Why I decided to become a midlife farmer and blogger

I was finally where I “should” be in life. Happily married at last (after 2 failed marriages) to the most amazing man (yes, I am lucky and blessed), a nursing job I enjoyed, great kids and family, good friends and we were closing on our dream house on 5 acres in a few weeks so life was looking pretty close to perfect to me. And then – WHAM- I was laid off. To make it worse; it turns out that my MA nursing licence that should convert easily to a PA nursing licence (after having relocated to PA when I got married) ran into a snag. Since I was educated in my native beautiful country of Sweden, a complete review of my education was needed. I discovered that the schools I had attended were closed and that the city archive only had half of my transcripts.

What now? My first reaction was to get angry – how dared they say that I couldn’t be a nurse anymore? I had worked as a school nurse, correctional nurse, OR nurse, Labor & Delivery nurse, med/surg nurse and more for over 20 years. Then came the sad and depressed phase. I was a nurse but now I was not. So I felt like I was a nobody. Lots of ice cream entered the picture along with heavy duty binge watching of Netflix. All while trying to figure out what I could possibly do. Go back to school? I felt too old, and what would I study anyway? What was I interested in?

After months of asking God to point me in ANY direction, some attempts to online studying and of course more Netflix I half jokingly suggested Scott that we get some four legged lawnmowers for our out of control weeds on the steep slope down to the pond. To my surprise he was not against it! I happily threw myself into researching all about the most suitable sheep for this purpose. To my surprise I found that the absolute cutest sheep in the world – the Valais Blacknose Sheep – now were available as a breed up program. I had originally seen these sheep years ago and had fallen in love with them but at that time they were not allowed to be imported into the US. I enthusiastically exclaimed that THESE ARE THE ONES! Fast forward and we are now in the process of welcoming bees, baby chicks, Mangalitsa pigs and Valais Blacknose Sheep (through the breed up program) to our 5 acre property in eastern PA. Gratitude Acres is about to be born – and I decided to start blogging about my crazy life and decision to start a sustainable, bio-diverse micro farm in harmony with nature.