Our Story

Brandi and I often wonder how it is we got to this point. We were both raised in and around the city of Atlanta, so let's just say, raising chickens to butcher them was nowhere on our vision board. So how did Southern Acres Homestead come to be?

Our journey together started in high school where we met, fell in love, and after a few years of dating, we were married the summer before our junior year of college.

After college, we embarked on a journey that took us from South Florida, to South Carolina, to Pittsburgh and back. But no matter where we went, our hearts were always drawn back to Tennessee, where we had attended college. We knew there was no other place we would rather raise our family and build a life together.

So, when the opportunity finally presented itself, we jumped at the chance to make Tennessee our permanent home. And what a journey it has been!

Along the way, we welcomed five beautiful children into our lives, each one bringing more love, laughter, and joy into our home.

Then came 2020 and the world was turned upside down by the pandemic. Between the empty grocery store shelves, a faltering supply chain, and the immense amount of anxiety-causing uncertainty, we decided to buy a couple hydroponic towers to grow some produce in our kitchen.

The excitement of picking our own lettuce while the kids cut spinach leaves to snack on, quickly evolved to turning a chunk of our backyard into a garden. During our first growing season Brandi tapped into our homeschool community, took classes, and stocked a library of resources, covering everything from starting seeds, to food preservation, to making homemade salves and medicines from plants and herbs grown in the garden. 

As it would go, toward the end of the first growing season, we were presented with the opportunity to buy 12 young chickens on the verge of laying their first eggs. Within a couple weeks of those birds moving in, we found ourselves with 24 newborn chicks, and then 20 meat bird chicks a few weeks later. We would later come to understand this speedy acquisition of unplanned birds to be known as "chicken math"

We may have been raised in the city, but we have learned so much since starting our homesteading journey. From growing and canning our own vegetables to raising and processing chickens, it has been a wonderful adventure. Our kids are homeschooled, and they have been able to learn so much about self-sufficiency and the natural world. If they get their way, I will probably have some turkeys, quail, or ducks by the end of Summer.

We are by no means experts, but we are learning something new every day and that is what makes homesteading so exciting. While we are in the early stages of our journey, our long-term goal is to create a self-sufficient homestead where we can live off the land and provide for our family. But until then, we will continue to learn and grow and share our experiences with others.

Southern Acres Homestead is not just a place, it's a lifestyle, and we are thrilled to be living it. We hope that through our journey, we can inspire others to live a more sustainable and fulfilling life. We invite you to follow along and share in the joys and challenges of homesteading.