05/13/2026
When I moved to Missouri from Western Siberia 20 years ago, did I know that I will be living at the farm? ! Having cows, horses and goats?..🧐
Definitely not. Yes, I am from ex-Soviet Union, Russia, and if in my post you feel that my English is little weird, it is because my inner translator couldn’t catch up with my imagination 😁
I always loved nature, outdoor and animals. In my early childhood I wanted to be a zoo owner 😁 Later I wanted to be a forester. Well, how I was imagining that: that I would live in the deep woods, in the log cabin, taking care of trees, taming wild animals, healing wounded creatures…
Then the life happened ( a lot of it), and I was a single mom, psychologist, living in the middle of the town! And moved to USA when I was 32, with my daughter, married American guy who was a city boy himself, but always dreamed about the farm for some reason.
And we bought our place, 121 acres, about 18 years ago. We got temporary fence, basement for the future house, orchard and Highland cows. We still were living in Saint Louis, but visited every other weekend. Build a lake, put some fish in it… Restoring native prairies. Family grew: now we had two more kids.
And when my son went to kindergarten very soon it became clear that he doesn’t really belong in school… Long and different story, but I pooled him and my middle daughter from school, packed my car with our cats, dog, guinea pig and a few gerbils and moved to the farm “for summer break”.
Let kids get loose, barefoot, exposed to sunlight, water and a fresh air 😁 We got some chicks at the local farm store, and… Found ourselves at November still here: but our chickens just started to lay some eggs, you know?! 😄
And kids were thriving with unschooling life, our cats were enjoying also, and my Caucasian Shepherd dog Xena just naturally “remembered “ what her breed was doing for many generations and started just do that: moving calves from the way of the tractor, walking perimeters at night, protecting livestock and family.
My husband retired in about a year later and joined us permanently, we sold our house in Saint Louis area and built log house with attached greenhouse here at the farm. We tried quail and turkeys for the few years, rabbits, ducks and geese, got 4 horses and trio of Nigerian Dwarf goats.
Younger kids almost grew up, oldest moved with us couple years ago with their husband, brought their dogs, cats and doves with them.
Somehow we ended up with a bunch of rescued parrots also. And more dogs! Our beloved Caucasian Shepherd Xena crossed the rainbow couple years ago, and recently we got another puppy of the same breed, our baby Bree. We switched from Highland cows to Galloways after our bull Duncan passed.
Sometimes I look around and giggle: my childhood dreams are came true! In a different way than I imagined, but basically exactly: I am a zoo owner, a forester, living in a log house in nature, with a bunch of creatures for sure 😁
