Long before any of this existed, there was a little girl who wanted a farm someday. I loved animals more than almost anything — I lived near the lake, in a neighborhood with no room for a horse and no reason anyone would say yes, so I loaded a wheelbarrow with my own toys and sold them to the neighbors at their mailboxes, one driveway at a time, just to get a little closer.
Life got busy first — the family furniture business, raising kids, being needed everywhere at once — and that dream got tucked away, the way dreams do.
My dad talked about a farm too, every now and again. He'd say that when he retired, he wanted a small farm of his own. But retirement wasn't really in his vocabulary. There was always one more thing to build, one more person to take care of. His someday never quite arrived.
After he passed, my dream felt different. It stopped being a someday thing and started feeling like something I needed to make room for.
May 8, 2025 was my last day worrying about the furniture business — no more clocking hours, no more angry customers, no more days that belonged to someone else's schedule. People ask if I retired. I didn't. I came home.
So we built it — slowly, and mostly without a plan. First it was a pair of miniature donkeys, because I couldn't imagine starting anywhere else. Then goats, because the donkeys seemed lonely. Then a dachshund named Beau, who followed me from California and became the reason we started breeding mini dachshunds here at all. Somewhere in there, gardens. Soap. The slow, unglamorous work of canning on a Sunday afternoon.
When Brett and I first started dating, he asked me, "Do you think you could handle a farm boy?" Looking back, I don't think either of us realized we were answering two completely different questions.
When Brett said farm boy, he meant tractors and equipment, fixing what breaks, long days outside — horsepower, dirt, and hard work. When I heard farm, I pictured baby goats, miniature donkeys, chickens, gardens overflowing with vegetables, fresh eggs, old barns, and all the noisy, beautiful life that comes with them.
He was picturing machinery. I was picturing babies. Neither of us was wrong. We simply had different definitions of the same word.
Somehow, over the years, those two definitions became Rowdy Ridge Farm.
My middle son is named Rowdy, and if you spend any time here, you'll understand exactly why the hill took his name. Between the kids, the dogs, the donkeys who escape at least once a season, and whatever's currently being bottle-fed in the kitchen, "rowdy" is really the only honest word for it.
Rowdy Ridge Farm isn't an escape from that old life — it's the continuation of it. Everything my dad taught me about hard work and taking care of people just looks different now. Instead of helping families furnish their homes, I'm building one where ours can grow, one animal and one season at a time — and Magpie Acres, our slower, smaller collection of soap, journals, and everything else we're learning to make with our hands, is simply what grew up alongside it.
But this isn't a story about one dreamer. It never was.
I'm the dreamer — the one who says, "I have an idea..." and somehow another animal finds its way home. Brett is the builder... and the keeper of it all. He's the one moving buildings with a skid steer, fixing broken gates, adding latches that close behind me because he knows I won't always remember, jumping on the four-wheeler the moment the donkeys get out, and quietly noticing what's out of place long before anyone else does.
Most mornings begin with coffee. Ours often begin with Brett asking,
"Did somebody forget to chain the gate last night?"
I never have to ask who somebody is. I already know. And I also know it's probably going to be an interesting morning.
Every afternoon usually ends the same way.
"Maggie... you left the hose on again."
He may not love every paw or hoof that finds its way onto this farm the way I do. But he loves what they've helped us build. He loves watching our kids laugh as they chase baby goats through the pasture. He looks forward to the fresh salsa we make from vegetables growing in the garden. And he quietly takes pride in the bars of goat milk soap made from milk collected on a milking stand he built with his own hands.
I've come to realize that every family has someone who dreams about what could be, and someone who quietly makes sure it can actually happen. This farm wasn't built by one dreamer. It was built by two people with very different gifts who somehow found themselves building the same life.
I still begin most conversations with, "I have an idea..."
Brett still answers them with his work boots on.
— Maggie