How We Got Started
Agriculture has been part of my family history for generations. Like many families before us, homesteading was not considered a trend or lifestyle. It was simply normal living. Shopping local, growing a garden, preserving food and doing things by hand were meaningful parts of family life.
While there are no multigenerational farms still operating in my family today, farming has always quietly remained part of our story. My great great grandparents were dairy farmers in Potter County, Pennsylvania. That farm lasted for three generations before eventually fading away with time.
Years later, my uncle, who was born and raised in South Jersey and worked successfully as an architect, decided to leave behind the constant pace of suburban life and purchase a farm in the Pennsylvania Wilds. He operated a cow calf beef farm, raising cattle and calves before they moved on to other farms for finishing. It was there, during summers spent with my grandmother at my uncle’s farm, that I truly fell in love with farming. To this day, it remains one of the places where I have felt the most peace.
As I grew older, I followed the path many people expected. I went to school, earned my nursing degree, later completed my master’s degree and eventually earned my Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. I have now worked in the nursing profession for 14 years and as a pediatric nurse practitioner for over ten years.
No matter how hard I tried to suppress it, something about the slower and more intentional way of living I experienced on the farm always stayed with me.
Working in primary care pediatrics gave me the opportunity to care for children from infancy through young adulthood. Over time, I began noticing troubling patterns that became impossible to ignore. Children were struggling with high cholesterol, fatty liver disease, abnormal weight gain, anxiety, overstimulation, excessive screen time and very little connection to the outdoors or the natural world around them.
At the same time, I could always see the difference in children whose families intentionally slowed down. Children who spent time outside, engaged in hands on play, helped in the kitchen or garden and lived more connected to the world around them often carried themselves differently. Even as toddlers, you could see it.
It was during those years that I realized our family wanted to walk a different path.
In our small suburban neighborhood, I started cooking more from scratch, growing a garden and dreaming about the family milk cow I had wanted ever since I was eight years old walking through the McKean County Fair. Slowly, we began building the life we longed for.
Leaving family and familiarity behind would not have been easy, and those ties kept us rooted here in South Jersey even while we longed for a quieter and more rural way of life. In time, we were blessed with the opportunity to purchase a small homestead from a close friend on the outskirts of the town I was raised in. It was there that Mckaiden Farm truly began.
What started with chickens and gardens slowly grew into miniature cattle, Nigerian Dwarf goats, flowers, herbs and the simple rhythm of learning how to steward land and animals well. We were not trying to create a business at first. We were simply trying to create a healthier and more grounded life for our family.
Over time, we felt a growing calling to serve our community in the same way we hoped to provide for our own family, with natural food raised with intention the old fashioned way.
We participated in a beginner farmer program, experienced the heartbreak of losing leased farmland and eventually found ourselves returning to our homestead roots. Today, we continue farming on a small scale here in Moorestown, New Jersey, doing our best to use this land thoughtfully to nourish both our family and our community.
It has been beautiful, exhausting, humbling and deeply meaningful.
Some days, it still feels like we live between two worlds, balancing modern life while longing for a slower and more connected way of living. Living on a busy county road outside growing towns, we sometimes feel a little out of place. Deep down, we know this life matters.
Several years ago, our oldest son asked us, “will we be a multigenerational farm one day?”
That question has stayed with us ever since.
We hope the answer is yes.
Not because farming is easy, but because we believe this work matters. We believe good food matters. We believe community matters. We believe children deserve connection to nature, to real food and to meaningful work. We believe there is still value in doing things slowly, carefully and with purpose.
Thank you for being here and for supporting our small family farm. Whether you shop with us at market, order from our farm store or simply follow along on this journey, please know that we pour our hearts into this work because we truly believe in its importance.
We are so grateful you are here to watch this story unfold.
Blessings,
Lauren