Hi. My name is Lynell. My husband Jesse and I are just two farm kids that grew up in small town Minnesota. I lived on a BIG corporate dairy farm and he grew up on a small neighboring family farm.
After childhoods filled with cows, crops, and diesel exhaust, we headed off to college, graduated, got married, and started living our life together in the city. Once we started our family, we began to reminisce about growing up as farm kids. We longed for our own children to experience wide open spaces, to run and explore; for them to have a relationship to the land and to learn the responsibilities and joys of caring for and nurturing animals.
So we packed up and moved out of the big city back to our small town, where we eventually purchased an old, non-active, run-down, “lots of potential” farm place along a lazy river.
I decided to start this blog to connect with people with similar interests and to record our adventures, projects, successes and failures with life in the country. This blog is not about a return to a “simple life” or about “living off the land.” Our lives are anything but simple and if we tried to live off the land, we would most certainly all perish. We live daily in chaos as we both commute to our jobs, drive kids to lessons and activities, attend recitals, concerts and athletic events. Amidst the chaos, we try to find time to rebuild our farm and enjoy new experiences and old traditions. We are just two farm kids trying to blend our modern life with a slice of the country life from our past.
Please feel free to leave comments, suggestions, or helpful information. Thanks for stopping by!
You can contact me by email at justtwofarmkids@gmail.com.
Just Two Farm Kids 
It’s fun to read your bio and when I know your story =)
Hi Lynn & Jesse,
Great web site and a super smokehouse. My wife and I recently purchased a ranch in Blanco, Texas and on this property is a beautifully built smokehoue with all the bells and whistles. I have never use a smokehouse before and would like to know how to get started. Can you recommend some informational web site etc.
Many thanks,
Rich
Hi Richard,
Glad you like our little blog about our experiments. I love smoking meats and continue to learn lots as I try new methods or new types of meats. I don’t have any good web sites to point you towards, but there are a couple of books (out of many I’ve tried) that I have found to be the most helpful. The first one you should read is “Meat Smoking and Smokehouse Design” by Stanley, Adam, and Robert Marianski. This book covers the basics of both cold-smoking and hot-smoking. My smokehouse is built exclusive for cold-smoking meats, cheeses, nuts and such. That means that the meats need to be cooked later if they are not cured first. Cold smoking and curing is what I find the most rewarding, but also the most complicated. Another good book for recipes is “Charcuterie – The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing”, by Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn. It is also a great reference book and is not as intimidating as the French name for smoking sounds – char-cu-ter-ee.
Good luck and please write back about your successes and failures. My other source of smoking wisdom is collected directly from other smoker-dudes.
Jesse
You make me want to hand my boss my ID card and move to a farm. Congratulations! You’re very blessed.
I am searching for the perfect pig in the blanket recipe.
wondering if you had one?
Glenn, we are big fans of crepes and eat them with our homemade sausage nearly every Sunday for brunch. No pig-in-the-blanket recipes though. Good luck finding the perfect one!!
hi there, very nice information folks, good tom see you teaching your young ones by doing, we are building a semi commercial smokehouse, and your ideas were good, we are in raglan newzealand so it’s fish and meat, best wishes tui nui raglan
Hi Tui nui,
Glad you stopped by and got some ideas for your smokehouse project. We’d love to see a picture of the finished project if you are willing to email us one! We’re also always looking for good proven recipes if you have any that you’d be willing to share. Good luck!
-Lynell
Lynell,
I came across your site looking for barn information to replace the monsterous barn that once stood on where we live (storm hurt it just too badly). My wife and I are also bringing a farm back to life in the midst of the chaos of kids, work and life in general. The so special piece of it is we are reviving the place my Grandparents moved to in 1948 and remained on for the remainder of their lives. Grew up farming and had to leave it. Now we’re trying to bring a small piece of it back. Just want to say love what your doing and gives me inspiration. thanks.
Craig D
Craig,
Thanks for stopping by our blog! I’m glad to hear you have found some inspiration for rebuilding your grandparent’s farm. How special that you have such an opportunity! It’s always fun for us to hear from people with similar interests. I hope you stop by again.
-Lynell
I found your site while researching Prairie Fire crabapple trees. I saw a few in person this spring and fell instantly in love. The photo of your tree came up when I did an image search on Google, and it is one of the prettiest images of these trees that I have come across.
Have you had any problems with the tree (disease, pests, etc)? I will be planting mine fairly close to the house and front walk, so I don’t want to have any issues with that kind of thing. I have read that the fruit isn’t a mess, because the birds usually eat it before it hits the ground.
Anyway, thanks for a great website. I enjoyed what little I have read so far. You have a beautiful home and farm. We have about 5 acres in the country with an old barn of our own. I love it; Honey thinks it’s an eyesore. =)
I’ve added you to my blogroll!
Hi Brian,
I’m glad you found our blog. To answer your question about the Prairie Fire crabapple tree, I have not had any problems with it whatsoever. It is true that the fruit is not a mess because it does not drop from the trees and the birds eat it during the winter.
Ours is planted right on the corner of our driveway and sidewalk and I look at it out my kitchen window. The blossoms are absolutely stunning in the spring, the foliage is a nice color during summer and the fruit and bird activity provides some winter interest.
We actually moved this tree from our previous house when we bought this property and it has been in that spot for 12 years now with no disease or pest problems. My only complaint is that some sucker shoots keep popping up around the base, but I’m not sure that’s uncommon with a crabapple tree.
Thanks again for stopping by and good luck with your new tree!
-Lynell
I just bought one around 8 feet tall. It has a beautiful shape and is loaded in tiny wine-colored crabapples. The man working at the nursery asked me how I knew about the Prairie Fire variety, almost as if he were surprised anyone in Kentucky would be familiar with them. Ha! He said they are Martha Stewart’s favorite, and he gave me a really good deal too.
The suckers are probably coming from the root system that these trees are typically grafted onto. Nursery Guy explained that PF crabapples are grafted onto another tree’s roots – which is fairly apparent near the base of the tree. I’ve read other sites where people wondered if they could start new crabapples from the suckers, but it seems the answer is no.
Well, I’m going to put it in the ground as soon as the sun goes down a little. I’ll take a picture and post it on my blog. Thanks for your response!! =)