Nice to Meet Yinz

Welcome to our 10 acre homestead tucked away about 45 minutes south of Pittsburgh. If you're not from around this area, our blog name might seem odd. Pittsburghers quite literally have their own language (check it out... it's called Pittsburgh English or Pittsburghese) and N'at is an indiscriminate word we often use to just say "etc" or "and whatever." It's perfect for us because you will get to see a good bit of "whatever" that happens to be going on around our homestead. We might be building a deck, making homemade bacon, setting up a greenhouse, starting seed/planting a garden, canning food, processing our own animals, baking with sourdough, tractor repairs, building a chicken tractor...it could be anything. We are a DIY family just figuring things out along the way while raising three little kiddos to be self-sufficient in every aspect of life. If you want to see the good, bad, and ugly of self-sufficiency you are in the right place!

Ok, so who are we?

I'm Melissa, self-proclaimed project manager of the house. I come up with the hair-brain ideas, marketing, sales, schedule, food preparation/preservation N'at (see, such a useful word 😉). I had ZERO homesteading or baking/cooking skills before I met my very capable husband Dave. I'm a hospital pharmacist that decided I wanted to be home to raise babies and thankfully I married a man that wanted that for our family too.

Dave is in charge of logistics and operations. He is a mechanical engineer/project manager by day but he is an outdoor enthusiast at heart. He's the first one up feeding animals, starting a fire to heat the house, making my coffee (happy wife, happy family...you can already tell he's a smart fella) and he's the last to sit down at night. His perfect day is taking care of farm animals, fixing up old rusty tractors, planting crops, getting into a farm construction project, and spending time with our kids in the barn.

We have a 7 year old daughter named Chelsea that is absolutely obsessed with horses (despite my resistance, a horse will be coming to the farm in the near future so stay tuned for what an adventure that will be), a 6 year old, baby loving, girly girl named Emily, and a farm boy through and through named David who just turned 4.

We have a golden doodle named Max, a barn cat named Wa Wa Catty, egg laying chickens, meat chickens, pigs, and a sourdough starter named Brown Betty (my fourth child that I will post a lot about).

What do we do?

In short, a little bit of everything except dairy and goats (I will explain why later). We have a 4800 sq. ft. in-ground garden, raised garden bed for my "high maintenance" crops, chicken coop with egg laying chickens, cornish-cross meat chickens, feeder pigs, hunting, canning, and sourdough baking. Each year, we add a little something more to the homestead

and we have quite a few projects up our sleeve. We have to balance expansion with cost, time, and return-on-investment. I hope we can help you discover how rewarding self-sufficiency can be and maybe learn a little Pittsburghese along the way. We are excited for yinz to see what's happening on Roberts Family Farm this year!

Next up...Chickens - a clucking game changer!