Don't Fence Me In...

A couple of friends of ours want to buy a farm with us. It's a grand plan that we're all dreaming about. Let's see if I can explain it... **fades into wistful idealism** First, A & R were married a year before T and I were. All four of us are Byzantine Catholic. T and A both chose grad schools far away from any conveniently-located Ruthenian Byzantine churches (it's not hard to do, though, so it's not really their fault). In any case, we have ALL been missing the pacific northwest (Go Zags!), family, friends, and the all-too-typical "simple life." So, we thought once the husbands finish school, it would be fun to buy a farm somewhere in WA, build a Byzantine church on it, and raise our kids together. There are all sorts of perks to having a farm... 1) Our own garden. T loves to garden. It's been quite a trial in a condo here, where the only two plants we have in the house are an African violet and an Easter lily... We could have all sorts of plants, provided we can keep animals and bugs away from nibbling the fruits, veggies, and flowers we'd grow. It'd be beautiful! 2) Milk cow or goats. I love raw milk--it makes me feel good about drinking it, and I love that I can make my own butter, sour cream, cream cheese, buttermilk, and any number of other fun dairy products (including ICE CREAM!). 3) Lots of space for kiddies to run around. See T's note: Random Memories. 4) The best of both worlds. In the pacific northwest, the farm would be close enough to "civilization" that T and A could commute to a University somewhere to teach, and R and I could afford to stay home and be wifely. There are other things that would be awesome, but I can't list them all here. If you think I should add any, leave me a comment! 5) Birds I think it would be fun to have a "bird haven" somewhere on our farm, preferably somewhere I can watch from a kitchen window! I love to watch birds--especially the rare ones like cardinals and blue jays that don't come out so often. 6) Bees. I think it might be fun to keep bees and have our own honey. Raw, unfiltered honey is so yummy--and it smells like wildflowers! And we'd be helping support the declining bee populations in the world. Yay for honey bees. Our farm wouldn't have to be a huge farm, and we certainly wouldn't have to have lots of animals or anything. T's family had some (about 4?) goats and (I think) it was enough milk for their dairy-loving family. We could raise chickens (T knows all about them) and then we'd have 1/2 our menu taken care of: eggs, roast chicken, chicken soup, chicken a la king, chicken pot pie, etc. Basically, you can do anything with chicken. The rest of the menu can be filled in with bread we bake and fruits and veggies we grow. And after my cousin in TX starts his beef ranch, there's another kind of meat for us! mmm... R and I could home school our kids together and A and T could supplement with more-specialized subjects (haha, because it's real likely our kids will want to know more about Lonergan's personalist thomism or Plato's political philosophy before they reach college). If we succeeded in building a church on our farm, T or A could become a Byzantine priest (gotta love the East) and then we could have liturgies on Sundays with anyone else who wanted to come. Or, Fr. Joseph could retire to our farm and say liturgy for us.. or Fr. Bill when he wants to retire :) Anyway, it's a fun dream, and it's not even outside the realm of possibility! I don't know if it will ever happen, but it would be grand if it did. :D Here's a nifty blog that sounds like the same kind of thing we want to do.