Welcome to Coal Creek Farm! My name is April, I’m a chicken doctor, I specialize in therapeutic treatments such as spoinking and cluckectomies. I just earned my wings and am ready to teach my patients how to fly.
Oh, come on…it’s a little funny, right?
Okay here’s the real deal. My parents named me April Dawn because I was born early in the morning in…..you guessed it, April. I have heard every comment you could ever think of about my name. I’m 6 feet tall, taller than both my parents and my sister. The hair color truly is my real hair, sometimes my hair dressers don’t believe me and it’s much, much, much darker than the freaky white color it was when I was younger. Combine all these things; the name, the height, the hair…oh, and the freckles and you get one messed up chick.
Then along came Clay.
Clay the Architect is my husband. Guess what? His parents gave him a name that kids made fun of too! He’s a freakish 6′5″ tall and he used to have auburn hair and big giant freckles. If ever two people were made to be together it was us two weirdos.
We have no problem laughing at each other or making fun of other people or being horribly sarcastic. Please accept my apologies now.
Clay is featured pretty heavily in my blog, most of my readers like him more than me which makes him unbearably hard to live with. We have four children, one girl and three boys. My children are weird, that’s all I can really say about them. You will experience them off and on here and I will most likely do my fair share of complaining about their filthy trails and smelly smells.
We live on a micro-farm, if there is such a thing. It has always been our dream to live in the country and have animals and grow lots of things. In September of 2007 that dream came true when we moved to Kansas and bought a century old American Foursquare home. We have a small orchard and a garden that we are making larger every year. We have one dog, Preacher, an assortment of cats, pigs, chickens, turkeys and one turken. Life is sweet on this little place.
Several months after we bought our little dream spot Clay was prematurely made a partner in his firm. This wonderful opportunity came at a huge cost, the cost of buying a portion of the business. We found ourselves just recovering from moving and setting up house and then basically buying what we like to refer to as ‘The Luxury Villa’ that we never get to enjoy. We found ourselves steeped in debt and were very uncomfortable with that fact.
In February 2008 we read Dave Ramsey’s books and decided we were going to live like the cheapest people in the world and get our family out of debt. It’s been a rewarding journey, but hard. I write a lot about this journey and the comments I receive from readers is one of the biggest reasons we have been able to stay focused.
Other things I should warn you about:
This blog contains a lot of dancing. The dancing may not be technically correct, but it’s good for the soul and a belly laugh.
I say the word Damn when referring to Dave Ramsey, it’s entirely appropriate.
I like using biblical words such as ass, damn, hell and jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, because I’m a Christian and those words are in the Bible. If any of those things bother you, then we might have a problem.
If you ever fill the need to contact me I now have an email address dedicated to Coal Creek Farm at april@coalcreekfarm.com. I would love to hear from any of you.
Need a Chicken Doctor?
Contact 
April, I found your site last night via a post on Backyardchickens.com about replacing a chicken’s prolapse. !! I had such a wonderful time browsing and laughing that I forgot how worried I was about our chicken! I love your sense of humor and look forward to getting to know you.
your life sounds fascinating, and since mine is not (except that I too have weird children), I think I’ll follow your antics for a while, if that’s okay with you.
Damn. I just killed like 45 minutes reading your stuff at work. my boss will be mad. oh well it was SO worth it!
I grew up with my dad telling me to be proud of being weird, so I like you already. (I consider being weird an asset.) Also, my married name is Sarah Lee (like Sara Lee pies and bread…), so I get all sorts of teasing including completely serious comments like “Your name makes me hungry.” and “Can you bring the cheesecake?” and “I didn’t know you married a loaf of bread.” Yeah. My husband and I are also big Dave Ramsey fans and my dream is to have a little “micro-farm” too! I’m glad I stumbled onto your blog and look forward to reading about your adventures!
Fun blog! Thank you!
Thanks for the fun!
As a nosy, er, um, voyeuristic- wow that sounds creepy, nosy is definitely better, although not on any expanded vocabulary lists- mom of 3 weird kidlets married to a not as weird (They get it from my side.)guy, I enjoy peeking in the windows- catch that did ya?- on other mama’s lives.
Keep up the good work! Oh, and, maybe following a fun new blog will finally bump me into posting more than twice a year on mine. Good intentions and all that…
Thanks again from a new follower, chicken doc groupie, or whatever you call us.
Love your blog! We are moving to a ranch in NE Oregon in a year and tried to get started with 4 chickens, but then the neighbor’s dog ate them for Thanksgiving dinner! I look forward to learning from your experience. While I am not taking care of my three kids, I am marketing my books, blogging/tweeting/facebooking (www.creativelyfit.com) and making art! Creative wishes, Whitney
We must be related. Great blog. Can’t wait to see what’s next!
OMG HILLARIOUS! I love your humor! My husband and I live on a small farm with an orchard we’re trying to make profitable again. I think I can share in some of your pain. I look forward to following you!
Hey April, Just read about you and was very entertained. I live in a small town in Middle TN and am a big Dave Ramsey fan. My husband and I moved back here after an absence of 30 years. We have a garden, ect. We grew up doing the simple country and mountain life and it is great to be back to living this way again. I want some chickens. They are great for a garden spot.
I think I’m gonna like it here…
What’s a turken?
Ah! I just found this…
http://www.cacklehatchery.com/turken.html
I feel much more edumicated.
Google’s a saint.