The Nitty Gritty about Beggs n Achin'
Why do we do what we do? We're crazy...
No, really, me, the wife of the operation, I've been doing crazy ideas I found on the internet and in books for years. Way back when my daughter was little (she's 22 now), I began foraging, gardening a little with a community outreach program, and looking up medicinal and food plants, because I decided, after being broke forever and unable to get medical without getting the electricity shut off, that being self sufficient was the way to go. Then I met my wonderful, very patient... husband. He hates farming (so he SAYS - he bought a cow and a pig this year).
I'm working on a book about our first years. The first 8 years of our marriage and how my hubby loves so me much that he let me get goats, chickens, put mud on the walls of our mobile home, and all sorts of other crazy stuff. One of my friends dubbed our place "Patti's Funny Farm" and the name stuck. I had gardens, I had little breed pigs, goats, chickens... the works. Even alpacas, sheep, and rabbits. On one acre. I think our neighbors we happy when we left. Actually, I'm pretty sure they were.
Then we had the opportunity to own a 100 year old farmhouse on 13 acres here in Chehalis, WA. It's beautiful out here. Pumped up on Joel Salatin and Polyface Farms, Justin Rhodes, and several other online heroes of mine, with the Farmer's Almanac stuffed in my back pocket, trompin' around in my ever present barn boots... we began our crazy adventures anew.
So why do we do it? I don't wanna have to get a real job.
No, really, hubby works full time and likes it, and that's fine. But I'm not a people person. I like animals better. And I like wearing comfortable clothes. I'm not always socially acceptable. It's the one thing I keep going back to. Animals are therapy. And the more I read, and the more recalls on foods, medicines and the like... I just wanna know what's in my food. That's it.
And now that we are in a bigger place, I had plans to be more and more self sufficient. February 2025, I finished a pair of wool pants made from my "bonus" sheep and alpacas. They took me a whole year. I didn't want to go to Walmart.
And I want to know that my food was treated well before it died. Let's face it, things have to DIE for me to eat. For you to eat. I will never be vegetarian. If you want to, great. Just make sure you are considerate and polite in your vegetarianism and I will be considerate and polite in my meat eater-ism. lol Can't we all just... get along? lol
No, seriously. Not everything put out there by PETA and the like is true. Some of it is lies. Some of it is not. And in the words of Joel Salatin... if we can't even treat these basic of creatures well that are our food... what does that say about our society and how we treat our elderly... our disabled... our disadvantaged...?
So my critters, I eat some of them, and some of them I don't. I can't eat goats, for instance. These days, since I'm taking a break from a lot of farming in 2025, we buy from other people we know of like mind locally. I would rather make my own things, teach others to be self sufficient, and support local farms and local economy. But I know not everybody is financially solvent enough to do that. But since the c-germ happened... isn't everything expensive, anyway? If I'm gonna pay, I pay for quality. Or I make it myself.
Maybe someday I will make a living at this, I dunno. I would be happy to just pay the feed bill and the ever-increasing property taxes (don't get me started on property taxes....) So hopefully, this gives you an idea of why we do what we do and don't just go buy it at the "supermarket, where no animals were harmed". Oh, and didja know brown cows give chocolate milk? Laugh. It's funny. Life is too short to be so doggone serious.
Regards,
P. Colvin, Beggs n Achin'
