The Longest Shortest Time

EPISODE #75: Outnumbered by Animals

Frannie met Charlie when she took a semester off of college and volunteered on his farm as a WWOOFer (free room and board in exchange for being a farmhand). A little over a year later, Frannie had officially dropped out of school and she and Charlie got married.

Frannie and Charlie operate Hepzibah Farms in Talledega, Alabama. They grow veggies and flowers, and they sell them in a CSA and at a farmer’s market.

And they’ve got a bunch of animals: pigs, chickens, a super aggressive duck, goats. Well, they used to have goats.

But farm life is relatively new to Frannie. She grew up in a small town in North Carolina, and before moving to the farm she’d been going to school in New York City. So when she got pregnant soon after her wedding, she fantasized that she’d be a “warrior woman, baby slung on my back, just spilling my milk on the soil, fertilizing the garden with my womanhood.”

Which is sorta how it was … eventually.

But first, the animals had other ideas.

Tune in to this episode for the story of a woman who uproots her life, moves in with a smelly stranger, and finds herself in a situation where the only people for miles around are the ones who share her bathroom.

What impulsive decisions have YOU made that have changed your life?
Or maybe your parents made a decision like this when you were a kid? Tell all. Down below.

Frannie and Charlie’s wedding photos: Bre Conley

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