When we got married in 2009, Michael was living in Jamestown, North Carolina, in close proximity to the civil engineering company he owns, and Kathryn was living in Raleigh and working as a professional lobbyist and later founded a small manufacturing company. As Kathryn's company grew, she was able to leave her lobbying job to work for herself full-time.

 

In 2014, we decided to relocate Kathryn's company and our family, including Michael's two children from a previous marriage, Courtney and Christopher, from two homes to one, and we were fortunate to find the perfect home and land in a small, unincorporated town in southeastern Alamance County (that we'd previously never heard of, by the way), Snow Camp, North Carolina. Shortly thereafter, we relocated Michael's mom, Pam, and grandfather, Frank, from Mobile, Alabama, to live with us on our farm, which we decided to call "Spotty Creek" because of the small, intermittent stream that flows through our woods. In 2016, our family continued to grow with the birth of our son, Cooper. A little over three months later, Kathryn's parents, Martha and Randy, moved from the Outer Banks of North Carolina (where her mom had lived for the last 45 years) to a home 15 minutes away from our farm (never underestimate the power of a new grandbaby)!

 

It has been such an adventure becoming a multi-generation blended family, living and working together on our farm, teaching ourselves how to become small homesteaders, and learning how to tend to our ever-growing population of animals.

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We're excited to share our journey with you. Come for a visit (we'd love to meet you), or just follow Kathryn's blog, Fertile Ground: Love Grows Here. We cherish our new rural life, and although it's not always pretty and not every story is one of success, we are real folks who are just trying to build a life centered around putting love first.

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Thanks for coming along for the ride!