In 1972 my grandfather contacted his four sons and said he was no longer able to take care of the whole farm (now 728 acres) and that if one of them did not want to come back to take over he was going to start selling off parts of it. My father, Keith was the eldest and we were currently living in Lander, WY - he and my mom decided to return to the farm to raise their three children.
My grandfather was a sheep man and my dad was not, so we transitioned in to a cow/calf beef operation and raised hay during the summer to winter our cattle. I grew up working stock, irrigating, haying, and riding horses. As is typical of teenagers, I was ready to get away from it all by the time I graduated and left the farm the day after. The next few years were hard times to be a farmer and my father ended up selling the cattle and going back to log home construction in order to keep the land. He irrigated, put up hay and winter pastured the land to others. His goal always being the protection of the land above all else.
When my husband Randy and I moved back to the farm, in January of 1997, Grandma Merrill's "little house" is the one we renovated and moved into. My we returned to the area because we wanted to raise our family with grandparents close at hand. Extended family was very important to us. My grandmother was getting older and was in need of assistance so that only made our locating here that much more important.
My father told us, “You can’t make a living farming on Owl Creek,” (raising beef cattle and putting up hay) and said we would have to have off farm income (when my father farmed, my mother Sally, was a registered intensive care nurse). With a BS in Outdoor Recreation and Natural Resource Management, I worked for the Forest Service and we owned an entertainment business in Thermopolis, but I was pulled more and more back towards the organic farm lifestyle I had grown up with. I went to conferences and permaculture training and studied all the “how-to” books I could get my hands on. I bought a couple of Jersey milk cows, and some laying hens. Randy and I split up and when I remarried, it was to a farmer from Wisconsin. Jon moved here and we raised some free bum lambs to start a sheep flock; 4-H hogs for the kids started us into the pig business and we quadrupled the size of my grandmother’s garden; put up season extending high tunnels and we bought more milk cows. We sold our town business but Jon still had a job selling oil seed presses for his old boss in WI. Then there was a big change in my life. I lost Jon to a hunting accident. I was left with a two year old son and Randy and I's six year old daughter and eleven year old son. A few months after Jon's death, I was blessed with the assistance of Papa Karl. Now with a significant sized Jersey dairy herd (especially for here in Wyoming), I started management- intensive grazing (MiG), added raising meat birds on pasture, and started a Farmers’ Market. My father said, “Well, I didn’t know you were going to do all that!” “All that,” is the way I've found to create a sustainable system in which to raise nutrient dense food to feed our sick, confused, malnourished, overweight population and bring back a state of health, and that’s become my passion!
My grandfather was a sheep man and my dad was not, so we transitioned in to a cow/calf beef operation and raised hay during the summer to winter our cattle. I grew up working stock, irrigating, haying, and riding horses. As is typical of teenagers, I was ready to get away from it all by the time I graduated and left the farm the day after. The next few years were hard times to be a farmer and my father ended up selling the cattle and going back to log home construction in order to keep the land. He irrigated, put up hay and winter pastured the land to others. His goal always being the protection of the land above all else.
When my husband Randy and I moved back to the farm, in January of 1997, Grandma Merrill's "little house" is the one we renovated and moved into. My we returned to the area because we wanted to raise our family with grandparents close at hand. Extended family was very important to us. My grandmother was getting older and was in need of assistance so that only made our locating here that much more important.
My father told us, “You can’t make a living farming on Owl Creek,” (raising beef cattle and putting up hay) and said we would have to have off farm income (when my father farmed, my mother Sally, was a registered intensive care nurse). With a BS in Outdoor Recreation and Natural Resource Management, I worked for the Forest Service and we owned an entertainment business in Thermopolis, but I was pulled more and more back towards the organic farm lifestyle I had grown up with. I went to conferences and permaculture training and studied all the “how-to” books I could get my hands on. I bought a couple of Jersey milk cows, and some laying hens. Randy and I split up and when I remarried, it was to a farmer from Wisconsin. Jon moved here and we raised some free bum lambs to start a sheep flock; 4-H hogs for the kids started us into the pig business and we quadrupled the size of my grandmother’s garden; put up season extending high tunnels and we bought more milk cows. We sold our town business but Jon still had a job selling oil seed presses for his old boss in WI. Then there was a big change in my life. I lost Jon to a hunting accident. I was left with a two year old son and Randy and I's six year old daughter and eleven year old son. A few months after Jon's death, I was blessed with the assistance of Papa Karl. Now with a significant sized Jersey dairy herd (especially for here in Wyoming), I started management- intensive grazing (MiG), added raising meat birds on pasture, and started a Farmers’ Market. My father said, “Well, I didn’t know you were going to do all that!” “All that,” is the way I've found to create a sustainable system in which to raise nutrient dense food to feed our sick, confused, malnourished, overweight population and bring back a state of health, and that’s become my passion!
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