We are doing a thing!

Aug 10, 2024

3 min read

I had a sweet co-worker with whom I shared this oft-spoke statement, "I did a thing!" No matter the size or intricacy of the task, when it was done, this was what was said.

A few years later, this is hanging over my head like a bubble quote..."We are doing a thing!"

If you haven't already, please read our "About Us," very-short-abbreviated-left-out-most-of-the-big-stuff story about how we got here, but nonetheless, it really is the way of it. So our dreams of becoming hobby-farmers has been a frequent topic of conversation, but the actual doing the thing, or even getting one step closer to the thing, has been a vapor, a mist, a thing that might be, someday, somewhere, somehow...

But here we are and Peter and I are taking VERY small, but intentional steps to make this dream a reality. We are not in a position to step away from life in Northern Virginia, nor do we want to at this point, but we DO want to create the infrastructure for what will someday be our forever-retirement-hobby-farm.

We knew when we bought this 6-acre homestead, that the land was a hot mess and needs lots of love to help it become an abundant farm. Permaculture farming practices are the way to go! We have read the books, listened to the blogs, watched the YouTube channels, but about three and a half months ago we were driving to Connecticut and heard a podcast through "Homesteaders of America" about vermiculture and worm composting. The lightbulb clicked on for us, this was definitely a thing we should be doing to help heal the depleted soil of our little homestead.

So it goes...

You can get the overview of our journey into vermiculture farming in my post called "Meet Gerard(s)."

But here's the thing, we have been so unexpectedly successful at raising these worms and vermicompost that we have WAY more than we need. A couple weeks ago, Peter suggested we look into the possibility of starting an LLC and selling some of our vermicompost abundance as a way to get our foot in the door of a homestead farm business. Pair this with his history as an author, and our general sense of, "why not, this isn't any crazier than joining the military," and PETEnELLA's homestead is born and suddenly we have a vermicompost business and a line of worm swag that I am delighted about!

Next steps are to test all of our packaging, labeling, shipping protocols, and see where this goes. In the meantime, we still have to do all the things to care for our little slice of homestead heaven...

This morning at 5:30am we strapped on our spiky, lawn-aeration-shoes, took our headlamps and coffee and walked laps around the property, happily sinking the spikes into smooshy ground thanks to the rain from hurricane Debby.

Thinning out the garden (lettuce and French radishes) means I have a lovely little pile of "micro-greens" that would cost me $5 at Whole Foods to toss into our salad tonight.

Sifted vermicompost and prepped a couple bags so we can test out our product line and "WilderWorm Compost" process. We are looking for a couple product testers. Let us know if you are interested!

A trip to the farm store means fresh watermelon for the Gerard army! It's their absolute favorite!

With everything being generally soggy here, I decided to venture into our back acreage of woods to find our creek, Riklig Ström, and grab some pictures of what was sure to be a more substantive water feature on our property. I almost got lost in the woods, but I was successful my quest!

Our little toad family, Tilda and Torvald seem to have a guest for the weekend? They were hanging out by the guy's worksite today and Lars was quick to grab Torvald for a photo op. The new toad friend seemed to have a tough guy attitude and would push himself up to look bigger than he really was! Let's call him Torben (Thor's bear). Hope he sticks around.