Meet the Higgins'

Hey y’all! Thank you for taking the time out of your day to learn more about my husband, Mitchell, and I and our little slice of heaven we call home. This is my first time blogging and to be completely transparent, I am really winging it. Those who are close to me would tell you that ‘winging it’ should be my middle name.

So where to begin? My name is Laura and even though I still consider myself a ‘wannabe’ farmer, I feel like I am getting closer to earning that title fair and square. I was born and raised in the beautiful state of Washington in a small suburb about 45 minutes south of Seattle. While I always begged my parents for a pet cow and made sure that the windows were rolled down every time we drove by the local dairy farms - nothing beats the smell - I actually didn’t grow up owning or caring for livestock of my own. The closest I got to the farm life was a couple accidental litters of guinea pigs (the pet store swore to us they had given us two boys but that’s a story for another day) and helping with my grandmother's chickens who were conveniently located just down the street.

Being an animal lover and a farmer has deep roots in my family. My grandfather on my mother’s side grew up on a three acre farm in Kansas during the Dust Bowl. The stories he tells of his time on their family farm never gets old, and I hope to share some of them in the future with you. My passion for caring and helping animals also came from my mom. Before she was sick, we used to talk about getting horses. And every stray animal we saw on the side of the street we helped reunite with their rightful owner. She’s been gone now for a little over 11 years but I know she is cheering me on from heaven and is laughing with me every time I slip and fall in the mud.

Mitchell, on the other hand, lived his first 32 years of life in the Sooner state. He didn't grow up on a farm either, but he is proud of his Oklahoma roots and has turned into quite the cowboy - mustache and all. If it hadn’t been for Mitchell, we may have not taken the chance on buying a larger piece of property. I credit his determination - borderline stubbornness - to the reason we developed our homestead, and I wouldn’t change that for anything.

Being farmers full time would be living the dream. For now, both Mitch and I have normal day jobs 9-5. Mitchell is a painter by trade and now he bids and manages projects for one of the biggest commercial paint contractors in the nation. He also started volunteering at the local fire department this year as well and has been loving every minute of being able to serve our community. On the other hand, I work for a very, very, very large Seattle based company working as an inside sales rep. I started my job right before the pandemic peaked and the biggest silver lining from COVID has been the opportunity I was afforded to be able to work from home for the past year.

Now, you’re probably wondering, how did a girl from the Seattle suburbs meet an Okie? I’d like to think fate had something to do with it. I grew up playing competitive soccer all my life and when my collegiate athletic career came to a fork in the road, I found myself playing ball for the University of Oklahoma. Mitchell and I never even crossed paths until I finished up my eligibility and decided to take up bartending for fun on the weekends. We ended up working for the same bar in downtown OKC in Bricktown. I wish I could say it was love at first sight, but we really didn’t even acknowledge each other's existence. We both later admitted to each other that neither one of us could stand the other. After five months, Mitchell asked me out on a date and as cheesy as it sounds, the rest was history. I know it sounds crazy but on our first date I knew, without a doubt, that Mitchell would be the person I would spend the rest of my life with. I can’t pinpoint it to a specific memory or trait of his, but something in my gut told me “Laura, this man is going to be your husband one day”.

Three months later we were engaged. It was then that we decided to pack up and move back to Seattle. This move was mostly to help get my career started. It became a win-win situation when Mitchell found a company that he loved working for too. Not long after, we purchased our first - very tiny - house overlooking the Puget Sound. When I say very tiny, I really mean it. That house was a whopping 714 square feet but it was a beautiful 1930 craftsman with all the character and feels. From the outside looking in we were living the dream, but something was still missing.

And that’s where our homesteading journey truly begins. One spring weekend, Mitchell stumbled upon a farm and feed store about a mile from our house while trying to track down some dog food. He ended up coming home with 4 baby chicks. Harmless right? Wrong. We ended up repurposing an old swing set into a beautiful backyard chicken coop (that I was so sad to part with it when we sold the house). Before we knew it those 4 chicks turned into 16 chickens, some quail, and a mini pig all in a downtown residential area. You would have thought that our neighbors hated us, but in fact, our mini pig was like the neighborhood mascot. He lived off a little big of pig food and a lot of granola bars that the neighbors fed him his first year.

Once we got the taste of the farm life, Mitch and I were set on finding some acreage to move to. If you aren’t that familiar with Seattle housing prices, finding anything on more than an acre in a relatively reasonable price range is like finding a needle in a haystack. However, one night, I was doing my daily Zillow search and a real fixer upper popped up on my search results. Cue my life long dream of flipping a house as effortlessly and Joanna Gaines does. Admittingly, Mitch took one look at the pictures and said “Oh no, way too much work”. As stubborn as I was, I saved it, kept it in my back pocket, and prayed that no one else saw the potential that I did.

It took about a month but I finally got Mitchell to take a drive down on brisk fall morning to go look at the property. I don’t think we had taken ten steps before we knew we were going to make an offer. That’s the thing though. As much as this 1930’s farmhouse, complete with original windows, brought a lot of charm that we loved about our first home, the view of the pastures that sat behind it sealed the deal for us. Yes, we were going to have to gut the place. And yes, we would live in a 19 foot trailer in the process for months on end, truly testing our marriage. But none of that mattered when the vision of raising our kids on that piece of property could be our reality.

Fast forward a year, through a home remodel, a pandemic, and countless animals added to our homestead (which we will introduce in future posts) and we find ourselves here. I’ve always loved the idea of a blog but now feels like to right time to start sharing our journey with the world. Not going to lie, it’s super intimidating to open yourself up to public critique. However, the goal of sharing our experiences with you is to bring joy to others who appreciate animals as much as we do and to hopefully learn a little on the way, too.

Part of our mission is to help build a community. The past year has thrown so many hurdles at everyone and has been one of the most isolating years as well. Mitch and I love meeting other people and learning about their stories, whether they are homesteaders or not. We can’t help it, we are people-people. So please feel free to stay and hang out for a while. You can follow along through this blog or our other social media pages. And don’t be shy! We’d love to hear from you! Send us an email or message and tell us a little bit about yourself or even things you would like to see us post.

Happy Homesteading,

Laura & Mitch