The Funny Farm began as a small-scale (read: teeny, minuscule, barely the whisper of an impulse-led dream) operation. Eric and I had too many mimosas at brunch one sunny Sunday morning and found ourselves at the livestock/ranch supply store looking at chicks. Long story short: we bought chicks and kept them in our guest room until they could go in our not-fully-fenced backyard at the heart of college-student living in Fort Collins. We lovingly named them Batman and Robin. Our flock has waned and grown over the years and we love watching each bird’s unique personality (they’re all sweet, silly idiots but in a unique way), and we’ve learned so much!

As anyone with chickens knows, they’re a “gateway drug” and one of my favorite toxic traits is that if I get an itch to do something….I ask for forgiveness and not permission to scratch it! One thing led to another and SURPRISE, ERIC! We’re getting bees in a month! Turns out it’s been the most incredibly rewarding hobby and I feel so grateful to have learned so much and get to experience them in our own backyard.

I’m so lucky to have a partner who tolerates and supports my crazy and goes with the flow like a champion! Eric gets behind my kooky ideas and has been the MVP of our farm. He moved our chickens from our old college-town duplex to our backyard in the heart of downtown Loveland, Colorado, dove headfirst into beekeeping 101 and mitigating the social standards of being neighborly which I, an introvert extraordinaire, am not great at.

Our house is over 100 years old and although much of it has been updated over the years, there’s still a lot that I want to tackle. So stay tuned for DIY adventures with someone who pretends to know what they’re doing (me) and someone who actually knows what they’re doing (my husband), in addition to our chicken-life, beekeeping journey, garden attempts, and life with a toddler on top of everything.

Are we crazy? I don’t know, probably. Would I change it? Not a chance in hell.