About

Hello!

My name is Ashlie, and I live in the Hudson Valley located in upstate New York. I am a full-time artist with a passion for rural life. My family, gardens, and love of animals/nature directly inspire my work. Here I hope you will see that the two are interwoven, and in complete harmony.

With an old farmhouse, big barn, and a few acres, my husband and I are raising our three young sons and a small (for now hee hee) flock of chickens.

A few years ago when our family grew too large for our starter home, we moved four miles up the road to the house we had been pining over for some time. A colonial style farmhouse built in the mid-1800s, atop more land than we ever had before. Our dream home.

The barn came later, for at the time it belonged to another. The properties had divided many a year before, splitting the homestead in two. We hoped that someday we would make the barn a part of our story too. And well, someday came around New Year’s 2017. On a chilly January afternoon, we broke champagne on the foundation of the barn and began next chapter in our lives.

I was raised further upstate than we live now. A child amongst picket fences and pastures. There I lost myself in imaginative play, and so it only made sense, when as an adult and living in the Hudson Valley, that I embrace a more rural way of living.

I believe in embracing life with gusto, trusting the journey, and never getting to upset with a lesson learned. I also believe in eating real food. And so, I grow many different fresh organic veggies during our growing season. If the label on a food item when shopping has ingredients I can’t pronounce or understand, it’s not going into our stomachs. I bake, jar (pickles are our favorite!), and grow flowers for not only our enjoyment, but for our pollinating insects.

We have a flock of six chickens. Three Americaunas, 2 Cream Crested Legbars, and one Polish/Silkie cross. Each have a name and are a direct extension of our family. I am crazy for them, and they add such amusement and charm to our backyard. You can see each one and read about them here.

I created this blog with the intention of sharing my artistic-farmy life and the more simplistic way that we live, and well… the not so simple way we live. There are so many ideas and dreams in our pocket. We haven’t quite figured out what we are doing with our barn yet, but we do know that preserving it for another 100 years or more is our desire. As well as some more animals. And making the most of this short time we have here on this great green earth all the while creating from my home studio – raising boys – and surviving the inbetweens.