I thought every kid wanted a farm!

Growing up I wanted to be a Vet and to live on a farm.  I thought everyone wanted to live on a farm!  Fear of failure and having worked in a vets office ended up ultimately leading me down a different career path.  I didnt have the heart to deal with the sadness and death that vets had to deal with on a regular basis.  As a child I collected frogs, fireflies, and grasshoppers and kept them a few days while I studied and watched them.  I had pet hermit crabs that I took notes on and learned about.  I made an incubator and hatched chicken and duck eggs in 6th grade as part of a science project.  I joined 4H dog training, and read many books on training, dog behavior and was obsessed with studying wolves and their pack mentality and how it related to domestic dogs.  As a teacher I had a classroom full of animals.  I tried to have one type of animal from every class: birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, fish, and invertebrates (crickets that fed the reptiles).  The first was a bearded dragon named Apollo which I still have today (9 years later), a red rat snake that a student brought as a surprise (I was quite surprised!), we had a bunny, rats, guinea pigs and as a class we made him a giant cage after school. We also had a fish tank full of different types of fish and plants, we hatched chicken and duck eggs and candled the eggs to watch them grow, we also had some frogs and then of course lots of crickets and meal worms to keep everyone fed.  The opportunity came to buy a 5 acre farm and of course, being my dream, (which I thought was everyones dream) I bought the farm.  I ended up with goats, chickens, ducks, mini horses, a mini donkey, geese, a couple of cows, a sheep, and a few pigs.  I started a traveling petting zoo for parties.  After 5 years  of caring for all the animals on my own, I was always so sad at the loss of any of the animals which tends to happen on farms, especially with the birds and smaller animals.  I ended up deciding that I wanted to move closer family and friends and I found wonderful homes for all of my remaining farm pets.  After 8 years of teaching, I decided to continue with animal care and I started my pet sitting business.  There really arent too many animals I havent cared for.  Currently my pack includes a maltese, a yorkie, 2 Pomeranian mixes (brothers), an aussiedoodle (60 lbs), 2 cats and of course my bearded dragon Apoll0.