My name is Sara. Did you ever hear the saying, “There is a little bit of farm girl in all of us?” Here’s the thing, there really is in me, because I grew up on a diary farm. My parents owned and operated a 130 acre diary farm with a herd of approximately 75 Holstein cows.
Throughout my childhood, my two sisters and I had a variety of other pets, but very few fell into the quintessential “farm animals.” Not to mention, unlike many farming families, I had a mom that worked outside of the home for most of my childhood. While my parents had us help, we were not forced to partake in all areas of the farm life. My sisters and I learned a lot about running a business, work ethic, and good old-fashioned sweat equity. However, my father always told us he wanted us to pursue what we loved, not what we simply knew how to do.
Me, I loved fashion. But due to a series of events, I went broader for a degree in Marketing and Advertising from a private Pennsylvania University. It worked out because I love what I did in my working career. I worked in two wonderful manufacturing companies in Western Pennsylvania. One in sales and one as a Marketing Coordinator. I really enjoyed both.
In 2015 my husband and I built a house in a rural area north of Pittsburgh. While we are not completely surrounded by farmland, most people around us own a handful of acres each. As we have utilized our 3.5 acres to grow, manage and store our own food, I’ve started to really love and lean on my roots. Everything from keeping livestock, canning and crafting from home.
While there are so many people who go the distance and go off-grid or very close to it, or they stay away from anything to do with self-sufficiency, I’m the in between. Our family won’t be going off grid. However, there are so many things that I learned as a girl from my parents or my grandparents (also farmers) that I’ve started to place in my life today.
These activities help to not only keep costs down on our food, is friendly to the environment, but it also helps me to feel like a connection to the people I’ve learned so much from. This has really come in handy the past few years. In 2019, my husband and I decided it was best for me to take a break from working a professional career and I stared staying home full time with our two children. I continue to learn a lot and have my own trials and tribulations from time to time.
Enjoy my story about our little slice of HillTop heaven.
HillTop Harvest 