Our Beginning
The child that was always in the mud puddles, the child that would find any excuse possible to be outside, the child that would bundle up first thing in the morning their jammies under their snowsuit to go check the cows water to make sure it wasn’t frozen. Yep, that was me! From such a young age my heart and soul was on the farm. It’s what I lived for from day one. When I was two I would get dropped off at my grandma’s house while mom and dad ran errands and went to work off the farm. Grandma would feed me oatmeal with white and brown sugar and I would get a little sip of the coffee that was freshly brewed. From there Uncle Lewie and I would go for a walk and check the cows. It was the only life I knew.
When BSE hit in 2003 I was in grade 3. And to be honest I didn’t have a clue at that time how large of an impact that it would have on my life. My mom always worked off the farm and my dad was mostly at home doing a few odd jobs manure spreading and what not. Things got tough and my dad ended up going back to work. The struggle became too much, both of them working off the farm. With 150 head we were feeding in the dark and calving season resulted in minimal sleep for both of them and a ton of hardship. They came to the decision to sell the cattle and little eight year old me was absolutely devastated.
The rest of my school years went by and we rented our land to some family friends. They grazed some cattle in about 160 acres and rented another 480 acres for crops. After some time they ended up buying two quarters.
Living in a small town and in junior high I began to “date” of course there is those cheesy junior high relationships that we just laugh and shake our heads at (man what was I thinking!?). Of course those ended pretty quick. In high school I began to find a passion, I really enjoyed biology. Although I never really was the best in school bio is something that I found interest in, specifically in the genetics and horticulture side of things.
I continued through school playing tons of sports and keeping up with my academics. In the beginning of my last year of high school I was happy with where I was but didn’t really know where my future was going to be. About a week into my final year of high school this man came into my life (that’s a whole other story on its own), he was smart and soft spoken but kind and so so genuine. He asked me out on a few dates, taught me how to ride horses and well I guess you could say the rest is history!
With his dad being gone for work week on week off it left him at home to look after the cattle they had left (they sold out after the prices came back up after the BSE crisis). His mom spent a lot of time away as well travelling in and around our province for her career in social work.
September turned into October and October turned into November. The snow began to fly and being the person I am I would spend hours helping feed and check on the herd.
4 short years later and there we were purchasing our own homestead! 2 quarters of exceptional alfalfa with a house and heated shop. With hopes of starting our own replacement heifer operation. Well you know that herd I spent my senior year tending to? That was my future husbands education fund to do as he pleases with. They were beautiful black angus influenced cattle. A commercial herd but nonetheless exactly what we needed as a base herd.
3 years in and we have doubled our numbers and have 10 fantastic fleshy heifers awaiting this years breeding season. We purchased a deep, streamline Hereford bull to put on the cow herd and we will use our black angus we purchased two years ago to breed the heifers.
Currently we are still in the process of getting a well dug on our home property (the house is on town water). So for now the cattle are a mile away at my parents main homestead.
In 2016 I married my best friend we had the most amazing day on what was a very soggy July. My husband works as a 4th class power engineer at a gas plant just minutes outside of our hometown and as for myself I have had a few jobs in the last year, mostly office jobs but most recently I’m working for a year round greenhouse operation as well as a crop analysis company and I absolutely love every minute of it!
Anyways that’s our beginning in a nutshell and it’s crazy to think that this all started in 2011! Stay tuned for more information on us, what we stand for and some farm related blog posts!