“When I thought about how I wanted to raise my kids, it was set to the tune of the country,” said Carrie Valentine. She imagined “getting lost in the woods all afternoon, foraging for berries — the whole idyllic scene.” So, the interior designer and her husband began an experiment in modern homesteading that took them from an urban brownstone to a 5-acre parcel of woodland and sunny pasture on Minnesota’s Snake River. Their new home puts the focus on the surrounding natural beauty where new life abounds — their two young sons, the chickens in the backyard, and more. “I always like to tell a story within a space. This story just happened to be what my fantasy farmhouse looked like,” Valentine said.