About Us

The seed was planted years ago, in the hills of West Virginia where I spent a month of every summer with my grandparents. I was five years old and full of life, and myself. One morning, my grandmother surprised me with a trip to the new farm my grandparents had recently purchased. My grandfather, a weekend cow rancher, needed more space for his herd so they had bought a place in the country. Let’s just say that it was love at first sight. 

As we drove into the grassy driveway, I was greeted by the most beautiful two story, yellow farm house, complete with a front porch. There it sat in the middle of what seemed like a sea of hay fields. To the right of the house was a huge red barn and behind the barn was a pond filled with cattails and frogs. There was a tree with a tire swing and a woodland race track for a go kart. There I spent the happiest days of my childhood. From tractor rides with my grandfather to running wild in the fields to playing My Little Ponies in the unused formal dining room, I loved it all. To my young heart, it was perfection. 

As the years went by, my desire to have a farm never dimmed. However, as life rarely goes as planned, those dreams were put aside for the reality of everyday life. I married my high school sweetheart, moved to South Carolina so he could finish his college education, and started a family. When our oldest child was in kindergarten at the local public school, I missed her so much that my husband and I decided to homeschool instead. Five more kids and nineteen years later, we are homeschooling still. 

Living life on a single teacher's salary has never been easy, but we made it work. We lived on a .14 acre lot of land in what I called “a fishbowl.” Those long ago dreams of living in the country with room to run and play seemed like an unattainable fantasy. I had all but given up on ever seeing my farm come to a reality. Luckily, life has a way of throwing you curveballs when you least expect it. 

Shortly before COVID hit, we decided to sell our home. When it sold more quickly than expected, we had to move out...fast. It was nothing short of a miracle when a rental home situated on an acre of land became available right when we needed it, at a price we could afford.  Though leaving our home of 13 years was hard on us all, we found ourselves in the place God had prepared for us. 

You see, for many years, my husband and I had wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of life. We wanted to find a way to live and work together instead of everyone going off living separate lives. We are a creative bunch and I thought there must be some way we could use our talents.  We never had the courage to step away from it all and start working towards a future. Moving gave us the new start we had been longing for.

Within days of moving into our new home, we started a garden and were given six laying hens. My husband loved the hens so much he decided he wanted to be a chicken farmer. He built himself a chicken tractor and started selling farm raised chickens to all of his coworkers. Now all our new venture needed was a name. 

Let me go back ten years or so to when our kids were young. My husband and I were part of a bible study where, one night, the topic of family mission statements was discussed. We had no idea what people were talking about but it sounded kinda fun.  After a little research we decided to  write one of our own. Here is what we came up with:

Our family is a Christian Family,

who lives together in honesty, love, and respect: 

To seek God’s guidance through prayer and scripture

To share God’s love with laughter and creativity

To show compassion to each other and the world

This mission has served as the backdrop for the decisions we make on how to spend our time and how we use the gifts we have been given. We knew that any name we came up with would need to fit into this mission. We also wanted the name of our farm to encompass each member of the family, no matter if they still lived at home or not. It just so happens that if you put the first initials of the girls' names in our family in age order you get the word ECHO. Odd, I know, but true. The boy’s however, did not seem to fit so nicely..JJIM. (Yes, you counted right four of each including mom & dad). 

 For a long while, I could not figure out how to fit the boys into the equation. Then one day, out of nowhere, I remembered that my husband and oldest son share a middle name that begins with H. If we replaced the two J’s with one H, we got HIM. Now we were getting somewhere. I shared my discovery with my family that night after dinner, and they loved it. So here we are.  

Okay... I admit that the Acres part is a little bit of a stretch as we are sitting on a singular rented acre of land. But, hey, a girl can dream, can't she?