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Good Morning Friends,
I want to be completely transparent with you. You have stuck in here and watched our homestead start to grow. But I feel as though I failed. This past year has been one where I have let myself sink into a depression that has had an enormous effect on the homestead. I stopped wanting to document our progress on YouTube. I got so discouraged about just simply being on the farm. More than once I broke down in tears saying that I wanted to give up and just sell everything. I was having a hard time working on something that may Never be mine. I've written of this before, but we are only leasing this farm. We don't own it although our hope and dream was to do just that. We had big plans for this place. Plans that we didn't want to share with many people.
But that is the end of being quiet and holding things in. Yahweh put us here on this farm for a reason. When we lived in Alberta I dreamed and prayed that we would find the perfect place to have sheep. I wanted rolling hills and lots of grass. I saw a barn where I could have my ewes go in and have their babies. I gave my desires to Yahweh and he granted them almost three years ago. We thought we had made the right choice to start the homestead. It is the right choice. You see right now during this crazy time in our life the economy is turning upside down and a lot of people aren't sure what they are going to do. We have animals that we can harvest to feed us. We have a garden growing that we can put food away from. We have a cow that is in milk. We are blessed with so much.
I stepped back and took a look at what it is that we have versus what we need. Friends, we don't need much. I have prayed long and hard about this and if this is going to work for us then we need to put the effort into it. We don't have a huge amount of money in the bank for a down payment for the farm, but we have put a lot of sweat and tears into this place. It still needs a lot of work to get it to where we need it. We have fences to fix and replace in order to keep our animals in and the neighbor's animals out. But when it isn't "your" place you don't want to fix it for someone else. The agreement we thought we had with the people who own the property we are leasing wasn't honored. We have been paying the lease payment for almost three years and had planned on that as the down payment for the farm. That is what was verbally agreed upon. Lease for 4 years while getting the farm established and then purchase the farm.
John and I have been trying to figure out what it is that we can do. The biggest thing we forgot to do was hand it over to Yahweh. He is the only one who can make this work. Everything we have done to try and find something else has failed. One closed door after another. So we stay where we are and follow the lead of Yahweh.
So what were/are our plans for Shepherd's Valley Homestead?
To provide our community with grass-finished lamb and beef, pastured chickens, and eggs. We want to eventually get a big enough garden that we provide for our community that way as well. We want to turn our homestead into a learning experience and offer farm-to-table meals. We want to set up a farm stand where people can come and buy freshly made bread, a dozen eggs, some preserves and so much more. We want to be able to have school groups come and learn about sheep and how we're looking after them. These are all the ideas we had brainstormed before we moved into this farm. I spent hours working on a solid business plan that if properly executed would get us to where we needed to be.
We haven't given up and are trusting in Yahweh to provide. We just need to continue to be obedient to Him.
Shalom