About Us: Who are the Sparks behind The Sparks Family Farm?
Hey there! We are Shannon and Angie Sparks, along with our two boys Shaun and Samuel “Sammy.” Shannon and I were high school sweethearts and have been married for over 20 years. We started our lives together in Ruston, Louisiana before moving to Shreveport in 2011. Not long after moving to Shreveport, we realized that it was too noisy and chaotic in town and that we wanted to move closer to the country. Our next stop was a small neighborhood in Keithville, Louisiana. While it was a little further away from the city lights and all the sirens, we soon realized that we were still too close for our liking and that we just didn’t have enough space.
A few years later in 2020, the world was experiencing a global pandemic, so everything was a little crazy, to put it nicely. It was brought to our attention that houses in our neighborhood were in high demand and selling fast. With all of the food shortages and craziness going on due to the pandemic, Shannon and I decided that it was time: we wanted to sell our house and buy some land to start a small farm. We listed our house and were under contract in less than a month! Unfortunately, it was so fast that we had not found our new home yet. Yikes!
While waiting on the final closing process and moving day, we came across some acreage that we thought had some potential. It wasn’t too far away and consisted of 10 acres; the mobile home we had been looking at would look great on it. Closing day for our existing home came and our future home plans were still just plans, so we put all of our things in storage and moved into a tiny, old rental. After lots of planning, money spent, and time wasted, we decided that it just didn’t feel like this was the place God wanted us. Thankfully we hadn’t closed on the property yet!
We began searching for our new home again and started to wonder if we would ever find the right place. I still to this day do not know how it happened, but I came across a listing that was a month or two old. It sounded perfect: four bedrooms, two bathrooms, 25 acres with fenced pastures, a barn, and a shop. How the heck was it still on the market?!? The asking price was a little over our budget and the location was pretty far away, so much so that we almost didn’t even go see it. But God! We felt the Lord nudging us to go see it, so we did. It was love at first sight. It was exactly what we had been searching for. A few months later we were moving in!
Now it was time to build our farm. We already had a few chickens that had moved with us from Keithville, and then a coworker gave us a few more. Not long after that, we picked up our first few goats, and then things just took off from there. It has been a long, bumpy ride getting here, but God is never late and He has surely blessed us. Our next chapter has begun and we are so excited to share it with you in our blog!