Sharingwood Farmstead

04/19/2025

Our property is now officially for sale! We have loved every bit of it and our time there. We hope whatever family stewards it next will love it just as much and feel just as blessed by it as we have!! Feel free to share!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EUnBQT23w/

09/11/2024

It's been a long while since we've posted! We are coming up on one year since we set off from MO to see how milder climates would affect my autoimmune condition. In April, we found ourselves on Whidbey Island, Washington and liked it so much that we decided to stay.

We have loved farming in MO, teaching classes, and interacting so closely with our community since 2020. However, we have learned that life is full of surprises! We have closed down Sharingwood Farmstead- MO permanently. We hope that we can reopen a Sharingwood Farmstead in WA, but time will tell. It's the dawning of a new chapter for us!

Thank you for all of your support and patronage along the way!! We will continue to miss all of you, but cherish the memories!

Love,
The Toones

08/24/2023

UPDATE!
We are still looking for tenants for our home! It is listed for 2850, but we will happily work with/ negotiate that rate with any applicants that have a descent credit score (650+) and steady work history and that do not smoke/will not have anyone smoking on the property. If you know of anyone, please send them our way!
We really would need a 6 month lease at minimum- preferably one year or longer. We do not intend to sell, but it really depends on where we end up.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/824-Riske-Ln-Wentzville-MO-63385/332957947_zpid/?fbclid=IwAR2IwYdy75DfGTcv-HFYVRcDZYCrySYSU8a6vaQ7V6ogXbbgDNj8lzKagmM

This 2630 square feet Single Family home has 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. It is located at 824 Riske Ln, Wentzville, MO.

07/25/2023

Time for an update! Short story: We have officially made the decision that we are going to RV around the USA for the next year!

Long story: This summer we went on a month-long road trip to the western USA. The day we came back, the Missouri heat and humidity sucked the energy right out of me. We did some online researching and discovered that for some people, climate does trigger lupus flares. Nathan and I simultaneously had the impression that we need to look into moving out of Missouri/ the heat, the humidity, and the freezing cold. So for the last month, we've done a lot of soul searching, researching, praying, and gone back and forth with various ideas. It's been a heart-wrenching, but beautiful experience as we've been led step by step along the way to discovering what our immediate future holds. It's been so faith promoting to witness things fall into place-- a little bit at a time-- line upon line.

We LOVE Missouri. Even with the heat, and humidity, and cold. We've had no plan to ever leave. But then you feel directed to do something different, and you follow.

Nathan will still be working in his current position while we figure out where we should land permanently. He's been given the go-ahead to work virtually full-time, which is an exception that we are very, very thankful for. His team at Boeing has been so supportive and understanding.

You may be wondering about our farm. Good question! We are going to be renting it out (hopefully furnished) for a year while we do our traveling research :) We are in process of selling our animals. If you, or anyone you know would be interested in a year of living out in the country, please reach out. Or if you'd be interested in taking in a few dogs or some cats, let me know. We'd love to take them with us, but that's just not realistic.

To all of our Missouri friends and community, we love you! And we're still considering ourselves to be "living in Missouri" though we won't physically be there :) We tell the kids it's kind of just a year long vacation and not really moving. Our kids got tablets so that they can keep up with friends, so if your kiddo wants to keep up with our kiddos, let me know! We plan on doing some kind of private YouTube channel or blog-- possibly created by the kids as part of their school-- to keep anyone interested apprised of what we're up to....but I can't make any promises that it will be regular postings. In fact, it probably won't be! Ha!

Here's to adventuring and rolling with the punches! I guess when life gives you lupus, you make purple lemonade! :)

04/18/2023

Our kids are so excited to be part of the Spring 2023 Homeschool Makers' Market! They will be joining 100 other kid businesses selling their wares on Saturday, May 20th from 10am to 1pm at Fellowship of Wildwood (17770 Mueller Road, Glencoe, MO 63038). There will be food, excitement, and high hopes of making a buck! If you can, please save the date to come support all of these budding entrepreneurs!!
Flyer below made by our very own Katelyn! Thank you, Brittany Klinkerman and helpers for putting this together!

01/07/2023

Happy New Year!!! We hope that you've all had a wonderful holiday season and have a bright 2023 ahead!

We had a pretty informative fall! I was diagnosed with Lupus, an autoimmune disease that is affecting various parts of my body and especially inducing pretty severe fatigue. I've started on medication to keep it from progressing, but so far it hasn't helped much.

We also learned that all four of our children have Celiac Disease. We're becoming pros at hospital/ doctor visits and various tests between the 5 of us with our autoimmune diseases.

Beyond going gluten-free, we're embarking on an AIP diet as a family to try and reduce inflammation and heal before reintroducing various foods and find triggers. We're hoping this will allow us to get on some steady footing and know what I am physically capable of managing long-term.

Because we don't know how the combo of medications and diet changes will affect me, we can't say when we will be resuming sales and classes. We really appreciate your patience and understanding! Currently, our A2 cow, Willa, is dry and will be having a calf in the summer. This means that if we don't add a second cow that's already in milk, we will not have milk for sale until the summer. If, however, the medication and diet changes make a big difference over the next few months, we will be adding a second cow and will have milk for sale in spring. We really can't say what the likelihood will be for that though.

If you are a milk/ egg customer, please check back in Spring/ summer to see if we know more as to when we are resuming sales. If you're interested in events and classes, please check back in the summer. We will definitely not be having classes this winter or spring, but we may be doing some summer events and fall classes.

We sincerely appreciate your support, prayers, and well wishes! We hope that you're all happy and in good health, and if not, that you are able to get the help you need to feel better! It takes a village!

Love to you all!
The Toone Family at Sharingwood Farmstead

10/19/2022

It's been a hot minute since we've updated- my apologies!
So much has changed and so much has not changed.
First, thank you so much for all of your support and well-wishes, prayers and love. We appreciate it very much!

Since being diagnosed with Mixed Connective Tissue Disease/ Lupus this summer, we realized that we really had to scale things way back. My level of "busy" has been destroying my body. So we reduced classes to just two this fall. And to be honest, that's still been really taxing. I have been living off of cortisol (stress), adrenaline (excitement), and sugar (delicious) for so, so long. So much so, that as I've scaled things back and tried to cut back on sugar to help with inflammation, I've heard my body telling me just how exhausted it is (and has been) for what feels like the first time. And while it feels good to be trying to take care of myself, it also physically feels really crummy without using all of those unhealthy coping strategies I've been employing. And emotionally, it's hard.

When it comes down to the wire, really health and family have to come first. So because of that, we've decided to suspend classes after these fall classes are completed until further notice. We have SO loved teaching your children and truly enjoyed the part we could play in the community these past 2.5 years! We've been so excited to see the enthusiasm for outdoor experiential learning and we want to continue to support and provide that in the future. However, I have to get well first. And for now, that means taking a lot off of my plate and letting some treatments take effect in my body. My hope is that we'll be able to start doing classes again next year some time.

We've also decided that we need to suspend milk operations for the rest of the year. That means that we won't be selling milk or eggs for quite some time-- at least until next Spring. We made the very hard decision to move Erica, our first milk cow, to a new home not too far from here. It was a sad day for me. She has been my favorite on the farm. But she has a lot more milk to give still this year and I just can't keep up with it physically. It felt like the right thing to do. Again, we hope to resume milking operations in the Spring. We just have to give some time for healing at the present.

Thank you all again, so very much! I'll try and be more active on Instagram and facebook with various projects we attempt over the winter/ spring (just not super taxing ones :)). Love to you all!
Allison and Fam

PS. If you have any milk jars from getting milk from us in the past, we'd love to get those back in preparation for next year! 😍 Thanks in advance!

08/31/2022

Update: Illnesses and Changes

Hello Sharingwood Farmstead Families and Friends!

We have had quite the crazy summer over here and I wanted to give everyone an update since we have to change a few things going forward- at least in the near term.



The long story short: In June I went in to the chiropractor for some pain and numbness I've been having in my left arm/shoulder. I assumed I'd pinched a nerve doing all the farm work. But after doing lots of tests, visiting various specialists, and getting lots of blood work, I've been diagnosed with Mixed Connective Tissue Disease. We're also still narrowing down a few other things which are looking like I also have Lupus (or maybe it will replace the MCTD diagnosis? ...still learning) and POTS (postural orhtostatic tachycardia syndrome).

Apparently all my aches and pains and fatigue are more than just farm work! We are also finding out that my oldest daughter likely has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and POTS and these things will require tests and labs going forward into the fall. And to top it all off, our heads are a little dizzy trying to better understand my son's newly diagnosed learning disabilities-- dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and central auditory processing disorder.



It's just been a lot to figure out.

My husband and I have been thinking about/ praying about what we should do going forward and, for now, we've felt that I need to slow down the farm side of things.

So we are scaling way back. We've canceled our Micro-school, Explorers, Permaculture, and New Moon/Full Moon nights for the fall and will decide later whether we can start them back up in the Spring.

We do have our Forest and Farm School classes running, but only two classes- Tues and Fri. We will continue to do our milk and egg sales.



We are very thankful that all of these medical things are not more serious than they are! We feel very blessed that we are all in very good health otherwise! We plan to spend this fall really focusing on homeschooling and wellness.



We appreciate all of your understanding and empathy and support and patience! We also hope and pray that you and your families are doing well and have a wonderful Fall!



Love to everyone,

Allison and Family