​Who Are We?


I am a Child of our Heavenly Father. Everything I am, everything I do and everything I have is for and because of him. 

Above all else, I honor him.

There was a time in my life that mentioning our Heavenly Father's presence in my life was secondary.
Time and maturity changes things.  Unbeknownst to me for the majority of my life he's been guiding my every step. Then one day the absolute reality of his love, grace, and mercy smacks you in the face and quite honestly knocks you off your feet. 

It takes a while to recover from that and find your footing again. That's where I've been the last 2 years - finding the strength to stand up and to make a decision on what's next.

This is not the place to tell you my life story. Someday I'll share it all, but not yet. 

Let's go back to this farming thing for now.

My entire life has been wrapped up in farming in one way or another. I come from generations of farmers, mostly on my mothers side. I spent an insane amount of time on my grandparents farm, who raised cattle, pigs, poultry, horses and probably more that I don't know about. They also worked the soil planting corn, wheat, soybeans, and who knows what else. I also grew up riding and showing American Saddlebreds since I was small child. I always thought I would have a premiere horse farm and that's just what I would do the rest of my life. But every step of our lives changes our path some, at least the path that we thought we saw.

I got married, had children, lived a subdivision life and hated it.
I no longer had horses in my life (that period was brief, but it did exist).
My dad made it happen for me to have horses again. He knew my heart. Ultimately I got divorced and started my journey back to animals and farm life. I found my soulmate and realized what a loving relationship really was supposed to be. We moved to a little farm-ette and for the first time in my life I had my own horses in my backyard. I was content. Or so I thought.

And then my oldest daughter brought home chicks from school in first grade. My mom laughed and laughed because I had said that I would never have chickens. Then chicken math happened. And then our first neighbor dog attack happened. This began our journey into the world of Anatolian Shepherds. 

When I was deciding what food to feed them, I googled a phrase that would change my life forever. 
"What's really in dog food"
and I'm pretty sure God laughed and laughed because now he had me right where he wanted me.
This began my journey into the natural world of food, medicine, and animal raising.

It's all ironic because I was raised in the conventional medical and food world, had worked in it,  been trained in it, and began to question everything I ever has been taught.

Then God stepped it up a notch and moved us to a much larger farm. I had all this land and I needed to decide what to do with it. I needed more animals. God said I needed cows but I didn't want boring black cows. As typical for me, I wanted something that nobody else had. I needed and wanted animals from 'the days of old' and that led me into the world of heritage breed animals. I discovered the Randall Cattle who fit the bill of what I needed and wanted. A breed left in the isolation of a closed herd for almost 100 years, the only surviving land race breed left in the United States (more about Randall's on their page). Typically it took over 5 years to get a Randall once you inquired, but God had other plans and in less than 2 months I had 3 pregnant cows here. Then I wanted sheep and found the Hog Island Sheep. Again - the closest I could come to the breeds that the original colonists had when the United States was in it's infancy.

But why heritage, feral, and closed herd breeds? I wanted them because they had a history of surviving on minimal to no influence of man, no to little vaccines, thrived on a pasture based diet and more. 

Through my experiences in this journey I realized that there was another step of back to basics that most farmers in the organic/natural world miss and that's having animals that can survive and thrive without conventional health care and that means no vaccines and no routine conventional medicine. While I will explain more about this other sections and training areas, know that it means just that. Minimal input from humans to have stronger and healthier animals. 

As my livestock numbers grew (and grew!) I found that I needed more Anatolians for their protection. I searched and searched for a breeder who raised Anatolians in a true working environment. For a working dog, this proved to be difficult. I then decided that I needed breeding quality dogs so I could just raise them myself. 

This journey has taken many forms. Learning about the land, sustainability, natural animal health, and so much more. I was very involved with our extension office and was on just about every committee and agriculture leadership program they had. But what they didn't have was much on organics and natural livestock raising - it was all conventional. As I learned and experienced, I began to teach classes and continue to learn more on my own. It didn't take me but a few years to realize that the farm we lived on was no longer going to work for us. But we made do because it was ours. But the terrain, natural resources, easements and weather limit us in ways I didn't see in the beginning. It got to the point that my challenges made it almost impossible for me to actually put into practice here. I couldn't do what I really wanted to do and it broke my heart. I didn't think moving was possible. How do you move this? How do you move hundreds of animals and find a farm that has everything you need and everything the animals need? I had already started to slightly take a step back from the public eye with the farm while I contemplated the way forward. I even toyed with the idea of just plain giving up. Then when my dad died, a part of me was at peace that he no longer suffered and the other part was the chaos for uncertainty of the future. We were in a very complicated situation that really doesn't need to be explained here. In less than 2 weeks after burying dad, my husband had the opportunity to apply for HIS dream job in another state. I will never be the one to stand in the way of his dreams because he never stood in the way of mine. That's what true love is. Together we made the choice that he should apply and we relied on our faith that if our path should change, that it is God's will and if it's his will then he will provide the way. In the end my husband got his dream job and he relocated to another state and I stayed. I stayed because of my children and my animals. My youngest was finishing high school, so I wasn't done here yet. I made the decision to basically cease all sales of products and stop breeding dogs temporarily. Once my daughter graduated and went off to college, I was all alone here running this farm. I had decisions to make.

I prayed and asked what do I do? Do I give up my dreams and what turned into my life's work and legacy? Do I stay and make a go at this alone? Do I drastically downsize and move? How can I move it all? A million questions and more. Over and over I asked in my prayers what to do. 

And he answered and asked "What do you want to do?" 

While I was waiting for God to tell me my path, he was waiting for me to decide my path. Not that he didn't already know, but in his infinite wisdom he waits for us to make the choice. I realized that part of my happiness in life is these animals. No matter how much work, how much money, how many hardships - I love it all (like most farmers). I found my passion in life and I have worked so hard to build what I did with God's blessings and I just can't walk away. I also realized that since God built this farm WITH me that he alone will move me/us to that perfect place that I know exists since I've seen in it my dreams since I was a child. It is not possible for me to do this on my own. God will move me and all these animals when he decides that it is time.

This story will continue. But for now, have patience while I wait on our Heavenly Father for the next step. I can't promise I'll have food for you to eat or other products to buy right now, but soon, I'll have everything I've ever had to offer you and so much more.