I just subscribed to Hobby Farms magazine

What is a hobby farm? It's a farm you have, just for fun, without it being your primary source of income. It has always been my dream to be a farm girl but when I used to mention it to friends I would only get negative feedback: "Do you know how much work a farm is??" "You really think that you are going to wake up at 5am every day??" But they just didn't see my vision of a farm.

It has just been in the last year or so that I first heard the term "hobby farm" or even "urban homestead" and when I learned that actual people are out there living my dream, I knew I wasn't so weird and that this could really happen some day. These people live in regular houses, with regular-sized backyards (or even tiny backyards!) and they have gardens, they grow vegetables, they grow herbs, they have chickens! Can you imagine having organic produce and cage-free eggs without Whole Foods prices? Some people even have a cow or a goat and pasteurize their own milk and make their own cheese! This is my dream people!

Of course right now I do not own a home or have a backyard but that doesn't mean I can't get a head start on the research. In addition to subscribing to Hobby Farms magazine, I have bought a few books: including Keeping a Family Cow, The Encyclopedia of Country Living which is the one I'm looking forward most to diving into constantly in the years to come. It promises to teach me "how to cultivate a garden, buy land, bake bread, raise farm animals, make sausage, milk a goat, grow herbs, churn butter, catch a pig, make soap, work with bees and more!"