past, and gave up and bought plants.  However my goal this year is to be a self reliant as possible.  Start everything from seed, spend as little as possible, and grow enough food to sustain my family and pass the rest on to others.  

My husband promises me one day he will buy me my farm.  I guess this is my practice for being a real farmer.  As for right now I am so happy with our little secret garden.  Some nights when its warm, I go out there and sit among my plants, and watch the sunset paint the sky cotton candy colors.  I pray prayers of thanksgiving, and I feel Gods love and peace throughout me.  Some days that little section of land, is my only calm in a hectic day.  I am so thankful for that. 

Spring Break Adventures

I have a lot of goals in my life.  One of my goals is to visit all 59 national parks.  2016 was the first time I had ever been to one of the bigger national parks (aside from Shenandoah).  I kind of fell in love with the National Park Service.  We bought a yearly pass and that was all I needed in my life.

My husband is a total wanderer like I am.  In fact, he is the one who first brought out my Wanderlust. So whenever I have the urge to travel, he is always up for it.  So for Spring break we decided to visit Eastern Tennessee and the Smoky Mountain National park.  We have visited Pigeon Forge before when I was pregnant with my daughter. Life was a lot different back then, and we didn't really explore the area all that much.  In fact, we didn't visit the mountains at all.  This time it was going to be completely different.

We decided to bring our nieces along for the adventure.  They both lived in eastern Tennessee when they were very little, but they don't have any memories of it.  I thought it would be neat for them to go back.

Our adventure began with a nice long road trip.  The drive was about 8 hours total.  Which may be a long drive to some of you.  That is just a short day trip for us.

The Appalachian mountain range through Virginia and Tennessee is absolutely breathtaking. The rolling hills, and farmlands.  I don't know if I have enough words to describe the beauty to you.

Chris found us a really cool resort to stay at.  The hotel had a huge indoor water park, with slides and a wave pool.  The park even had a surf station.  The kids all loved playing in the water park.  I cant tell you how many times the 3 girls went down the water slides.  It was probably close to 50 times between the slides.  Even little Lucas went down a water slide with Hermione.  Me and Chris stuck to the wave pool for the most part, but Chris did go down a few water slides with the girls.  I honestly think if we did nothing but stay at the hotel, the girls would have been happy.


What I liked about the hotel was the full kitchen in the room.  We all ate dinner at a big table every night.  Granted, one night we just had Bojangles take out.  It was nice to cook a nice meal for everyone.  I thought I would hate cooking on vacation.  Honestly though, I always miss real food when I am on vacation.  Eating out all the time gets old, and I cant wait to go home and eat a sandwich.  It also probably saved us a little bit of money.  6 people at a restaurant, gets expensive really fast.

One of our adventures was to go to the Ripleys Aquarium of the Smokies. We have been to the Ripleys Aquarium in Myrtle beach, and I really loved it.  So I couldn't wait to see this one.  I remember our first visit to the strip, We sat down on a bench across the street from the Aquarium of the Smokies, and they were raving about their shark exhibit.  I had never been to an aquarium before at that point.  I wanted to go over there so bad and visit.  Chris and I just didn't have the money for that.  So it was really great to be able to go, and take the kids.  The aquarium did not disappoint either.  We got to actually touch and interact with horseshoe crabs, rays, and moon jellies.  We had a really great time.

After the Aquarium we were  hungry.  Chris found a place across the street that served NY style pizza.  So we went into this old building that they turned into a mall.  It looked like a really old office building, with an old grist mill feel to it.  It was quite odd.  The pizza place was in a tiny little corner, and was ran by people with an Eastern European accent.  But honestly I am so glad we stopped there.  The pizza was phenomenal.  The crust was super thin and very good texture.  Not soggy at all.  The sauce was slightly sweet, not acidic at all.  and the cheese was so good.  And the kids loved eating pizza slices bigger than their head.

The following day we searched for something fun to do.  We had what felt like a hundred pamphlets on the table.  Trying to find something fun to do, while it rained outside.  I will say this, it rained every day we were there.  Not once did we let it damper our fun! We finally decided on visiting a little Zoo.  The Rainforest Adventure Zoo.  When we pulled up to the building, it was not what we expected at all.  To call yourself a zoo, and be completely enclosed in a building, in a very busy area of Gatlinburg.  I dont know what I expected, but I didnt have very high hopes when I saw the building. I really thought it would be outdoors.  When we entered the building, or store I should say, it smelled very strong of urine. However, despite all that.  We had a really good time.  They had so many animals packed in that building.  Birds, lizards, snakes, spiders, chinchillas, lemurs, tamarins.  I mean the list goes on and on.  They even had a petting section, and you could feed and pet goats, emus, donkeys, and my all time favorite Giant Tortoise.  We stopped for a long time and had a conversations with a cockatoo named Coral.  She was very sweet and new she was a pretty bird.  But when a sassy little cockatoo started yelling things at my son, the party really got started.  This guy was so funny.  He was trying to kiss my son through the glass.  This particular bird stayed on the ground, while all his buddies were on perches.  Lucas was the only one at ground level.  So this bird had a field day playing with him. At one point Lucas had his back to the glass, and he started screaming at the back of his head, bouncing up and down.  Lucas thought that was so funny, so he started mimicking the bird.  The bird yelled I LOVE YOU to Lucas, and then started singing ROW ROW ROW YOUR BOAT, GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM.  It was a hoot.


Our last full day in Tennessee we decided to finally go to the mountains.  It was the point of our whole trip, but with the non stop rain, we couldn't go until the last day.  The roads driving into the mountains can be terrifying at times.  With no guard rails and sheer drop offs 3 feet from the road. The views however could not be beat.  The mountains were so green from the new spring growth.  A beautiful river runs along the road.  We spent time climbing, and dipping our toes in the ice cold mountain river.  We also were on a search for wildflowers and wildlife.

The Great Smoky Mountains are filled with the most wildflowers of any other national park.

One of my goals in the parks, is to see wildlife.  I love seeing animals in there natural habitat.  And I love our local black bears.  So all through the park the kids were all on bear lookout.  We spent many hours driving, hiking and playing in the park.  When we finally had enough, Chris decided to take this one way dirt road out of the park.  this road looks like its barely ever used.  It was so janky.  It twisted and turned up and up and up to the tippy tops of the mountains.  It was one way, because its only wide enough for one car to pass.  At this point, we did not see any bears.  We had seen quite a few wild turkeys, but no bears.  Chris took one look at this road, and said "now we will see some wildlife". I wasn't buying it.  I thought, "no bears this trip"  As we were driving, my niece Samira yells out, I think i see a bear!!!  And sure enough, there the little guy was eating on the side of the hill.  Because the way the road twisted and turned up the mountain, we got to see the bear from below and from above.  I couldn't believe how close we were to this little guy.  It was a pretty cool end to a nice trip through the National Parks.

The day we came home.  At some point during the drive, I felt like I wanted to see more, do more.  I wasn't ready for the trip to be over.  So I asked Chris if we could get off the freeway and go drive a bit on the Blue Ridge parkway.  He gladly obliged.  The kids at this point were not feeling it.  They were all tired and ready to be home.  Adding time to the drive home, didnt make them happy either.  But I was so happy we did.  The mountains were so beautiful.  You would never guess that I am terrified of heights, and even more afraid of falling. I just cant get enough of the views from the top of the world.  I always tell my daughter, "its ok to be scared, I am afraid all the time.  Its not ok to ever let fear stop you from doing anything in this life"  There were points of this trip, that I was so afraid, I thought I might throw up.  But I will never ever left fear stop me.   I cant imagine how many things in my life, I would never have experienced if I let fear stop me.