Starting over with "What's in a name?"

In trying to add a picture to my post yesterday I covered the whole post with the "image" and can't figure out how to undo it! But I practiced uploading pictures, so I'll repeat yesterdays post with pictures. 

I'm half way through my fifties and wondering what I'm doing starting over farming on a 150 acre neglected farm, in a one hundred and twenty-five year old house.  I'm leaving the wonderful California climate behind (I tried to get it in the stock trailer with the cows, but it planted its feet and refused to budge!). Farming, gardening and living will take some getting used in the colder, wetter climate of the Willamette Valley of Oregon.


I'm not new to farming, I grew up in rural southern California working for a local farmer riding my horse everywhere I needed to go. My family had a few acres where we had a garden, chickens and raised our own beef and lamb. My dream was to marry a farmer and farm full time...Well, I married my own "Mr. Green Jeans" who was a third generation farmer, who then decided he didn't want to farm anymore and instead took an office job with a guaranteed pay check and all the benefits...Like not having to work in the rain, heat, or wind, no late night runs to the market or harvesting most of the night while the weather holds! It was pretty convincing. 

So Mr. Green Jeans and Farmer Jane bought 20 acres (large I know by many standards) and settled down to raise our family. But...as time went on we (I guess it was more the kids and I) really wanted to leave California and have a bigger place. Our kids had really taken to farming and were out growing our place with their projects, they wanted us to be able to have enough room to farm full time. So we began our search...We took trips traveling all over the west, with six kids in tow (they were home schooled so we could travel when it best suited us and Mr. Greens Jeans' work schedule). We saw lots of beautiful farms and explored many small towns in Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. In 1996 we bought this farm in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. 

But, when it came to leaving the security of his job and taking the big plunge, Mr. Green Jeans just couldn't do it. So the farm was leased for about 12 years, until daughter #3 and her husband moved on to it three years ago. Then in February 2010 they bought their own farm about 60 miles away, so the farm has been on its own for the last year and boy have the weeds and blackberries had a party, like when the folks go away and leave a house full of teenagers for the weekend!!!


So, now that Mr. Green Jeans has a reasonable retirement, and all the help (kids) have left home we're doing it on our own! Hence the name of my blog...farmer starting over...There are fences and barns to build and repair, pastures and hay fields to rejuvenate, a garden area to prepare and fruit trees to plant, and of course the list goes on. 


So this is a journal of our journey, Mr. Green Jeans and Farmer Jane. I've been an avid gardener all my life, we've had meat and dairy goats, milk cows and beef cows, sheep, llamas, chickens, rabbits, turkeys and horses (I draw the line at peafowl and ducks!). We're taking two horses and a pony, the beef cows are already in Oregon and we have too many dogs and cats to mention (all the dogs belong to our children who never seem to live where they can keep them! hum...) 


* Note: Mr. Greens Jeans actually mostly wears bib overalls. Mr. Green Jeans was the farmer that would visit Captain Kangaroo with his farm animals, it was my favorite part of the show  and as a child he was my ideal man! And he actually wore green jeans!