HOW IT ALL STARTED

In 2010, while Pete was deployed for the US Marine Corps, I (Heather) took our then 2 young children to the local farmer's market and came home with a tomato plant.  I will never forget the awe I felt caring for that first plant and the excitement of success when those first tomatoes ripened.  I started to read everything I could get my hands on about growing our own food and when Pete came home we built our first vegetable garden, a 25' x 25' garden with 5 raised beds.  Soon after chickens followed, then dairy goats, and two more children!  In 2015 we decided to get serious and move from our suburban neighborhood. 

OUR FIRST FARM

In 2015 bought a 200+ year old farmhouse with 6 outbuildings on a little under 8 acres and named it Wildheart Farm.  When Pete got out of the Marine Corps in 2016 we discovered that it was a lot harder to find work that would support our family in our rural area than we had imagined, and we were still far from having the farm fixed up and producing any kind of farm income.  We made a difficult decision and moved our family across the country to Washington state, where we have family, and where there were more job opportunities in the "big city."  We put the farm up for sale and planned on eventually buying a new farm in our new home.  We came close to selling the farm several times, but as luck would have it, it never quite worked out.  Perhaps it was fate. In the spring of 2019 it became clear that if we didn't return to the farm, we were going to lose the farm.  We talked at great length about our options, the risks, the benefits, the way we wanted to raise our family.  Pete had just been offered a new job in Seattle and we had to weigh that as well.  It was a crazy plan, but something made us throw caution to the wind.  I quit my job, Pete quit his job and turned down the new job offer, we broke the news to my family, packed up all our belongings, loaded our 4 kids, 4 dogs, a cat, two lizards and a toad into our truck pulling a 28' RV and headed across the country with no job, no plans, and no idea what awaited us on the other side.  We came back to a property in bad need of some TLC and got to work.  By 2023 we were raising 100% of our own meat, eggs, and dairy on the farm.  Pete decided to take a sabbatical from corporate work that spring and we started our own business, sharing our pasture-raised meats and raw milk with our local community through our meat CSA and raw milk herdshare.  It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work that summer! 

THE MOVE NORTH

As fall approached a job opportunity presented itself in southern Pennsylvania.  We are no strangers to moving, or to diving into the deep end of the unknown.  We visited the area and weighed the pros and cons, eventually deciding that it was a job Pete was excited about and an opportunity for our family that we really couldn't pass up.  We founda beautiful house on just under 20 acres in western Maryland, a 1.5hr commute for Pete, but the only property we saw that was perfect for our livestock (and we were determined to take them with us)!  In February of 2024 the North Carolina farm was sold to new caretakers and we closed on our new home in Maryland the next day.

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Since arriving in this area we have been working hard on setting up the new farm, while also carving out time to hike, fish, forage and explore the local area! We feel beyond blessed to have answered the call to come to this magical place, where we live nestled in the embrace of two ancient mountains, surrounded by flowing rivers and creeks, our plants and animals watered by the purest mountain springs.  As we re-build the farm infrastructure we are pivoting to providing more education and fewer physical farm products. 

We hope you'll enjoy joining us on the journey!