The name Vanbasti Farms comes from a combination of Vanyel and Bastista.

We met on a MUD (aka multi-user dungeon). A MUD was a text-based game, somewhat based on Dungeons and Dragons, that was available online before there was a World Wide Web available to the public. Now you can maybe guess how old we are. Just don’t guess and let us remain forever young in your minds, ok?

Anyway, his name was Vanyel and mine was Bastista. We chatted more and more, and then in 1995 Spencer took off for Missouri so we could meet in person. I think he drove 15-16 hours, one way, by himself, arriving at my apartment late at night. I guess I’m lucky he’s a good guy and he’s lucky lying about who I was, or that late night in person meeting could have gone very differently. But instead we hit it off, had a lot of fun, and began traveling back and forth about every 4-6 weeks to see each other. I think that was the last time he made the drive, though, until I made the move to Texas the day I graduated with my undergrad degree.

Since that day, we lived together, got married, got way too many degrees, had too many jobs, co-founded two hores rescues, lived in three states and nine cities (I think – maybe I missed one), have had a lot of animals, and then nineteen years after we met, we had a daughter.

And somewhere in all of that, we acquired horses, he became a singer/songwriter, and I became a chicken farmer and a fiber artist.

So now here we are on our own little home on the internet to share his songs and woodworking projects and my chickens and horses and fiber projects with you.