Marc and I always daydreamed about having a home with a name. For me it comes from loving Pemberley, Green Gables, Misselthwaite Manor, and other fictional homes that thrive in my imagination. So when we bought Springbrook Ranch we were both pretty tickled to have a home that already had a name given to it ages ago when the original owners kept horses and a small chicken farm here. I mean, all the best stories start in a home with a name, right?
So although our real three acres is full of weeds and gopher holes, trees that need to be trimmed and the wretched wretched deer that eat all my flowers (I will get you yet my pretties), I just want to show you the Springbrook Ranch that I see in my dreams.
Of course it has the cadillac of chicken coops. Heck, I want to live here!
And my chickens will eat in synchronized formation because I will become a chicken whisperer. I really like chickens.
Maybe my chickens will wear designer chicken outfits?
Or maybe not.
We also need pygmy goats. For reals, they will eat all our weeds and SAVE us the money we spend every year to have our hills cleared. Plus, the cuteness is killing me.
Not to mention how I will become a master goat cheese and goat milk soap maker.
They will love me and come running when I call them.
My vision of myself serenely making my own cheese that I serve my friends on long tables under trees strung with fairy lights on soft summer nights is so vivid I can almost touch it. Don't bother me with tiny details like the fact that I've never milked anything and am actually a little afraid of goats.
I want to make cheese.
And soap!
Then there's my massive, glorious, imaginary vegetable garden.
It will all have to be on an automatic drip water system though because I have dehydrated more tomato plants than I care to count in real life. But I can change!
Clearly the whole operation will run on solar energy. But that's not all! There will also be an adorable, personal sized windmill. Of course.
Because not only are we industrious, we are energy efficient (for pretend).
We already have bees. I just need to paint the hives in beautiful colors.
Oh and get twenty-seven more.
So that's what I dream of. When I'm not imagining we live in a perfect, tiny condominium perched over a bookstore/bakery in the heart of Paris.
It is so fun to watch them scratch around, and they are very friendly. They like to be picked up and petted. Who knew? 
