Yes, all the rumors are true—I’m hatching eggs.

If you have been following our journey over the last few years, you know that our lives have been anything but stationary and ordinary. Life is too short to be bland and stay put. We are hearty Mainers that aren’t afraid to take and leap and love a good laugh.

After years of being deeply rooted in the Maine poultry community—back when we were operating Wheaton Mountain Farm out of Bucksport and sharing our homesteading trials through MaineHomesteadMagazine.com—we felt the unmistakable pull of a new horizon.

Following a string of tragedies and freak accidents in a short period in both our families—we decided to take life by the horns and live the dream. We sold literally everything we owned, and stepped away from the farm to embark on a series of grand adventures.

We traded the coops for the open ocean, creating truly unforgettable memories living at sea on a 44-foot catamaran named YOLO [You Only Live Once]. Read more about that HERE if you like.

When we returned to solid ground, we traded the sails for wheels while maintaining a base camp in Bradford Maine where we spent two long winters gathering dead wood to keep warm with. We did this by choice, have you seen what they charge for seasoned wood nowadays?

We crossed two countries in a rugged 34′ Holiday Rambler RV, driving all the way from Maine to the rugged wilds of Alaska, documenting every wild mile on our travel blog, TheWheatonWay.com. It was the chapter of a lifetime, filled with vast landscapes and the ultimate freedom of the rough Alcan highway and expansive arctic tundra. We never tried too hard to plan and let each day unfold and spent a whole summer on the road.

But no matter how far we traveled or how beautiful the Canadian Rockies were, the dirt of Maine never truly left our boots. The call to return home, to get our hands back into the soil, and to start my chicken journey over again was a pull I couldn’t resist. I found myself feeling homesick in Silver City along the shore of Kluane Lake drafting up coop plans on graph paper.

We spent the next spring clearing land surrounding the log cabin with a heard of goats—before selling the property after a dispute with an unstable neighbor that left me feeling unsafe. It was hard to let it go, but I still feel it was the right thing to do. I like to surround myself with positive people and you can’t fix crazy.

We bought a run-down house to fix up in Bradley, closer to my work. For a while we lived behind the house in a camper while we worked on demolition, and began the renovation phase. We wrapped up a bedroom just as winter was creeping in on us, and moved in. A few months later a friend mentioned she was selling her home in Orrington, so I leapt at the opportunity and made an offer. It’s a beautiful home and I’m very happy here.

Now, we are officially back and breaking ground on our new “homestead” in Orrington, Maine where I can start hatching eggs again. Unlike the last several homes we bought, this one doesn’t need a thing. I bought the house from a good friend. It was built by her husband who is a custom carpenter with no detail overlooked. We added a fenced dog yard and planted two honey crisp apple trees. It felt more like home after that.

We have just successfully hatched out a gorgeous batch of Celadon quail—ready to fill baskets with their signature mint-green, blue and cow-spotted eggs—alongside a striking group of Black Ameraucanas. All from NPIP farms, of course. As exciting as these new hatches are, there is still an empty space in our upcoming lineup. Years ago, before our wanderlust for adventure took over, our farm was well known across the region for producing some of the richest, darkest, most jaw-dropping chocolate Marans eggs you could find. As we sit here listening to the incubator hum, we are waiting on the hatch of Black Copper Marans eggs from the absolute darkest lines on the East Coast for an epic hatching eggs reboot done the right way.

Getting back to that legendary level of hatching eggs color depth means revisiting our roots, rekindling relationships with trusted breeders, and keeping my chicken math in check by making the right hard choices.

With only a couple of acres here in Orrington, I plan to keep two small flocks with a tight breeding program and offering only limited stock of hatching eggs for sale. Where I work so much outside the home, I just don’t have the time to tend birds like I once did.

Oh, and we added two new pups to our entourage; meet Lucifer The Prince of Darkness and Ruby-Sue Walkabout.