I have a dream to one day own and live on a farm, grow my own vegetables, and take care of chickens, cows, goats, and pigs. It’s true. The more I learn about how important organic farming and farm animal welfare are to our health and our environment, the more I fall in love with the idea of raising my own food and contributing to the sustainability of our ecosystem.

Which is why when my boyfriend asked if I wanted to do a farm stay for my birthday, I thought, “OMG, I can’t handle how brilliant and awesome you are sometimes.” So that’s what we did this past weekend at the Long Dream Farm. I turned 28 and saw emus and alpacas for the first time. I bottle-fed some calves and ran into mountain goats while hiking. A cow on the farm gave birth on Saturday to an adorable black calf, so we became birthday twins and instant best friends obviously.

Learning about how beautifully these animals are raised firsthand made me think that it’s definitely worth the small fortune I pay for the high-quality meat and eggs that I eat everyday. It was such crazy awesome experience that it’s hard to describe everything in words. So here are some photos out of 23,892 that we took.