About

If you’re a baby boomer or if you’re still wondering “what do I want to be when I grow up” you’ll understand what my blog is about. My husband and I are nearing retirement and we’ve decided we would like to return to a rural lifestyle and raise alpacas. This blog is about our journey and what we are learning along the way to setting up our homestead.

I grew up on a farm rural southern Oregon. My dad, raised himself on a farm in Iowa, worked in a feed store and worked the farm too. My mom, typical of the moms in the 1950’s, did it all. She helped on our farm, raised chickens, slopped hogs, milked cows, raised a garden and canned and cooked our food. She made our clothes and she grew beautiful flowers for pleasure.

I moved to the city and joined the Navy when I graduated high school. I got married to a Navy man and traveled and had a daughter, plus raised my two stepdaughters. When my husband retired, we moved back to Oregon and I was able to raise some chickens and have a big garden too and I loved it.

The kids all wanted to live in Texas, though. We’d spent a great deal of their childhoods in Corpus Christi and our youngest daughter ended up going to college in Arlington, between Dallas and Fort Worth. So back we came.

I used to hate Texas, but I have to admit, in the past four years, I’ve come to love it. I love the wide, open spaces, the beautiful sunsets and the friendly people.

I’ve been making my living as a journalist and freelance writer for the past eight years or so and my husband is still working full time. We’ve spent a lot of time kicking around ideas about what we’d like to do when my husband can quit his day job and we can do as we please - sort of.

Like all baby boomers these days, finances are a part of our decision. We’d still like to make some money but this time, doing something we love. We’ve wanted to get out of the city and have a few acres where our two dogs can have room to roam and we can have some peace and silence around us.

A couple months ago, my husband read an article in the newspaper about raising alpacas and we went to a nearby alpaca ranch when they gave an informational workshop. Now, I’ve always loved animals of any sort and my dream used to be to have rescue llamas. But my husband resisted the idea.

After reading about alpacas, he became enamored with the idea of raising them. I have always any kind of fiber crafts so raising alpacas, spinning yarn and weaving all appealed to me. It was as if our quest had suddenly become clear in our minds. loved We would get some land, build our retirement home, have a garden and chickens again and spend our time doing something fulfilling.

My blog will be about alpacas, fiber crafts, building a homestead, gardening and all things country, with a little about life in Texas thrown in.

So this is the story of our dream. It’s only just beginning and it will be an ongoing story. All the steps we take to make our dream come true. Large steps, small steps, hopefully successful steps.