Our Story

When we first started our farming adventures back in 2003, we were greener than a spring pasture after a terrific thunderstorm. Oh, how much fun we thought we’d have, and how much money we thought we’d make! We started with big cows because, as the saying goes, “bigger is always better,” (ain’t that just the biggest pot of crock the word salads have ever squawked into existence) and of course, they had to be black. Big, black cows that take a lot feed, not just to maintain, but to pack on pounds, and not to mention, get so dang hot because black in the summer is just a recipe for pre-cooked beef. At the time we were also conventional grazers, or as we like to call it, “Colombus Grazing,” where you turn them out and don’t rediscover them until it’s time to work. Not only does this make mean momma cows, which if you’re smart—and we most certainly were not—you wouldn’t keep such cows around, but it also makes your herd despise human interaction if their only interaction involves discomfort. Not exactly a recipe for success, so it’s no wonder why that adventure failed—and continues to fail for so many.

Our next adventure was more like a side quest through some miserable little forest, where magical vines of despair sit in wait to wrap their thorny tendrils around some helpless soul’s ankles on the path some hairy witch told them to take. “There is a rabbit hole somewhere down this path. Once you find it, jump in! Success awaits! But only if you milk those cows!” I wonder if Alice needed therapy after shoving herself down a rabbit hole, too?

After ten years of being tied to cows’ udders and trying to keep alive animals who would rather lay down and die—because let’s be honest, jersey cows are quite possibly the most suicidal bovine on the planet, no matter how good they have it—we hung up our milkers and gave the witch back her cows.

However, some good did come from dirtying our little white tails. During our dairy adventures, we began rotational grazing. Not as fine an art as adaptive grazing, but it was the breadcrumbs which led us out of that miserable little forest, away from that hairy witch, and onto, well… greener pastures.

After years of swimming in a sea of milk, we needed a break from any more excursions. For two years we tumbled over ideas, during which we let the sprayers, planters and combines strut across the fields until we at last decided on the south poll breed. Easy to manage, fatten on grass, and, not to mention, carry the two brain cells needed to rub together to spark intelligence (unlike their big, black and mentally questionable counterparts), it was an easy decision to tell the combines to frolic elsewhere. Now that the pastures have been reclaimed and the grass is once again green, we’ve been working on building a quality herd through proper management of both stock and soil. No scheming witch required.