Sanctuary Ridge Adventures in Farming

Dream Big

Our Future Farm… Sanctuary Ridge

My husband and I are always dreaming…

We’ve been camping exclusively for family vacations for around 11 years now. I know, I know, that has nothing to do with owning a farm! But it is precisely what has rekindled this old dream of ours to own property. We want to have a place that we can make our home base when we take the leap of FULL TIME RV life. We camped a total of 78 days last year alone! (I will do a separate post about our RV adventures and I promise to share some tips for making those epic adventures a reality!) The point is that somehow camping rekindled this dream for us.

Let me tell you, it is not easy to find property! We have been “looking” for years. Searching on Zillow, Craigslist, Realtor.com only to find that when we drove out to “see” the property it was beside a stinky chicken farm or the address doesn’t exist. One place looked so beautiful in the pictures and after driving almost 2 hours to get there it turned out to be a very run down property with horrible access. High voltage power lines ran right through the middle. Time after time we drove and were so discouraged we stopped looking.

Fast forward to December 2019 when we decided to go on a drive while Noah was with Nana. We drove all over the Chattanooga area. On Dayton Mountain a pig crossed the road in front of us. On the way back to Ooltewah we drove through Decatur, Tennessee to see a property I had saved on Zillow. I like using Zillow but you always have to verify on the MLS that the property is actually listed. This listing had a great description but a really lousy photo. The realtor basically took a picture of his shadow in a field. When we arrived at the property we thought it actually had potential. It looked much larger than 40 acres though so we contacted our realtor the next day to find out the exact location of the property and get a map of it too. We drove back a few days later and discovered that the 40 acres we are looking at is at the end of a timber farm road. It’s beautiful! We have been to walk the property, to find the property stakes and just explore the property to decide on the potential. We discovered a spring, several creeks, hills, pasture and a beautiful view from the ridge. We are currently under contract and expect to close at the end of February!

The perfect place to reflect on the goodness of God…

We don’t take these decisions lightly. When we got married we were 18 with one car between us. Trying to work 2 jobs each and both go to school was no easy thing. Jamey somehow managed to finish school and then we both worked until we started our family. We’ve learned to budget and start businesses and just work, work, work. But not one bit of it is anything without the blessing of God. So we pray. We seek HIS approval before we take a step. The answer isn’t always what we hope for but we have learned to trust in HIS ways. This property was an answer to prayer, the confirmation to keep dreaming and we are so excited!

2 Corinthians 9:8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

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