Welcome to Grateful Hill Farm

Allison:

Marriage is a complicated subject. Everyone’s is different because every two people are different.  But it would be difficult to find two people more opposite than Nick and me. When we met, he represented all the things I desired: safety, security, solidarity....

I converted to Catholicism three years ago, after a lifetime of attending Baptist churches. I went because that’s where my family had always gone, and I didn’t question it much. I received much of what the pastors said as truth and didn’t delve too deeply into the theo...

I work out a lot, like 6-7 times a week.  Weights, resistance training, and running…it’s no doubt that I’m addicted.  Of all the exercises, running is by far my favorite, and if I don’t run three times a week, it shows in my mood. 

I started running in high sc...

Since I’ve owned that I have trouble with peace and started to analyze why, I’m finding that I’ve been living with a lot of major blocks to peace. It’s like layers of an onion coming off, and the process of identifying them has encouraged me, but my shortcomings seem e...

2019 has started off hard.  Coming off the high of the holidays to the reality of a cold, wet winter and seemingly endless farm demands has been a challenging transition.  I’m gaining a whole new appreciation for the restaurant and retail businesses, especially the sma...

It is already nearly through January, and I still feel like I’m catching my breath from the holidays. This was our first Christmas at the farm, and although we weren’t there full-time, it was still fun to make milking part of our new Christmas day tradition. We had our...

Christmas.

It’s sneaking up on me again, as it does every year. I have always been a procrastinator. Each January, I vow to myself that I’m going to be super organized and prepared for Christmas by mid-April, at the very latest. And every Thanksgiving, I tell myself I h...

As Allison and I venture into cheese making, we keep discovering that we are not following the path most industrialized dairy farmers do. We are keeping our herd small so we can provide the best care for our goats. We spend the extra money to buy organic feed for them....

After we made the decision to start the farm, we experienced a brief period of relief. The knowledge of what we were doing next brought resolution to over a year of anxiety about our future. But we knew that a love for nature and a desire to be outdoors does not a farm...

The process of letting go of our old life and beginning a new one in our 40s has involved surrendering so many things to God. Not only have we abandoned our idea of what our lives would look like; we’ve had to let go of so many of the daily habits that kept us locked i...