Hello, I’m so glad You are here!
Welcome new froend to my little space on internet land. I’m glad you stopped by!
My name is Rockelle, but all my friends call me Rocky. I’m a stay at the homestead, homeschooling mom of 4, sharing my passion for Holistic Living and the lost art of Homemaking and making it simple for you!
Homemaking is far more than cooking and cleaning. It’s a deep spiritual role full of opportunities to sew a life full of love, hope & peace for yourself & your loved ones.
I grew up on what we liked to call a funny farm. Lots of animals and flowers as far as the eye could see along winding paths and w little white picket fence, a pond and a big bank barn. The best days of childhood were spent on the farm and at the 4H fair. I knew from a young age this little Farmhouse lifestyle was for me. When I grew up & things between a certain sweet lake boy got serious I let him know just that! I wanted to be a homemaker & raise sweet little dirty, happy, country kids at home.
I was raised using essential oils and with some other natural remedies. But it wasn’t until I was a young adult in my first real job struggling with my health that I deep dove into the world of “Natural Living”. I went pretty cold turkey for the most part, throwing away all the “mainstream” products and switching them all for health supporting alternatives. During this “health kick me and “sweet lake boy” got engaged.(Now he will tell you I left the “On A Farm” part out, to be fair I thought that was obvious when he had to strap on my dads farm boots & walk my 1,500lb 4-H steer named Mongrel as pay back for whiping me around the lake on a jet ski and not stopping when I said STOP 🛑! …. He found out that day that I was NOT like the other girls using “Stop” as a flirting word 😏)
Ok back to the orginal story…
Living in construction was part of my childhood and that part seemed to follow me right into adulthood. After we got married in the first 5 years we renovated 3 houses, moved 4 times (6 times if you include living in the camper as we finished the 2016 Reno), and had 2 babies!
Needless to say we’ve renovated and moved a lot. Our biggest renovation was in 2016 when we bought a 2500 sq ft AMISH farm that took the next 2 years to complete! This was our “AS LONG AS GOD IS WILLING” we will live here. Wouldn’t you know God has a way of laughing at OUR PLANS. Mid Renovation we had our 2nd baby. Our first home birth after a birth center birth. She was born in the master bathroom tub (which was still under construction!)! It was this house when sweet lake boy got his first pair of farm boots! Boy did he need them. When making the purchasing negotiation he agreed to raising cattle for the Amish that sold us the property…. 300-400 head of them at a time! We loved those claves but quickly realized this was Not our style of farming! A! As if the cattle, the renovation and trying to swing driving to school 3 hrs away wasn’t enough for our family.. I decided to follow my entrepreneurial heart and start a humanely raise, pastured rare breed chicken business. It was here that the orginal AGAPE HILLS FARM was born! My son and I had a lot of fun and a lot of struggle in our little chicken business and once his little sister came along we decided it was time to close that chapter of our adventure.
It was shortly after our daughters birth my husband told me he was feeling called back to school for ministry. It was no shocker, as he attempted to attend a seminary when we first bought that amish fixer upper but the renovation was simply just too massive for school time. Not to mention that drive 2-3 x a week was 3+hr drive one way!
This time he told me he wanted us ALL to go.. ME!? The little country kid go to THE BIG CITY???
When God calls and you feel it…. you go. SO we did! SOLD the farm before we ever settled in, we barely had it finished when we signed papers.
It is pretty obvious by the name of my Blog “AGAPE HILLS FARM” that we aren’t in the city now, but to save a long story for a later post and video I’ll sum it up real quick by skipping that part for now…
Back from the city before our intended time (thanks to Covid & my body freaking out in the city 🥴),
We moved in to reno #4, after semi renovating the little farmhouse, just days before the birth of our third baby (our 2nd homebirth).
Glad to be back on acerage again (5 to be exact!), we started homesteading this time we had learned farming only for profit isnt for us now our farm endeavors were for us and not for profit first! I was so excited to take all the holistic living experience into farm life when we scored a literal wagon full of chickens (see pic below). These 25 hens and 1 sweet roo were raised on organic soy free feed and on pasture to boot! What a blessing from God! I love watching how God works to give us little presents n life.. as if he whispers, I know exactly who you are and what you desire! Chickens truly are the gateway animal to a full homestead… after they arrived I finished my first season of gardening as an adult and got my mini herd of long awaited milk goats as well
My husband took just a year and half of classes online again with his orginal seminary before deciding shortly after I told him I was pregnant with baby number 4, to buy our 5th reno house!
In 2023 after much back and forth on do we really wanna do ANOTHET reno?, we bought the connecting farm to our current residence and it’s by no means a light renovation! so, that will be reno number 5 and baby number 4 In 11 years.
Are you seeing a pattern here? Me pregnant = hubbys new renovation project! I joke with him, his name is Logan by the way, I actually don’t call him Lake boy anymore, after all he has had several pairs of his very own farm boots over the years so he has evolved!) that everytime I’m growing a baby he has to make something too, so he buys another Reno house.
After many years of renovations and years off and on of seminary, we feel like we’re in the home stretch of both & boy are we excited for that!
Join us as we finish up Reno #5 our 1200sq ft 1800s farmhouse, and enjoy slower days of Holistic Farmhouse Life… Simple Holistic Living.
I share Holistic Living for the Farm & Family. homemaking, homesteading and homecooking with a holistic twist.
With Love, Rocky.
