About 10 years ago, we settled in Idaho’s Treasure Valley. I’d grown up here and moved away, but we moved back after several years to be near family. After getting settled, we bought a milk cow, and the next year, we had a calf that we raised for beef. Soon we decided that we would work toward buying a farm. Along the way, we have learned many, many lessons as we have grown our farm from one milk cow to a herd of beef cows, a passel of pigs, and turkeys for Thanksgiving. Our family now includes 8 homeschooled children!

Our Practices

Our Farming philosophy is based on a firm belief that God created healthy ecosystems, and if we are to have healthy farms, we need to follow His pattern. Ideally, we will have cows and pigs on pasture (supplementing pigs with grain), and very little hay involved. However, you have to start somewhere! Right now we feed cows the best quality hay all winter, and rotate pastures several times a week all summer. We don’t vaccinate our herd, except when required by law. We have found herbs very effective, and haven’t needed to use pharmaceutical antibiotics on our herd. We see no need for added hormones!

Pigs are even harder for us get on pasture around here, because corrugate irrigation and pigs don’t go together. For now our pigs are raised as naturally as we can...in pens. No farrowing crates, no GMO-feeds, just hay and carefully sourced local grains with natural minerals added. We often hear from our customers that this is the best pork they have ever had!

Our Motivation

The main reason we keep on farming is because of our children. No other occupation is as family friendly (as long as we cull the animals with bad attitudes), and farming allows meaningful participation at all ages. At 5 years old, our children are able to be responsible for small chores. At 11, they are able to do most of the pig chores, and at 13 they are able to milk the dependable milk cow without help. While it is a lot of hard work, we also hear joy as they discover new babies, sorrow when we have to bury a baby that didn’t survive, and a real understanding of how life works. We are constantly amazed at the creativity and innovative solutions that our children produce. We consider our family farm a very real part of their education, and we often hear that they are looking forward to farming with us into the future.