First, make sure you can feed yourself.

In my mid-20’s, I went through a bit of a crisis of meaning. Suffering a very big disappointment, my current worldview was replaced rather dramatically by the paradigm shift of permaculture. For the next year, I was absolutely stubborn and would commit to any labor not related to regenerative agriculture, because that is all that mattered at the time.

It didn’t go well, but that’s a story for another day. Basically, I was grabbing and clawing for a particular experience to learn farming, and instead life wanted me to learn a bit more about myself.

Returning to St. Louis after my third attempt at a farming internship, I had been beaten into a state of reasonableness. I just wanted a job, an apartment, and food in the fridge. After a week back in town, I landed a job delivering sandwiches on my bike. This compelled me to start Food Pedaler, my business training wheels, about 6 months later.

On one of my first deliveries I met a super cute girl. We talked about farming, and that conversation never stopped. Now we’re married. We were able to use earnings and experience from the bike courier business to start our full-circle farm, and now we are on the lookout for a family farmstead.

A moral of the story would be to take care of yourself, and your heart will follow.