Our Story
A Collection of Moments
Twelve years ago, Lloyd and I left California and headed for a 114-year-old farmhouse in East Tennessee.
We arrived with two dogs, three zebra finches, and no real idea what the years ahead would hold.
Truth be told, the move to Tennessee started a few years earlier when I came home from work one day and Lloyd said he wanted to show me something on the computer.
I sat down and stared at the screen.
Welcome to Dandridge, Tennessee.
Then Lloyd looked at me and said, “What do you think about you and me moving to Tennessee?”
I was completely caught off guard.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
But somehow, that crazy idea turned into conversations, conversations turned into plans, and before long we found ourselves standing in front of an old yellow farmhouse in Dandridge, Tennessee.
At first, it was simply a beautiful old farmhouse and a few acres of land.
Then, little by little, life began showing up.
We inherited a cat.
A friend gifted us a donkey.
We adopted a mini horse.
Five sheep arrived to help with what Lloyd likes to call “property maintenance.”
Then came chickens.
Then one goat.
Then two goats.
Then forty-something goats.
Then goat farming.
Then one baby goat.
Then two.
Then twenty-nine kids born in a single night.
We built fences.
We planted gardens.
We started a little honor-system farm stand.
We raised tomatoes, peppers, corn, sunflowers, and more weeds than I care to admit.
We learned about bluebirds, purple martins, and the quiet joy of morning coffee on the porch.
Somewhere along the way, this old farmhouse became more than a place to live.
It became a place that taught us how to notice.
Not just the big milestones.
The small things too.
A bird building a nest.
A donkey braying from the barn.
A dog waiting patiently by the porch steps.
A flower blooming where you didn’t expect it.
Over time, I began to understand something.
It wasn’t one spectacular thing at all.
It was a spectacular way of seeing ordinary things.
I thought I came to Tennessee to build a farm.
Instead, it built me.
Rowdy Dogs Farm started as our farm in Tennessee, but somewhere along the way it became something more — a collection of stories, photographs, animals, and moments that taught me how to notice life differently.
Kindness doesn’t have to be loud.
Beauty doesn’t have to be fancy.
The ordinary often becomes extraordinary when someone takes the time to notice.