Our Backstory

I truly believe God has a plan for each of us, and over the past few years, mine has been laid out before me.  Sometimes, I've acted on it, and other times, I missed the boat.  It happens all of the time that I can see His timing is perfect, and mine is not.  Like everyone, I fight apathy, procrastination, lack of grit, and sometimes just laziness. 

My name is Mike Little, and my wife Jill and I have had the typical husband and wife dream of building a family, watching your kids grow, and building our own house together to make memories that we can reminisce on when we're old.  We met in 1996 while we were both working at our local Giant Eagle grocery store.  I've thought back and realized that we met around food, she as the grocery cashier girl and I was the chicken boy, and now we are doing everything we can to produce our own. 

We were 18 and 17.  Young and dumb and had a lot of fun.  I was a suburban kid who always was drawn to the outdoors.  I loved baseball, fishing and hunting during high school and college.  She was a pretty girl from a country family, definitely too good for me.  Her dad a mechanic and farmer who had to work off of the family farm to support his family because of how poorly the conventional dairy industry pays its farmers, and how poorly family farms pay family when the purse strings get tight.

After we got engaged and had moved in together in a little trailer on rented land, I finished going to Pitt for Civil Engineering while Jill worked at a home-health care agency in medical billing to support us.  Again, we had a lot of fun and learned a lot about each other.  We also learned to live on a budget and on the cheap.  We drove old cars, or bought wrecks that I rebuilt so we could have something decent and reliable.

After I graduated college and we got married, we bought my family's home.  My parents were going through a divorce, and both of my parents had went their separate ways.  So with the grace of my mother giving us a great deal on the house and creative financing, we were able to move into a nice suburban home.  We first got the "itch" here, growing a big garden on the otherwise unusable hillside, and added a couple of backyard chickens, illegally by the township rules, I might add.

It was then that I should have known things were going to change for us.  We did some remodeling and learned how to do most of our own home repairs.  We dabbled in learning how to cook together, and can some of those veggies we grew.  I learned how to make wine, which was a blessing and a curse at times.  Again, we had a lot of fun, but in retrospect, after having kids, we wasted a lot of time, with not a lot to show for it.  But we had fun.

In 2004, Jill became pregnant with our first child.  I remember working on the garage roof when she came outside and told me the news.  It was a good thing I didn't fall off!  We had been trying, but I remember thinking how much things would change for us.  We were excited and scared at the same time.

We also learned firsthand about some of the flaws in the current medical system during Jill's pregnancy.  But that's another story.  In December, Rachel arrived.  We were proud parents and had a beautiful baby girl and our own "Little" family.  Our aspirations for growing our family and home solidified.

In 2006, we bought property off of Jill's uncle with hopes of building our dream house.  It was just over 2 acres, and on her family's farm.  The "property" as it became known to us was nothing more than a sloped field, an acre in the corn field and an acre of hayfield.  No water, sewage, electric or anything, but we had big dreams for this place on top of the hill with a great view.

We were then blessed by Jill's parents to let us know their intents to include us in the long term plans for the farm.  They wanted to leave it to us, as much as we wanted to own it.  So, in turn, we helped with some equipment purchases and some planning to make the property "work" again.

We had 2 more children and started our plan to build our dream.  While we were living in Greensburg still, we started out by buying a trailer, getting our sewage permit, and installing our water service.  And when I say we, I mean it.  We did it, we did not pay someone else to, although sometimes it would have been preferable.  Like the 95 degree July afternoon that I spent hammering through rock with a 90 pound jackhammer to put the water line in.  But we did it.

In searching for our building style, I became infatuated with the look of a timberframe.  Not 2x4's or 6x6's, but the look of old barn structures, filled with mortise and tenon joints, stout pegs and heavy timbers.  So I bought my own sawmill, all justified to put up a pole building to cover some of the farm equipment we'd bought.  That was my story at least.  I always had bigger intents, of which Jill was well aware, but went along with it.

I formed and poured walls and a floor for a garage, one that I thought of with a cute apartment on top that we could live out of while building our house.  We toiled an entire summer setting forms, tying rebar and pouring concrete.  I did get some help from my brother and a few other friends and family.

And back to His plan, I happened to be involved at a project at work that had an old barn on it.  I asked about its destiny to my boss, and he told me that they probably would have the fire department use it as a drill.  WAAAIIIT A MINUTE!!!  Can I take it down and salvage it, I asked?  I got a quick, "Yes."  So I got to learn, firsthand, how the old timers put these massive structures up, by taking it down.  I salvaged a lot of timbers with intent to reuse them.  So I designed my own garage frame around the pieces that I salvaged.

In 2011, I got to cutting and framing the garage, and it was not as monumental of a task as it seemed.  The timbers were big, but I learned to work them efficiently and move them with my mind instead of my back.  After I got the frame of the garage erected, I was dead set on building a timberframe house.  The strength of the buildings had me sold.  It would be there long after I was gone for my family to enjoy.

When the summer of 2012 came around, we decided that we were tired of only living at the "property" on the weekends.  It was like camping to us, and we were quite relaxed and at peace when we were there.  We decided we wanted to "keep the weeds under control" in the garden and that it was important for Logan to start Kindergarten in Latrobe school district.  So we made the trailer from 2 bedroom to 3 and live able so we could "finish the garage."  That did not happen with near the speed or the efficiency that I had hoped.

Now that we were "country folk," my mom and step dad convinced us that we should take the pony that they had bought for the kids.  But he would need a friend.  So we ended up with two friends for Champ.  Sissy and Chiquita, two donkeys, were our first real farm animals outside of a handful of chickens.  My father in-law then added, "Since you've got the fence up, you might as well get a couple of cows."  We pondered that, and thankfully took his advice. 

We definitely impulse bought our "brood herd."  In retrospect, I would have never bought them today to add to our herd, but I also don't regret buying them.  We came home with 5 cows and two younger heifers.  When we look back at photos, we realize that they were in poor body condition, the result of someone who did not make any great efforts in animal husbandry.  And the truth of that arrived no more than 5 days after they stepped off of the trailer and onto our farm.  We had our first calf, and within two weeks another.  Pretty amazing we thought, but the guy had no idea what level of pregnancy these cows were in, even to the point that he said he had not gotten calves out of them in two years despite being raised with two bulls.  That made us go back and buy the remaining two cows he had for sale.  And with good luck and His blessings, we finished out that first season with a calf from every cow.

From there its been in fast forward.  We've went from "We'll just buy three or four pigs to raise for our meat and to sell" to breeding our own and having 60 piglets planned for the season and "We can raise enough meat chickens for us and a few extra for friends" to buying 150 2 day old chicks at a clip 3 times a year.  Last year we really made another commitment and added a dairy cow to "save money."  I have to say at this point, we're all in, and loving it.

Jill and I have since taken the farmstead leap of faith to add our youngest two to the family.  Joey came in February of 2015 and this year, Jessi has joined our family.  The looks we get when people realize you have 5 kids are nothing to the dumbfounded expressions after you break the news to them how you live and what you do.  And the questions.  Yes, the house will still come.  Yes, we know how we got all of these kids. 

 
And above all, YES, we know this is A LOT of work and we are all happy to live this way.  Some people just don't get it, while others, and if you're still reading you are likely one of them, are so supportive and positive, you find out who your true friends are on an accelerated timeline. 

So there it is.  And really, our story has just begun.  We learn "new" things constantly as part of this daily life.  Some days are a challenge to keep up with all we have started and still participate in the social aspects of society that we want our children to be exposed to.  Our Faith has deepened every day that we do this; you cannot see the things that happen out here and honestly believe that His hands are not at work in front of you.  We truly hope that some of our stories enlighten you to the story of the American family farm, and possibly inspire you to become part of a positive change in the local food system, whether you do it for yourself, or support your family farmers and the positive network that grows around them.  And Thank You for letting us share these stories with you!