Swine Misconception
By Kelli M. Shanley
It started in 1950, when my parents, then city dwellers, bought a farm south of Buffalo, N.Y. They decided, as every farmer does, that their farm should have farm animals, which eventually consisted of horses, chickens, goats and pigs ... 
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When City Meets Country
By Carol Schlagenhauser
As we added ponies, donkeys, Nubian goats, sheep, peafowl and an emu to our outside menagerie, we also added chinchillas, bunnies, guinea pigs, birds, a hedgehog, a potbellied pig, and stray dogs and cats to our inside collection of pets ... 
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Dogwash Farm
By Millar F. Johnson
The last time I hunted deer was more than 40 years ago ... This time I am hunting in the forest of Dawgwash Farm, the 100-acre, retirement hobby farm that my wife, Jane, and I have been building for the last five years ...
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Goatastic Acres
By Kelly Kupiec
There’s a little something on our farm for everyone. I raise goats and love to fantasize that I’m a “real farm wife.” You know, a wife that can milk a cow with one hand tied behind her back ...
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High Tales Alpaca Farm
By Brenda Urquhart
We designed and built our country home early in our married life. The trees and hillside granted us a lifestyle we loved. The fruit trees matured and our raised garden beds multiplied over the years.
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A Piece of Heaven
By Becky Fidler
Some people say change isn’t good, but for my husband, Dennis, and me, it was a new beginning in our lives. I always joked that this was our mid-life crisis move. It all began 12 years ago ... Click to continue ...

Cricket Hill
By Judith M. Saul
Ten years ago my husband Henry and I moved to our log-home, mountain hideaway in North Carolina. We named it Cricket Hill because of the nightly serenade by the crickets. We were not thinking of a farm, only a quiet, peaceful place to live and work. Click to continue

Small Steps to Contentment
By Donald Healy
Much of my children’s lives were spent moving from state to state and city to city as a result of my military service...What I didn’t realize was that a childhood passion in myself was being rekindled; we began to discuss moving to the country. Click to continue

Fish & Farm
By Michael Merrick, MD
The usual homestead routine is familiar to all Hobby Farm readers--planting, cultivating, harvesting and processing. When your farm is in Alaska, like mine...The garden, not planted until Memorial Day weekend, gets a late start, but the long hours of sunlight make everything grow exceptionally fast. Click to continue

No Place Like Home
By Heidi Overson
While I was growing up, I would go outside and listen to what the farm was speaking to me...With goose bumps on my arms, I’d feel oddly at one with nature. I can’t explain the feelings that entered my soul through the beauty of nature, but perhaps you understand. Click to continue

The Zen of Sheep Shearing
By Anne Schroeder
It so often happens that we take steps toward change in our lives but don’t grasp the consequences until we’re knee-deep in it. It’s like that with sheep, only more so.  Click to continue

Barn Home
By Dale Sutton
My family of six boys and three girls grew up on a large farm in upstate New York. Yes, we lived through the Depression, World War II and the Korean Conflict, always keeping 1,000 laying hens and 30 head of purebred Guernsey cattle. The selling of milk and eggs gave us the money to buy food and some extra funds to repair the house and barns.  More

Returning to the Good Life
By Robin Mullet
As a boy, my husband Dick (shown left) liked to sneak away from his chores to walk the hills surrounding his home in eastern Ohio...When he left for college and his engineering career, he was sure he had left the farm life in the hills for good. Little did he know that 30 years later he would find himself back in those same hills...  More

A Woman Who Runs With the Sheep
By BL Wiedenbeck
When we moved to our small farm in 1998, we were determined to do something of farming-value with the property, even though my husband and I were city kids with no farm experience between the two of us. After 18 years of marriage, this was quite a lifestyle change for us and our four children! We had a lot to learn. More