Meet the Caffarels
Chris & Paige Caffarel.
One from Louisiana, one from Florida. One did the Army and one did the Air Force. We had long and complicated “past lives” before each other. We understood risk, sacrifice, loss. We had lessons in patience, trust, fear, and faith. After many wrong turns, round abouts, and intersections, we listened to a calling to return to the roots of creation, to slow down, and to build a life entirely from scratch.
Today, our lives look a little different. By day, we both work full-time jobs. When the work day clock stops, our true passion begins. We get to be with each other, and every spare minute, many ounces of energy, and countless prayers go into building our life together and nurturing our homestead.
When we met and fell in love, we realized we shared a deep, burning desire for authenticity. In a world full of fast food, synthetic materials, plastic people, and constant noise, we wanted REAL. We wanted to look at our lives and know we had substance.
For us, "from scratch" isn’t just a catchy phrase. It is our daily reality. It’s intentional hard work.
Our Food: Grown from heirloom seeds in the dirt and harvested by hand. We come up with recipes and make most things ourselves.
Our animals: Raised as nature intended, with hand-crafted feeds we design ourselves. We also grow fodder as supplement to natural forage, and incorporate pasture rotation, forage managing (varying forage with seasons), and ensure their lives are happy from day one to the end.
Our Home: Old bones, built up step-by-step with our own four hands (and some help along the way!).
At the very center of our marriage and our homestead is our love for Jesus. We don’t just want to live off the grid; we want to live on the Word of God.
Every seed we plant and every animal we raise is an act of worship. We believe that God made humanity to be stewards of His beautiful creation. We should honor Creation, not try to dominate or destroy it. By stripping away the modern distractions, we have found a closer walk with God. In the quiet of the morning mist on the pasture, His presence is undeniable.
Regenerative Farming: Honoring Creation
We take immense pride in utilizing regenerative farming methodologies. To us, this isn't just a modern agricultural trend—it is working with the Earth exactly as God designed it. It is a ministry of stewardship.
Regenerative farming means we don't exploit the land. We heal it.
Rotational Grazing: Moving animals to mimic natural herd movements.
Soil Health: Feeding the microbes underground to grow nutrient-dense food. We removed so much trash from our property from the previous owners. There isn’t an area of our land that hasn’t been cleaned.
Respect for Animals: Giving our livestock a life where they can roam, forage, and live exactly as God intended.
We used to live in a tiny apartment, and one day we watched “The Biggest Little Farm.” We already knew we wanted a homestead and how we wanted to live our life and prayed daily for God’s guidance in getting there, but that movie also inspired us and gave us direction in how to do the farm. How do animals work together naturally? How do they each affect the environment? How does each individual affect the whole? These were and are all elements that go into how we set up and change our farm.
Is it easy? Absolutely not. Balancing full-time day jobs with the full-time demands of a working homestead takes every bit of the discipline and patience we have learned in this life. There are late nights in the field and woods, muddy boots, failed crops, animals we can’t save, and aching muscles.
But when we sit down at a dinner table eating a meal that we raised ourselves, and thank God for His provision—every single ounce of sweat becomes worth it. We are building a legacy. We are living authentically. And we are doing it all for His glory.
Other little facts about us: Paige paints and runs when the opportunity arises, and Chris enjoys woodworking, metalsmithing, and cycling. Right now we just have paintings on there, but eventually cpartwork.com will feature all types of our creations. We’re a little (okay, maybe a lot for Paige - it is a spectrum) autistic. Both of us enjoy cooking, and Paige also loves baking. We don’t really do TV and neither of us are fans of the digital age. We love going to the beach as much as we can, to hunt sharks teeth and swim.