~my dream farmlet~
my ultimate dream is to have a sweet little farmlet in either the swiss alps or northern germany.
despite how much time i spend online, i do really enjoy being outside. when i was little and still lived in a house with a big yard, my dad and i used to grow green beans, potatoes, and occasionally corn. i also even had a little blackberry bush i would take care of myself, but now i live in a house with a small yard and very poor soil, so i can't really do that anymore.
i miss the country, it's where i belong.
livestock
cattle
i really love highland cattle. they're those cute, fluffy calves you see in a lot of cottagecore photos. i know i'm basic, i ♡ the fluffy cows... but if i do end up in northwest europe, their long hair will be very good to have. highland cattle are primarily beef cattle, but i don't have the heart to eat my friends. i have read they produce really nice milk, which i might get every now and then. to be honest, though, repeatedly impregnating something to harvest a byproduct of its pregnancy is just kind of weird to me as a concept. if i ever do get milk, it'll be because i actually want the calves and the mother produced more milk than they needed. i'd probably just keep one or two cows as pets. i'm okay with that.
sheep
my favorite breed of sheep is the valais blacknose. again, i'm basic, i ♡ the fluffy sheep. valais blacknose originate from switzerland, though, so in my fluffy defence, they are literally bred for my fantasy farm. valais blacknose are both meat and wool sheep, of course i'll only keep them for wool. it'll get cold in the mountains. i should probably learn to spin yarn... long, white wool like that should also be an okay source of income, hopefully.
...i also ♡ the twisty horns...
there are a lot of other sheep breeds i like: manx laughton, border leicester, racka, and babydoll are my favs. i'll admit, it's mostly because they look funky and i think it's cool. laughtons are really rare, though, if i could ever get my hands on a few, their wool should make a decent living for us. i've read border leicesters and rackas are both pretty docile and polite, which would be nice to have around.
goats
for a while i didn't want goats because i thought it would be a similar situation to cows, (milk is weird + meat is sad) and having even one livestock animal as 'just a pet' in this capitalist hellscape is a bit unrealistic. then i remembered cashmire exists.
i would definitely have to get either kashmir or pashmina goats if i do get goats. i'll admit, though, i'm still a bit worried about paying for them. cashmire is basically the fine undercoat of fur some goats have, and after you shear them, picking the fine undercoat from their coarse fur is very time consuming and tedious. goats don't even have that much cashmire, it takes a whole flock to make one sweater. you'd be seriously surprised to find out just how cheap raw cashmire is compared to how much work it takes to get it. logistically, i'd have to get goats over cows, but even still i'm not 100% sure it'd be worth it.
other animals
i'm neutral on horses, i'm not a huge horse fan but i can appreciate them now-and-then. given the chance, i'd probably be more interested in mules or donkeys. horses kind of scare me.
pigs and chickens i just don't see myself enjoying taking care of. pigs are extremely high maintenance, and are another animal i would only be able to keep as a pet without much benefit. chickens are better, but yeah, i just don't think i'd enjoy the process much.
garden
of course i don't have a specific lot in mind, so i'm not sure what plants i'll even be able to grow.
poatatoes are easy to get hold of and grow, and i think the climate would be alright. if i'm able, i would really love to grow lemons and chamomile so i can still bleach my hair if i'm an hour away from the nearest convenience store.
my favorite plants
snapdragons
even as a kid i always thought snapdragons were so cool. i really want the keep them again, but iirc, they were relatively high maintenance. also climate and soil and w/e.
bear's paw
look at this freakin cactus it's so cute!!!!!!! my name is bear my favorite animals are bears... it's perfect...
when i have the means to i definitely want a pot of some bear's paw. i think it'd be a good starting point to taking care of plants again. from the information i've gathered, my room would be an alright little spot for them. i freakin love bears!!!!!!!jkhfdjkgdsfhj
mimosa pudica
i've written their latin name here because they honestly have too many household names to keep track of. as long as i've known about sensitive plants i've wanted to keep one. i don't think i could, though, since the climate where i live is so so different from where they originate.
forget - me - nots
forget-me-nots don't really have any sentimental value to me, i never grew them. there's just something about them that gets me daydreamy, i can't put my finger on it. if i ever have a nice yard i really want a lot of forget-me-nots. they make me feel like i'm in a fairy garden, and you probably know how i feel about fairies.
march lilies
in my old garden there were lots of march lilies, and they were my absolute favorite thing. i was always so happy to see them bloom. just looking at those little shrubs, you would never know what they hid. we never called them march lilies, but i don't want to write what we did call them for risk of ending up in the wrong search results.
