In a world of preservatives and pesticides, it can be hard to find inexpensive, clean foods. However, senior Holly Thomson has found a solution in her own backyard.

Holly has access to her main sources of food behind her family’s home in Lucas. She raises her own goats and chickens to provide eggs and milk.

“We have about one acre for the six goats, miniature horse, and about 25 chickens,” Holly said.

The family moved from Allen six-and-a-half years ago, and added the animals shortly after moving into their new home, Holly said. In addition to providing food for the family to eat, the animals also bring in extra money as well.

“We do sell eggs, but not typically the milk,” Holly said. “However, we do sell cheese and soap, both of which are made from the raw goat’s milk.”

Holly finds it beneficial to know where her food comes from. She said it makes a difference in how much healthier it is, as compared to food from most grocery stores where it is more difficult to find how the animals were raised and processed.

Holly has a designated routine that benefits the animals’ health, well-being, and protection.

“We let our chickens out every day,” Holly said. “We lock them up at night to protect them, but they have an acre and a half to run around and eat whatever they want, so there is a lot more variety in their diets, and the same with the goats.”

She also makes time to find other ways to incorporate goat’s milk to make different foods.

“There are several different kinds of cheese, but we like making soft cheeses such as ricotta,” Holly said. “It just takes an afternoon, a couple hours, to make.”

Holly’s lifestyle has taught her how to make many foods on her own, lessons passed down from her mom and dad.

“My parents both grew up in mini-farms and wanted their children to have the same experience of having responsibility of an animal and the satisfaction of growing our own food and becoming more self-sufficient,” Holly said.

Holly’s mother, Debra Thomson, said structure plays a large role in allowing the family to be so efficient and coordinate tasks. Having a general schedule helps Holly and her brother juggle all the activities they have to complete throughout the day.

“One of the benefits of having the animals is that we as a family have to work together and be flexible with whose turn it is to do the chores,” Debra said. “If it is Collin’s turn, but he is going to be gone until late, then someone else steps in.”

Collin said his goal with the farm is to “pretty much just to have fun and have good experiences from it.” He said one of the challenges has been predatory animals like hawks and bobcats.

“At the beginning of this year a bobcat took about 50 of our chickens in the span of two weeks while we were on vacation,” Collin said.

Now, Collin said, the family has added some dogs to help protect the chickens.

“Of course they’re having to learn that chickens are friends not food,” Collin said. “We are having to train them. The dogs don’t require a whole lot of maintenance, like they don’t require us to be home to guard against bobcats.”

Debra noted that while maintaining the farm takes a lot of time, it has become part of their everyday routine and lifestyle.

“An important lesson in life is to balance our obligations and our free time,” Debra said. “Too much of either is simply too much.”

The family says the farm has made an impression on friends who find out about the Thomsons’ lifestyle.

“My friends think it’s really cool that I have to help take care of our animals virtually everyday,” Holly said. “My parents have commented on how lots of their peers are intrigued with our little farm and have toyed with the idea of owning one themselves.”