This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Hannah Neeleman, 35, the cofounder of Ballerina Farm, a 328-acre Utah farm, lifestyle brand, and farm goods store.
Neeleman has 21 million followers across Instagram and TikTok, where she documents life with her husband and co-founder, Daniel Neeleman, and their eight kids, aged between 21 months and 13 years old. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
My husband Daniel and I started Ballerina Farm about eight years ago. We wanted a business where we could work together as a couple and involve our eight children. I didn't want to have to put them in day care or leave them with a nanny.
Growing up, my life was intertwined with my parents' flower shop, and I always wanted that for my own children. We were homeschooled, so us kids would do our school in the morning and then head to the shop to help with chores.
After college, Daniel and I moved to São Paulo for four years for his work. We would go on farm hotel getaways and just fell in love with agriculture. I did a lot of research into how we could make something ourselves that could support a family.
We landed on free-range pigs, and started with four on a little farm in the middle of nowhere in Spanish Fork, Utah, in 2017. We started posting to social media to share our offering with the local community. I only had 53 followers on Instagram, but Daniel and I really believed in what we were building, and so we just started. The first few years were really intense and a lot of work.
Now that the business is bigger, we have around 100 employees. Daniel and I have a lot of direct reports, but we tag-team. If he has a meeting, then I'm on kid duty. We just balance it. I don't know if it's well-balanced, but it's always a work in progress.
Here's what a day in my life is like.
My toddlers wake me up around 7 a.m.
I'm not an early riser. I'm usually woken up by my wiggly two and three-year-olds climbing into my bed at around 7 a.m. That's my alarm clock, and it's the best.
Mornings consist of getting the kids ready for their school classes, putting breakfast on the table, and praying before we eat. I have yogurt from our creamery with a scoop of our maple cinnamon protein powder every morning.
We have a schoolhouse on the farm, and an amazing school teacher who lives down the road. Just before 9 a.m., the older kids are out the door, and I have time to do my own thing for a couple of hours. I usually respond to any pressing text messages or emails, and then I try to get down to our barn gym. If I can get a good workout in, then my whole day is better.
I did my undergraduate in ballet at Juilliard, and in the last few months, I've started taking a private ballet class once a week from one of my old instructors. It's like this fun hour and a half where I get to relive the glory days.
On Tuesdays, I usually cook from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Every workday looks a little bit different. On Tuesdays, I try to film a reel of me cooking a recipe from start to finish. I'm usually cooking an elaborate meal from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It takes me a few days to a week to get an entire video written out, edited, and posted.
On Wednesdays, we meet with all of our various team directors (marketing, creative, retail, events). On Thursdays, I have my meeting with the marketing team. But pretty much every day, I share snippets of what I'm doing on Instagram and TikTok.
Recipe testing is just such a fun day because I love being creative. In some seasons of my life, I feel more creative and the ideas flow. Then there are other times where I'm like, "How do I refuel that? And how do I gather inspiration?"
The seasons inspire me. The farm and the garden really guide what my content looks like, because using fresh ingredients is the most exciting thing to me. When I see a beautiful tomato that's just off the vine, that's when I want to cook with it. In the springtime, when it's lambing season, you have all this beautiful sheep's milk available.
Lunch is my main meal, which I eat with my family
Lunch is the meal that we try to have together as a family. That was one thing that we loved in Brazil: everyone would gather at lunchtime for a big meal.
Our lunches are pretty much always the same. We eat around 1 p.m. after the kids finish school. They're either some sort of carb or starch, like potatoes or pasta, sometimes rice or quinoa. I make bread a few times a week, so if it's a bread day, we have that, too. Then it's a protein, usually steak or a roast that I put in the oven earlier, and a vegetable. It's super simple. Usually, we also have kefir.
Dinner is less of an ordeal for us. Everyone's kind of coming and going from lessons and practices, and the dairy. So, it's just: come and eat something simple. We usually all eat together, but with the kids all in different sports, it can vary.
We live in a small, rural town, so in terms of takeout, there's not a ton of options.
We have an online store and two brick-and-mortar Ballerina Farm stores selling baked goods, produce, frozen meat, dairy products, Ballerina Farm protein powder, and homeware. The Ballerina Farm farmstand is pretty near us, and last night, the kids had sourdough frozen pizza from there for dinner.
Ballerina Farm is our legacy, and we want to build something with meaning and depth
We launched the Ballerina Farm store Instagram account about a year ago, and I really wanted it to have a different voice from my page and its own authority. I want people to come to the brand for the products, for the experience, and not because of my content.
It's been very fun and exciting to see the team that we're building really run with it and see people want to be a part of the simple life movement.
Daniel and I are not trying to build something huge and sell out. It's very much a legacy for us, and we're trying to build something that people want to learn from and want to be a part of because it has meaning and depth.
It's hard to not see some Instagram or TikTok comments, but I typically don't focus on them. People can say a million nice things about you, and then one negative thing, and it hurts in a way that is just human. But I know who I am, and I know what we're doing, and I believe in that.
After the kids go to bed, I fill my cup by editing
Before the kids go to bed, we usually do scripture study, pray, and check in about how their days went at around 9 p.m. It's very grounding.
Daniel and I are both people of faith and really value our relationship with God. I feel like we definitely wouldn't be where we are today without that faith, because we use it as a compass to make all our decisions — as business owners, parents, and husband and wife.
After the kids go to bed, it's kind of like my work time. I edit, which I find very satisfying. I consider it "me time" because it fills up my cup.
In terms of my bedtime routine, I don't do anything too crazy. I've been really into taking care of my skin lately as I'm getting older. I'm like, "this is serious, we got to step up our game." I use a lot of tallow-based products from Five Mary's Ranch, and I've also been loving Primally Pure's Soothing Mist. Ogee is also great!
I do my nightly skin routine and that's it. I go to bed around midnight or later. At the end of the day, I am pretty tired. Daniel and I like to joke that we haven't slept in about 10 years.
On Sundays, we try to shut off. It's a day that we try to keep sacred and special. We go to church and stay off social media. We do try not to talk about the business, but it often does come up because that's when we have more time to think.
It's a constant journey thinking about how we can put the cleanest, best products in people's hands. How can we create an agritourism experience where people see produce being grown, learn about it, and then, in their own way, become more self-reliant in their own spaces? That's what fuels me, and it's really the most exciting part of our business.
