Carrie Underwood Talks ‘Frustrating … Exciting’ Life On Tennessee Farm

What’s it like going from glitzy red carpet Hollywood premieres and fine dining to shoveling sheep pellets on a farm? Just ask Carrie Underwood. The country superstar and American Idol judge spoke to US Weekly this week about pulling up California roots and moving with husband Mike Fisher and the couple’s two young sons to a 400-acre farm in Tennessee in 2019.

There, instead of rushing to Erewhon for $20 single-serving Japanese strawberries, Underwood, 43, is growing enormous tromboncino squash, bottle-feeding adorable lambs and canning her harvest of blackberries, plumbs and blueberries. Oh, and she sometimes is covered in poop, so much poop.

In between posting about her workout routines, music career and the long-running singing competition — which she won in 2005 and returned to last year as a judge alongside Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan — Underwood sprinkles in images of life as a gardener and tender of a variety of livestock.

“My goal is to just do as much as I can myself,” Underwood told the magazine during Idol‘s Taylor Swift night on Monday, (April 27). “I love it. It’s a challenge, and it’s frustrating, and it’s exciting, and it’s rewarding, and just all the things.” The singer said that even though life on the farm is the “polar opposite” of her California existence, she can’t get enough of it.

“I go home, and I had to have talks with my family at one point, because I was like, ‘OK, when I’m away, I’m like, Cinderella at the ball.’ I’m a princess, and it’s great,” she said. “And then I come home, and I’m like, covered in dirt. I’m covered in poop. It’s just the polar opposite. I’m like, cleaning up after everybody and barefoot in the kitchen. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Season 24 is nearing its May 11 finale, which will crown a winner after Monday’s (May 4) “Class of 2006: Reunion/ Idol X DWTS” episode.