as way of an introduction

I was thinking it might be polite to give a bit of an introduction, in case there are folks arriving here that don't already know us. I go by Harvest Mom in cyber-space, and that's me in the funky tie-dyed t-shirt, standing next to my incredibly handsome and insanely tolerant hubby of 18 1/2 years, The Map Man, also known as "The Accidental Farmer" -- the boy was raised in a suburb for heaven's sake, the closest he'd ever been to a sheep before he met me was at the county fair. Well, to be fair, I too was raised in a suburb, but I come from a family with a long tradition of farming and was around (and on, and on the rare occassion IN) farm animals my entire life. He comes from a family with a long tradition of spending summers at the beach instead of on a hay wagon.

Those two ridiculously adorable kids we're with are, amazingly enough, the combined product of our genes. J is the bigger dude, he's 6 1/2 now. Those fingers in his mouth were a stage that I think he's beyond now (thank goodness, because when you live on a farm you DO know where your hands have been, and 98% of the time, it's nowhere you'd want to wind up in your kid's mouth). Zoo Boy is the little guy, who recently turned 4. As you probably guess from his nickname, he likes animals, the more exotic the better. He's definitely living in the right family. Although he's still not likely to get the pet Vulture he wants.

Our farm is part-hobby, part-subsistance, and 100% lifestyle choice for us. Our day starts at 5 am, and never really ends this time of year, with lambs expected in sub-freezing temperatures. But most of the year we pretty much run a sun-up-til-sun-down sort of operation. The Map Man escapes the property for 10 hours every weekday, since we're not actually susbsisting on what the farm brings in. In fact, we're not exactly breaking even. What we are doing is sinking a lot of our income into a place that may never be self-sufficient. Which I guess is what makes it more a lifestyle choice than a business. However, I do make my meager financial contribution as a direct result of this place. I'm a dog trainer, and what I train dogs to do is to herd sheep, and the sheep I do that with are in our pasture. In theory that business alone could be enough to pay for the upkeep of the place, but in reality I have two small kids to raise, so can't spend as many hours in the pasture as I would need to in order for that to happen. So I also work as a contractor for a couple of other dog businesses part time in order to generate a bit more income to keep food in the troughs and hay in the loft. And still we need The Map Man to keep his day job in order to pay the mortgage. I also personally need him to haul water, dig post-holes, chop ice in the winter, clean out the sheep barn in the spring, and do various other manual labor tasks that keep him off the streets and out of trouble and looking as ripped as a body builder. Ok, maybe not quite. And a little smellier. But I think he's darned sexy all the same.

So that's us in a nutshell. We're a homeschooling family, which I'll be talking about in nauseating depth as we go along, so there's really no need to say more than that here. I'll introduce some of our critters as we get rolling too. But right now it's feeding time and the sheep are working themselves into a frenzy, so it's time to mix up some grain and head out to the barn.