JNP Ranch of Castle Rock, Colorado

Let's hear it for the first post of the New Year! Today we welcome Keith and Karen Penry.  They have a heritage breed ranch in Colorado!

We began livestock farming in 1998. My husband always wanted to farm. He spent his summers on his grandparent's farm in Iowa and still returns to Iowa each fall to help with harvest. Although both of us come from strong agricultural stock (my family settled and ranched the west and his farmed on the plains), I was wary of the life. I wanted my kids to grow up with more. I didn't want to be dirt poor, which is the view I had of farmers. It's not that I didn't love the idea of living off the land--living off the land was my dream--but I was practical, reasonable, realistic, and just plain scared of losing everything.

In 1995, we moved to Douglas County, Colorado. Large portions of the surrounding area were still rural. The move seemed to unleash the farming monster in my husband. He had opportunities to connect with land owners and that's exactly what he did. While he was making connections away from home, at home he was wheedling away at me.

Finally, in December 1998, after much crying, I gave in. We leased some land from a local native and JNP Ranch was born. We'd been married for nearly 9 years and had 3 young children. I was scared, but excited too. First we had cattle. We were raising them for beef, but that quickly turned into a breeding operation. And the kids were right there, working along side us every step of the way. We loved teaching our children about the sanctity of life and giving back to the earth. We loved teaching them about where their food really came from and what it means to work hard. We loved allowing them to see livestock up close and personal from birth to death.

Soon, we had friends and neighbors asking us if we would take their kids out to see the animals and work. When my husband broke his ankle, the young men from the church helped me feed and clean over the next several weeks. What started out as an opportunity for us to give our children a chance to experience a bit of country life soon turned into an adventure for friends, children of friends, neighbors, extended family, and now grandchildren. We feel so fortunate to have built a lifetime of memories that involve so many people we hold dear.

Over the years, we've ebbed and flowed, trying to find our place in agriculture. We wanted to make it work very badly, but we weren't allowed to make improvements or really possess the land we farmed on. Finally, in the fall of 2012, we bought our own place. We own 40 acres in southeast Douglas County. When we made the move, we basically started over. We have had one trial after another--predators, disease, weather--but we also know that this is it. This is our last chance to have a go at making a life in farming.

From the beginning, we always wanted to raise "natural" meat products on a small family farm. I wanted to farm like my grandfather. He was diversified and old-fashioned, but successful. Much of what we do is modeled after our grandfathers' operations. Our adventure in Ag eventually led us to heritage breed animals. It just made sense--raising animals adapted to our drier climate with distinctive seasons. We currently have heritage breed hogs, turkeys, and chickens. Our sheep are a Suffolk-Hampshire cross. Eventually we may move over to heritage breed sheep as well. Only time will tell.

Our children are grown now. Two of them still live at home. All three of them are still involved on the ranch. We all have to work off-farm, so it takes all of us to run the farm. I teach part-time at a local school. On the days I'm not teaching, I am trying to catch up at home. That may include making a feed run, getting other supplies, cleaning pens or coops, fixing fence, or simply working on my household duties. A typical day for us starts off with a morning run for my husband. Then, he comes to get me to do chores. I usually do the poultry chores and he does the hogs and sheep. We both head off to our jobs until evening. On winter evenings, when the sun sets early, our children usually do evening chores--either together or alone. Invariably, we spend a day or two each week fixing something, rounding up renegade animals, or moving animals. Invariably, somebody has decided that they want to go wandering away from home.

Summers and Saturdays are huge work times for us. I work outside all summer long. I'm feeding, building, fixing fence, cleaning up debris, or attacking daily emergencies. Saturdays are always busy for us. My husband always has a to-do list longer than the day is long.

I don't know if we have a favorite part of the ranch. I love the poultry--especially the turkeys. As soon as I say that, though, I think about how much I love the pigs, too. How can I describe it? We love our Colorado farm life--the beautiful scenery (that is my front yard), lots of sunny days, animals that come running when they see you, animals that talk to you and wait for you to scratch them on the head, babies galore, blue and brown and white eggs, ducks quacking, chicks and piglets exploring, and lambs frolicking. We are blessed with joy in some form every day.

Farm life is hard. We work hard all day and come home to put in another full day's work in the evening. We see lots and lots of tragedy--especially death. We've pitched hay in snowstorms, dug ditches in the springtime so the muck will flow, swatted flies and mosquitos, fixed miles and miles of fence, picked up the carcasses of chickens drowned in a flash flood, freed various vehicles from ditches and snowbanks and mud, nursed dying babies, rescued animals soaked from a leaky roof, walked around with a chick or a turkey poult or a piglet stuck in our shirt in hopes that our body heat can save them from imminent death, and cried in anguish proclaiming we cannot take one more day. Still, here we are. We're here because as hard as this life is, it's worth it. It breaks us down and yet it's rewarding at the same time. We love our life, our animals, our family. We can't imagine a better way to spend our time. On most days, we feel blessed.

I'm not sure that I need to say more, but if there is one thing I'd like the world to know, it's that we are not monetarily wealthy. We don't do this for the money. Every penny we make (and then some) is dumped back into the ranch. So, when you ask to buy from us, don't question our prices. Believe that we are giving you a fair and honest price for fair and honest work. I say on our website that it's about conservancy, stewardship, and sustainability. It is. We are here to partake in and preserve a way of life, but we need customers to find value in quality farm products at a fair price. If customers demand lower and lower prices, eventually all that will be left is fake food like CoolWhip and Twinkies.

Thank you for a great post!  To learn more about JNP Ranch be sure to visit their website (www.jnpranch.com), follow their blog (www.jnpranch.com/our-blog/), twitter account (www.twitter.com/JNPRanch) and like them on Facebook (www.facebook.com/JNPRANCH)

What's your story?  How are you involved in feeding the world?  We want to hear from YOU.  E-mail us at foafeature@gmail.com to learn how you can be the next Faces of Agriculture Feature!

Lara Durben and Minnesota Turkey Growers!

Please help welomce Lara Durben of the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association. Lara grew up on a farm and her passion for agriculture has led her to an exciting career promoting the poultry industry in her home state!

Greetings from Minnesota – home to more turkeys than any other state in the U.S.! I grew up on a crop farm in western Minnesota and knew absolutely nothing about raising turkeys (or chickens, for that matter) when I applied for a job nearly 18 years ago with the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association. In fact, I had never even been close to a poultry barn. But, I had a couple of things going for me – I was a farm girl, which provided an instant connection with the turkey farmers hiring me, and I loved communications. Nearly two decades later, I’m still working for Minnesota’s turkey farmers and I love to help share their stories in a variety of ways.

As the Communications Director for my organization, I wear (as the saying goes) many hats. Truthfully, it’s probably too many to count some days, but that’s why I love my job – the variety is amazing, I am always learning (seriously – every day!) and I feel like my extended family has grown over the years to include so many of the farmers I work on behalf of.

I coordinate all of the communications efforts for Minnesota Turkey as well as two other poultry organizations – the Chicken and Egg Association of Minnesota and the Midwest Poultry Federation. I often refer to our office as “Poultry Central” because, well, it is – at least in Minnesota.

On a daily basis, I am trying to keep with all of our social media tools, including (deep breath, here) four Facebook pages, three Twitter accounts, one Pinterest account and two YouTube channels. Plus, we have three different websites to maintain and keep updated. From a sheer time standpoint, it can be daunting (I won't lie about that!), although I can tell you I am ridiculously enthusiastic about social media and love trying to keep up with it all.

Lara in her office. 

I also coordinate a monthly printed publication, Gobbles magazine, for our Minnesota Turkey members that’s been around since 1945 and a weekly email newsletter for nearly 1,000 of our members and friends of poultry who like to receive updates about what’s going on in our organizations along with various links to poultry and general agriculture news from around the world. I am also the first point of contact with reporters who call or email, looking for stories and answers to their poultry-related questions. Because Minnesota ranks #1 for turkey production in the U.S., we do get media calls from all around the U.S. – especially in November.

Oh, and did I mention that at Thanksgiving, my job rocks?

Beyond that, I have several other career passions, including coordinating an annual trip for some of our members to Washington DC to meet with our Congressional leaders and attend the National Turkey Federation’s Summer Leadership Conference. I actually get energized every time I visit our nation’s Capitol and I find it gives me a much broader perspective when I am able to meet with our leaders to talk about the issues that are important to us, both turkey-related and agriculture in general.

My other big passion is coordinating the details for the largest regional poultry convention in the U.S., the Midwest Poultry Federation Convention, held in Saint Paul, Minnesota in March every year. Our office works with many volunteers to bring over 2,100 people together to learn from experts on a variety of poultry-related topics, network with other farmers and colleagues, and visit with companies in the exhibit hall. The details that go into making this show a success are mind-boggling and I am so fortunate to work with amazing team of four other people in my office to get the job done. We love this show – and we especially love to arrive onsite and see all of our industry friends connecting with each other. Farmers, I have learned - both from my own father and from the poultry farmers I work with on a daily basis - are constantly learning and evolving and improving what they do.

My newest adventure is the debut of my blog last fall – www.myothermoreexcitinglife.wordpress.com. It’s been a personal goal of mine for a quite a while, but it wasn’t until I attended a conference with some amazing role models – the AgChat Foundation’s Agvocacy 2.0 Conference last August – that I truly realized I could make this happen. It’s always a work in progress, of course, but I like to include a mix of topics – from living life as “MNGobbleGal” (my Twitter handle, by the way) to sharing “my other more exciting life” as a wife and mom who is a bit shoe-obsessed; loves running, gardening, wine and shopping (not necessarily in that order); and also happens to Instagram way too many photos of our senior citizen pug dog named Earl. I think a blog is a great way to connect with a variety of people about poultry, agriculture and my daily life – and I love how I can show all the different sides of “me”.

The Family!

As long as we're on a personal note here, I live in Buffalo, Minnesota – about 25 miles west of the Twin Cities – with my husband (“Teacher Man” so-named in my blog) and our nine-year-old son. I am still a farm girl at heart and am glad to see my brother continuing the crop farm in my family, along with my Dad who isn’t quite ready to retire fully yet. They raise nearly 2,000 acres of corn and soybeans in western Minnesota and we visit often. My mom is a former home economics teacher, gourmet cook, quilt designer and master gardener - she keeps the farm looking beautiful all year-round and I like to think my green thumb for gardening comes from her.

I can’t tell you how many times someone has jokingly asked me, “Do you want to talk turkey?” or “Are you the princess of poultry?” But the truth is, I never get tired of it. When I was in college, the professor of my very last journalism class found out I grew up on a farm, pulled me up in front of the entire class (mostly urban kids) and told the class: "Farmers are true gamblers. They gamble every year on the weather, on the bank, on their animals and on their crops. What they do is amazing." To be honest, I had never really thought about it in quite that way and I am quite sure, at that time in my life, I took my own farm upbringing for granted. But his comments struck a chord with me then and I've never forgotten what he said. I'm very glad I am able to work in agriculture today, and I am grateful, after all these years, for the opportunity to help share the stories of an amazing group of farmers.

Lara on the farm as a child. 

Thank you Lara for the great feature! You can learn more about Turkey production by visiting Minnesota Turkey Growers Association webpage and the Minnesota Turkey Facebook page. You can also follow Lara on her personal blog, twitter(MNGobbleGal) and check Pinterest account!

How are you involved in agriculture? We need your story next!

Contact us at foafeature@gmail.com!

Midwest Farm Girl - Katlyn Rumbold

Welcome Katlyn Rumbold - farm girl, cattle & poultry producer, young professional and ag advocate. 

I often find myself repeating the phrase “my life could so easily be a country song!” So many of these songs capture exactly what it means to grow up in the country. I grew up on a diversified livestock farm in central Illinois in a tiny town called Wyanet. If it wasn’t for the faith, blood, sweat, tears, laughter, and friends I have encountered along the way I would not be the person I am today, advocating for agriculture. My absolute favorite part of growing up on the farm is the sense of pride you get when sitting down with the family to a dinner of homegrown, fresh produce and meat. There is just something about knowing all food on the table came straight from the backyard or the barn. And of course the wide-open spaces associated with country living are pretty cool too.

Katlyn with a show heifer

We raise poultry and beef cattle. What started out as a hobby quickly turned into a small, profitable business. It all started with an idea to raise enough chicken for my family of five to consume within one year. As we got going, people in the community approached us and wanted to purchase our chicken for their own consumption. Eventually, health food stores began carrying our product, and today we sell wholesale. Known as Famous T’s Chicken, we now raise 900 birds a summer compared to peak production when we raised 2000 birds. The chicks are delivered by mail, and then we teach them how to drink by dipping their beaks in water. After eight weeks, we load them on the trailer and head four hours south to the butchering plant. Waking up way before the sun comes up on butchering day is a downfall, but once they are at the plant, we get to enjoy the day eating, shopping, and napping in the park. I must say, chicken chores are my least favorite task on our farm, but they do make a tasty meal especially when cooked on the grill.

How the chicks arrive in the mail

Dipping the chicks beaks in water teaches them how to drink

A few years later we added beef cattle to the mix. This is where my passion truly lies. It is a lot of work, but very rewarding. Known as Green Acre Cattle Co, my family likes to joke that our summer vacations are all the cattle shows we attend where most people would find themselves vacationing on the beach instead. It truly is. We get so excited to see the hard work pay off in the show ring, and the people you meet in the barn quickly become life long friends. Even though my brother and I are too old to show in the junior shows, we still work with the show heifers and attend every show with our little sister. It has turned into a family affair as we all have our assigned jobs. Between the washing, grooming, training, and feeding, there is enough to do to keep all five of us busy. For me personally, I cannot think of a single activity that brings an entire family together like that of owning and operating a cattle business.

Katlyn's brother fitting a calf on show day

Katlyn's sister at the Illinois state fair

Everything I have learned on the farm has helped me get to where I am at today as a young professional. I was able to utilize my upbringing and spend a summer working as a farm radio broadcaster as well as spending some time in Colorado teaching horseback riding lessons. Currently, my job has taken me off the farm, although I am still connected as I write content for agricultural websites. I have learned that not everything goes according to plan, but sometimes it is when you think everything is falling apart that something awesome happens. It will be exciting to see how what I do today, both on and off the farm, will impact the rest of my life.

Thanks Katlyn for the great feature! You can follow along with Katlyn on her blog, facebook page, twitter account and on pinterest. 

If you or someone you know should be our next "Face of Agriculture", please contact us! We need your story today!

Homestead Hill Farm

Welcome Tom & Barbara Womack as our first farmers from Virginia to share their story! Tom and Barbara have a small diversified farm where they sell their produce at the farmer's market, but their real passion is for growing food!

Greetings from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia! 

We are Tom and Barbara Womack of Homestead Hill Farm. We own and operate a small, diversified farm specializing in seasonal vegetables, lamb, chicken and eggs. Our products are available for sale at the Staunton/Augusta Farmers’ Market on Saturday mornings. Since we are located just 12 miles from town, we can assure you that everything we sell is truly LOCAL.

If someone had told us twenty years ago that we would be able to make our living at the Farmers’ Market, we would have laughed. I don’t think we had even shopped at a farmers’ market twenty years ago. But, when life events caused us to begin from scratch in 1997, one thing led to another…and here we are. Our girls were very little when we moved here, and they had the experience of a lifetime growing up in the country on a small working farm. There have been some true learning adventures along the way. We have always worked well as a team, and now that our daughters are all grown-up, married and living elsewhere, it’s just the two of us working together here on the hill. While there are days when the work is hard and frustrating, I cannot imagine any lifestyle more rewarding than growing food.

Our farm is an ever-evolving entity. Over the years we have raised eggs for wholesale, sold vegetables to fancy restaurants, and baked well over 15,000 loaves of bread. (for ten years we sold bread at the Market) We have had milk cows and pigs and LOTS of chickens, for a long while our youngest daughter had a pony…and we even had a llama and a herd of goats for a while. We’ve been shepherds for the past ten or eleven years. But, the Farmers’ Market has been the one constant during all these ventures. Presently, we focus on our large gardening operation, two hoop-houses in which we grow greens year round, 2 small greenhouses for propagation, a layer flock, pasture-raised broilers in the summer, …and a flock of sheep. Our small farm is nothing, if not diverse.

Being vendors at a Farmers’ Market means that life around here revolves around Saturday morning Market. Our schedule and routine is far from typical. While most other folks are still in their warm and comfy beds, dreaming sweet dreams, we are up and packing our wares to get them to the Market. It’s still very dark at 5am when Tom heads out to the Market. He is also the Market Manager, so he gets there earlier than most of the other vendors to get things ready for the day. It’s my job to feed all the critters and make sure the farm is tended before I head into town as well. We may have the only sheep in the county that come running when they see a flashlight! 

While the five hours that the Market is open may not sound like a long time, when you add time for set-up and clean-up, we get a pretty intense workout on Saturday mornings before all the goodies are sold and it’s time to head back to the farm. It is rare that we bring much home, but any leftover vegetables are later processed for off-season sales.

I love the camaraderie of the Farmers’ Market. Since this is our fifteenth year in the same place every Saturday morning, I suppose you could say we have become fixtures in the downtown scene. We have seen a lot of changes over the course of all those years. There are a lot more folks concerned with knowing where their food comes from, and knowing who grows it and how than ever before. Items that no one had ever heard of are now becoming sought after and some new things have become immensely popular. Many of our customers have become friends over the years and it’s always fun to exchange recipes and learn new things. Our Market has live music a lot of weekends, so the atmosphere can be quite festive.

The human interaction at the Market intrigues me. In recent days, it has been noted that most folks are two to four generations removed from the farm. Most of these folks have NO clue what goes into farming or food production. There are those who think that small farms must be better than “big ag”, but I beg to differ. There are so many different ways to raise food, and all of them are crucial to supplying the demand. I love sharing our own experiences, as well as attempting to clear up some of the mis-perceptions about agriculture in general. To that end, I started blogging about our farm (and other random things) several years ago. It’s always humbling to meet one of my “fans” at the Market. I hope you’ll read it as well… follow at Homestead Hill Farm or LIKE us on Facebook! 

At the end of each Market, it’s nice to head back to the farm for lunch and a restful Sunday before getting back to work with our focus on the next selling day. Because, we don’t just sell stuff on Saturday… the Staunton/Augusta Farmers’ Market is a PRODUCER ONLY market… so, we must grow everything we sell. That means we are almost always starting seeds, transplanting seedlings, harvesting, or removing spent crops in order to plant new ones. If we aren’t in the gardens, or the hoophouses, we are feeding sheep, gathering eggs or processing broilers. There is always something to do.

A number of years ago, one of our customers suggested we consider selling year ‘round. We talked it over, changed up our growing patterns, and developed a customer list. This will be our fifth year of offering all sorts of farm products for downtown delivery in the off-season to a group of loyal customers. It works well for everyone….the customers get fresh greens/lamb/eggs/chicken/vegetables all winter and we are able to have positive cash-flow…even in the dead of winter. 

As much as I love selling at the market, I must say that lambing season is my favorite time of year. Our ewes are bred to lamb in January, so that we can get the lambs on the ground while things are relatively calm in the gardens and hoophouse. This timing also allows the lambs to be fairly good sized before they are turned out on grass in the early spring. I have often likened lambing season to Christmas morning on steroids. You never know what’s going to happen. While there are the occasional losses and frustrations, the winter lambing barn is a great place to spend some quality time. The sheep keep the grass mowed throughout the summer and provide some of the best lamb products any non-vegetarian has ever eaten!

While the sheep are great, and have earned a special place in my heart, I wouldn’t want to overlook the chickens. Our laying flock is quite productive, and farm fresh brown eggs are one of the most popular items at the Market. We also run a several batches of “broilers” throughout the summer months to provide our customers (and ourselves) with pasture-raised chicken to use in all their favorite recipes. The chickens also do their share by eating weeds, spent crops and vegetable waste. 

Yes, we might have laughed twenty years ago if someone told us we would be making our living growing and selling vegetables, but this is the good life…raising food. We will never be big producers, and some folks might discount farms of our size. That’s okay. There are a lot of folks that depend on us to grow good food for them. We haven’t been doing this for generations, but our daughters learned a good work ethic that they have carried into their adult lives.

At the end of a productive day, there is a great sense of accomplishment knowing that what you do for a living really matters to someone. Add to that living in a beautiful place, being with someone you love, and having time to enjoy it all…this is the GOOD life.

Thanks for the fantastic feature Barbara! It takes all kinds of farmers and advocates for agriculture to keep the food supply in this country running. Be sure to check out Barbara's blog and Facebook page. If you or someone you know would like to share your story on Faces of Agriculture, please contact us today! No need to have a blog or social media, we want to share everyone's story!

Miller Farms

Meet Steph and Lance Miller of Alabama. This proud farming family raises cotton, peanuts, poultry and much more!

Miller Farms is located in North Alabama in an area called Sand Mountain. My husband, Lance and I farm with Lance’s Uncle Jim and Aunt Nell. We farm 660 acres of cotton, 155 acres of peanuts, 85 acres of soybeans, and 55 acres of corn. We also have four poultry broiler houses where we are contract growers for Koch Foods. The chicken houses are 43’ x 510’ and hold around 34,000 chickens each. We raise a 4lb bird in around 35 days.

My job is to go to the chicken houses every morning. Everything is automated, but I still have to make sure the chickens have feed, water, and proper heat and ventilation. I also have the job of removing any dead chickens from the houses. I’m in charge of all of the office work for the poultry operation and Lance and Jim’s farming operations. During harvest season, you can find me in the cotton field. I run the module builder. The builder is what the cotton picker dumps the cotton into when it gets full. I use levers to work a tramper which packs the cotton. After the picker dumps 12-15 bales of cotton, and I pack it tightly, a tractor pulls the module builder forward off of the cotton, and it leaves behind a module of cotton that is ready to be taken to the gin.

Lance, Jim, and our two farm employees always have something to do. In the spring, they fertilize the fields with our chicken litter, spray the weeds in the fields, and plant the crops. In the summer, the peanuts need to be sprayed every two weeks for fungus, and the cotton needs to be sprayed every few weeks with growth regulator, insecticide and herbicide. There is also a lot of bush hogging to do. They also get our equipment and tractors ready for harvest. In the fall, we harvest the crops. The corn will be ready to pick in August, the peanuts will be ready in September, cotton in October, and soybeans in November. Winter is spent on repairs, equipment maintenance and sowing a cover crop.

Lance has been helping on the farm since he could walk. He started working on the farm when he was in high school. After college, it became his full time job. Lance and I were married in October 2006, and I worked a job dealing with the public for almost a year. After I couldn’t take it anymore, Lance said he would build some chicken houses, and I could work on the farm too. Our favorite thing about working on the farm is being able to be our own boss and be around family.

We wish the public would understood how much work and labor is involved in farming. We may take in a lot of money when we get paid for our crop, but it goes right back out the door when we get all the bills. It bothers us when people think that the government pays us large amounts of money to farm, when in reality it wouldn’t even pay our fuel bill during picking season. People need to understand that if U.S. farmers are regulated and priced out of business, all of our food will be coming from other countries, which do not have the same standards as our food does.

Thanks for the great feature Stephanie! Be sure to check out her farming blog (The Life of a Farmer's Wife) to learn more about this families farm! She has a lot of good things going on!

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