Having married straight out of high school and leaping headlong into parenthood (twice, nine months apart), we were completely broke. While my husband, Peter, spent long hours slaving for minimum wage to pay for our 2-pack-a-week Huggies habit, I was in the kitchen heating up a pan of ramen and fondly recalling the 1/4-acre garden of my childhood. I would have traded my right arm for a garden-fresh tomato! Our tiny, old trailer soon had tomato cages lined up along the flower beds.
Inspired by our little stab at self-sufficiency, I began scouring the library for books on farming. Imagine, being able to support your family with only a piece of land? What a fairytale! For several more years, I kept this little fantasy of mine under wraps, the secret indulgence of a stay-at-home mom.
Several years and another child later, my husband lost his job when the Noble factory closed. While Peter went back to school, I began entertaining the idea of getting a degree myself. When I realized LMC offered a commercial horticulture major, I had an epiphany- what I had been daydreaming about for years, other people were actually doing for a living. Why shouldn't I? With Peter's encouragement, I enrolled for classes.
Scrolling through Craigslist one day, Peter stumbled on an ad by a local CSA farm looking to barter a "share" for a few hours of farm work. Thrilled, I emailed right away. And so I met Karen and Jody, a dynamic couple who had actually abandoned six-figure salaries in Chicago to grow organic vegetables in rural Southwest Michigan. The work was thoroughly unglamorous and by the end of the first day I was a dirty, sweaty, wheezing mess. I was also completely hooked!
So when given the unexpected opportunity to run my own farm, I did what any self-respecting dreamer would do (after I stopped jumping up and down like a 2 year-old) and took it. Because, really, how often in this world do you get your dream handed to you on a platter? Only once in a blue moon...
~Tegan Mally, daydreamer extraordinaire,
founder of Blue Moon Heirlooms
