Ok....I'll admit from the outset that the "farm" at this point is 18 acres of overgrown old fields with a couple acres of woods.  Perhaps this page should have been titled "Tour The Dream" instead.  We purchased the property in November of 2008 and it has rapidly become the canvas upon which we are painting our dreams of a sustainable life.  At this point this tour is intended to show you some of the property and share some of our ideas of what we want to create.  As each project progresses, I will update the information here.

Portage River Farm is located a few miles south of Pinckney, Michigan in Livingston County.  The land in this region is a gently rolling mix of farms, marshes and woodland.  The entire area is dotted with little lakes,  many of which are connected by a network of rivers and streams.  The Portage River is one such waterway that passes near our farm.

The Portage River was so named because it is narrow and shallow in places.  To traverse along this waterway the pioneers in this region, and the natives before them, would have to "portage" or carry their boats around obstacles many times along the way.  To us this seems a fitting metaphor for this project of creating our farm, working together to overcome obstacles and now and then getting the reward of a bit of smooth sailing. 

In general, our intention is to build up the farm to provide us with food for our table and perhaps a little surplus that we can sell.  It is our intention to be good stewards of this land and to use organic, sustainable practices as much as possible.  It should be remembered that this occupies the position of "hobby" in  our lives as we intend to maintain our current professional occupations and devote much of the rest of our time to raising our children and seeing them off to college.

We are admittedly not very experienced with most of what we plan to do and thus this will be a process of learning skills that were once common knowledge.  We also like the idea of doing as much as we can on our own and sharing our experiences with family and friends along the way.

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