Welcome to this place that is imperfectly, just right for us. I like to putter, create pretty things and make tummies happy.

I share all things farm style and fresh.                                      From my heart and home, to yours…

Several years ago, when life became overwhelmingly busy and stressful, I longed for simplicity and prayed for change. As a lifelong seeker of becoming all things Proverbs 31 – including the part about buying a field and planting a vineyard – I found a fixer upper farm and we bought it for our family. Going BACK TO BASICS meant simplifying and embracing a completely new way of living.  We are learning as we go, on how to grow our sweet farm. There is peace in balancing my family, work, ministry, home… while also making it a priority to keep myself and my family physically, emotionally and spiritually healthy. This is our journey.

We affectionately call our home Blooming Trails Farm.                                                          

We value traditions.  I love to decorate and cook, gather friends and family, grow flowers & vegetables…                                                             We even planted a vineyard.

I am married to my kind and handsome husband, David. We have four children, with just one left in our nest. Our baseball-loving, baby boy is now in high school. The others are off making their mark on the world. It has been quite the view, from our sweet, little farm in Southern California, as we watch them fly in the directions they feel called to go.

Through the years and to this day, I have been blessed to help others grow their family through adoption. I am a Life Coach for women and speaker. My love for writing and helping others prompted my family to encourage me to begin sharing, and that is how this blog became more than a few saved documents in my computer.

I run on faith and have found that my days go much better when I include open conversations with the Lord.

My work in adoption and other callings is fulfilling, but I am always happy to come home to Blooming Trails Farm.  Here, I am the vegetable grower, picker of fresh fruit, creator of tasty meals, lover of flowers, newbie permaculture garden designer, egg gatherer, goat doula and collector of a bunch of farm animals. 

I am excited to share about our adventures here. It is actually a fixer-upper farm property that we got with a dream in mind,                                                    and very little know-how.

We are realizing the dream of simplifying, country living, harvesting our food, raising animals and growing our hobby farm. For many years, my husband and I worked hard to stay up with the pace necessary to live in an upper-scale suburb of Los Angeles. Our normal was filled with a lot of stress and busyness. It seemed like our days and months ran into each other – with little quality downtime. I dreamed of and prayed for a change for our family. That change came rudely with the financial crisis of 2008.  We went through a loss of business and were one of the many families that lost our home.  

Humbled, we were grateful to have the ability to work hard and were determined to rise above those circumstances. In time, as we prepared to buy another home,  I really wanted one with property. I was raised on a small homestead that my father created – compost piling, beekeeping, goat milking and all. As it turns out, I am my father’s daughter and those simple and basic things I once took for granted, are the things that I  yearned for.

Thankfully, my city family joined me in my dream to live a more back to basics, country lifestyle.  We have been blessed to purchase a total fixer-upper property on two and a half acres, with an older home, three barns, a stable and a small cottage.  Everything about this whole property needs some major TLC, but I loved it at first glance and have a vision to grow a cute and working, hobby farm. We have learned through others and then by doing.  We have found farm life and the work that comes with it to be challenging, but fulfilling.  All I know is that if we can do it, so can anybody!

This life and this blog…                                                                                                 It’s all about Faith, Family, Farm, Food and Fun!

The Back to Basics Mom blog writing is done mostly by me, but the videos, fun and work include our whole family.  I love to cook and we like to gather people around us to share life with. You can bet if there is food involved, the family will be right there, too! 

– Meet Our Family –

David – My cute husband. He embraces a natural eating and healthy living lifestyle.  He is our resident businessman turned Farm Boss.

Michelle – wife and Back to Basics Mom. Designs beautiful landscapes and a lot of other stuff in her mind, likes to putter, make rooms look pretty and people’s tummies happy.

Garrett – The boy.  Caretaker of the animals. Everybody who lives in the barn gets noisy and excited when they see him. Growing up fast and learning how to be handy.

Devony – Full time working and college girl who “has a life.”  You can find her jumping hurdles, running races, studying or off with her friends. When she’s here, she eats and sleeps and makes us laugh. Once in awhile, she may pet the cat.

Arielle – Our grown-up daughter who works as a Veterinary Tech.  Loves Jesus, helping others and animals.  With a heart for missions, she loves to jet off to other countries to care for orphans. Around here, she is our organizer extraordinaire.

Eric – Our eldest son who works in the world of movie-making. Besides making us proud there, he has blessed our family with the addition of his very own Michelle, and their son, Finn – the most adorable grandson a MiMi could dream of.  

Devony, Garrett and Arielle. I love this picture.

Some of our bunch of kids. Eric, with his Michelle and Finn. Arielle and Garrett. Devony is off doing her thing. 

Some things that our family loves –

• We love one another.  We are far from perfect and honestly, you may hear some bickering at times.  But, you will also hear and see a lot of laughter and love, too.
• We love having a home and property to call our own.  Loss has taught us to appreciate deeply.  Hard work has proven to have so many benefits. We have been humbled and we definitely don’t want to walk that same path again, but we wouldn’t exchange the lessons that came from hardship.
• We love to support one another.  Whether it is on the field, on the track, at an event, working on the farm or writing a blog – each of us has a fan section.
• We love ADOPTION.  Yes, adoption… because there is just something so miraculous about being chosen, wanted, accepted and unconditionally loved.
• We love berries. Thus, we have planted many varieties of blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries. We planted these for our enjoyment and necessity, along with many other fruits, trees, and vegetables.
• We love baby animals, any baby animal, but goats and ducks are especially adorable! 
• We love the Lord Jesus.  He is our Savior and He died so that we might live! Our HOPE is that He is pleased with how we are living our lives. To God be the glory, always.