Beckstead Family - Custom Harvesters & Ranch Operators

For our next feature, please welcome Tana Beckstead and her family as they share with us their unique agricultural story! 

Our agriculture story is made up of Beckstead Harvesting LLC, Mount Oxford Ranch and Oxford Mtn. Ranch LLC. We are Doug and Tana Beckstead and our three children are, Wiley age 17, Savannah age 14 and Hazen age 8. 

We live in southeast Idaho in a small town called Swan Lake (about 45 miles south of Pocatello, Idaho and 45 miles north of Logan, Utah) along Oxford Mountain.

As a family we operate and manage two separate farm and ranch operations owned by different corporations and businessmen. Mount Oxford Ranch in Downey and Preston, Idaho is a cow/calf operation with 350 Black Angus beef cows and calves as well as alfalfa and irrigated grain crops. Oxford Mountain Ranch, LLC in Swan Lake, Idaho is a cow/calf operation with 100 head of Black Angus cows and calves as well as the alfalfa, irrigated grain crops and dry land grain and safflower. Our oldest son Wiley pretty much runs the Swan Lake place by himself - he does all the pipe moving, field work and runs the cattle on his own - with a little help from Grandpa Beckstead occasionally in the summer. All together we farm close to 4500 acres.

In addition to operating the two ranches we also started our own custom harvesting business as a family. Two years ago we purchased a John Deere 9560 combine and we custom cut grain crops for farmers in the local area. Our little business is growing and last year we were able to buy a semi and a grain trailer to haul grain. We also own about 10 good ranch horses and the kids like to participate in local rodeos and jackpots in the summer time. Our older children, Wiley and Savannah both got youth loans through our local FSA office and purchased their own Angus cows and heifers and raise them along with the bigger herds. The kids plan on attending college with the money they make from selling the calves.

Doug and I (Tana) have been married for 18 years and have been involved in agriculture our entire lives. I was born and raised on a small dairy and beef cattle operation in Downey, Idaho and was active in 4-H and FFA while growing up. I was the Marsh Valley High School Chapter FFA president in 1994 and the District FFA President in 1995. Doug started working for a dry farm in the Preston, Idaho area when he was in his early teens and grew to love every aspect of farming. He worked the dry land hills and fields with old D-4 caterpillar machines and John Deere hill side combines. His blood runs green and nothing compares to John Deere when it comes to farm equipment! 

A typical day for our family is long and busy! Right now it is summer time so there is a LOT of pipe moving going on and we are just finishing up 1st crop hay. Wiley takes care of the pipe at the Swan Lake place and Doug, Tana and Savannah move the pipe at Mount Oxford Ranch. (Our little Hazen likes to play in the water and get the end plugs for us-pretty soon he’ll be big enough to lift the pipe!) We work together every day as a family. YES, we all have to work on the ranch! Whether we are calving cows or doctoring or branding calves or cutting or baling hay or disking or drilling a field, we all have important jobs to do! Doug hires a part-time hand to help out in the summer at Mount Oxford Ranch and also hires on temporary help from January to April for calving and branding season, but for the most part we do it all as a family.

My favorite part of working and living on a ranch is getting to raise my kids here. There is no better way in my opinion than growing up and working on a farm or ranch! Our kids have learned the value of a hard day’s work and they are responsible, knowledgeable kids for that very reason. We get up early and go to bed exhausted, but I know my kids aren’t out making trouble or doing drugs or worse. 

We do like to have fun too! Our favorite time of year on the ranch is branding season. We make a big day out of the brandings and I cook a big meal and we make a party out of it. We have great friends that love to help us brand and we never have to pay them to help.

When our youngest son Hazen started Kindergarten they had to give him a test to see what level he was at and the teacher asked him a series of questions and one of the questions was “What are the four seasons of the year?”. Hazen answered just as cool as could be, “Well there is calvin’ season, brandin’ season, farmin’ season and huntin’ season!” The teacher thought that was the cleverest thing she had ever heard. In his world these are the seasons on the ranch. Our local FSA agent heard the story and has a poster hanging in her office with the Four Seasons by Hazen Beckstead.

The one thing I wish people could understand about our particular ranching and farming story is that just because we work for a corporation doesn’t mean the money for the ranch is just flowing free at our disposal. Many times we hear people say “You have it so easy because the owners just buy everything you need or you don’t have the stress because you don’t have to worry about the bottom line.”. This is so not the case! If anything we worry more about making things work and being in the “black” at the end of the year. Doug and I have to put together a yearly budget and operating expense account and we have to pencil out how things will work and run smoothly. If we are short or don’t pay off these expenses we have to answer for it at the end of the year. We run these ranches just like we would our own if we had our own ranch.

Thanks for the great feature Tana! Agriculturalist come in all shapes and sizes - just like you! If you or someone you know should be featured on Faces of Agriculture please contact us today! 

A Ranch Mom - Kay & Cliff

Please welcome Kay and Cliff as they share with us what it's like to live and work on cattle in Wyoming! 

Howdy folks! I'm Kay, from A Ranch Mom. I live with my husband and our 4 kids on a ranch in SE Wyoming. The ranch is located along Horse Creek. We run Black Angus cow/calf pairs. We are about 25 miles from the nearest town, so I've learned how to keep milk in the fridge! But we enjoy living out here, away from the city. We are too busy to get bored! My husband (Cliff) and I both grew up primarily in the Midwest. We had been married 5 years when we loaded up our horse trailer with a few household items and one horse, and moved to Pueblo, CO, where we learned to do care on yearling cattle. We moved to WY 6 years ago, and really enjoy life here.

I home school our children - they love to finish early and go play outside! They spend a lot of time playing down by the creek or riding their bikes. They are also great helpers with the chores, and they enjoy riding with their dad when he moves cattle. We believe that ranch life is a great way to raise kids - they learn hard work, responsibility, neighborliness, and so much more.

We usually calve out heifers in late winter. We keep them in corrals close to the calving barn, so they can be taken inside during the brutal winter storms we get here. The heifers get checked every 2 hours around the clock. That takes a lot of time, as you might imagine! Sometimes they have some trouble, and then Cliff has to pull the calf. After the heifers are done calving, the main herd of mama cows start calving in early spring. We just leave them in the fields, but keep them close to the ranch headquarters. They get fed hay and 'cake', which is cow feed in the form of large, pressed pellets. They generally have easy births, and take care of their babies, unlike the first-time heifers, who sometimes don't know what to do with their babies.

After calving is spring branding. This is my favorite part of ranch life! There is a lot of ranches around here, and whenever we have a branding, there's plenty of neighbors to help out. Even so, it takes 3 days of branding to get them all done. Then we go help the neighbors when it's their turn to brand. I don't help a lot with the branding - I'm too busy cooking for the cowboys and taking photos. Summer is haying time...or at least it was until the drought hit last year. Summers here are quite lovely - temps don't top 90 too often, and there's usually a breeze. I enjoy gardening, and working in the yard in the summer. In the fall we gather the cattle, process them, and sell the calves.

Cliff and I own a small leather business, CK Custom Leather, which we do on the side. Cliff makes custom saddles, tack, and chaps. I weave traditional mohair cinchas. We do have a Facebook page for our business.

Most people don't realize how committed you need to be when you live and work on a ranch. The cows don't stop eating, drinking or getting sick on weekends. They never heard of holidays, either! You have to enjoy this lifestyle to put in the time and energy that it takes. But watching a new baby calf begin to breathe after a rough start, or watching the sunrise through the trees, or roping a steer - makes it
all worthwhile.

Thanks so much for the great feature Kay! Be sure to follow along with Kay and her ranch life over on her blog - A Ranch Mom. You can also check out the page for their custom leather shop - CK Custom Leather. 

Remember - if you or someone you know would like to help spread awareness about agriculture and the real people behind the cows and combines (and everything else as well!), please contact us today to learn how! YOU could be the next Face of Agriculture! 

The Road to Ranching

Today we welcome Shelli Mader. She writes to us about her parent's road to ranching and how agriculture has been part of her life. Her story is one that I think a lot of people can relate to in agriculture. She also offers advice for beginning farmers and ranchers.

Like a lot of young couples who grew up in the country, my parents wanted to farm and ranch when they got out of high school. Unfortunately, even though both sets of my grandparents farmed, neither place was big enough to support another family. My parents had to find a way to start farming on their own.

The summer after they both graduated high school my mom started work in town while my dad helped his dad farm. That fall my dad started working with mom’s dad and her brother on some construction jobs. What was supposed to be a few days ‘work turned into a few years’ worth of construction for him.

My dad was focused on saving up for his farming goal, so when he wasn’t doing construction work he picked up odd jobs roofing, pouring concrete, digging basements and hauling hogs. In 1980 my parents got married. Just over a year after that, my mom’s dad and her brother stopped doing the construction work to start a dairy farm. My parents joined them.

My dad thought that having a dairy might be the best way for him to get into farming, so he was excited about the prospect. I was born just a few months after they started and it became apparent pretty quickly that even though my mom was working, my dad needed to get another job too. He called up a guy that was in the oilfield and started contract oil well pumping on the side.

The dairy lasted for about 2 years until my uncle and grandpa decided that they wanted to sell. My grandpa sold everything for just enough money to pay off the note – less than a year before the big government dairy cattle buy out that would have gotten $3,000 a head. My parents walked away from the dairy a few years older, but not any closer to their farming dream.

Thankfully, my dad had started the contract oil well pumping, so he had a decent job. He and my mom bought some dairy heifers with the goal of getting back into the dairy business someday. But that summer during wheat harvest, when my dad was helping his dad work on a combine he got a piece of metal in his eye. He was laid up for almost a month and lost most of the vision in that eye. He was able to keep his contract job with the help of some other pumpers and my mom driving him around to the wells.

But by the time he healed, oil field production and his contract work slowed some. Just after that though, a local gas plant hired him for 2 weeks to overhaul an engine. The work at the plant continued and he was able to keep his contract work too.

My folks decided to sell heifers with the plan to use that money to make a down payment on a place. Unfortunately, that spring taxes took all of the money they earned from the sale. But, like most of my parent’s story, there was another opportunity waiting for them.

About that time my parents found some pasture to rent, so they were able to get a loan to get their first 12 cows. The day they bought those cows was one of their most exciting. I was only 6, but I still remember it. They bought some black and red Chianina cross cows. We named them all and spent a lot of time driving around the pasture admiring them.

About a year later, my parents bought their first farm – a place in Lyman Nebraska. I think we were all excited about moving up there (my folks had 3 kids by then) and we were even trying to figure out which bedroom in the house was going to be whose. But, the place turned into more of a headache than a blessing for my folks. Problems with the rental house and irrigation were a financial drain. Worst of all, we couldn’t move up there – my dad’s job wasn’t easily transferred and he couldn’t find another good one in Nebraska.

Owning a farm and yet not being able to farm it wasn’t my parents’ idea of being farmers. Yet, once again, there was another, unexpected opportunity waiting for them at just the right time.

During the late 1980s my parents bought their first farm – a place near Lyman, Nebraska. Though they were excited to own their own land, they spent the rest of that decade and the early 90s trying to find a way to actually farm their own place.

Meanwhile, back in Strasburg, Colorado my parents rented a little country house about 15 miles from town. My dad continued the contract pumping business he’d started during his dairy farming days and my mom did his business paperwork and stayed home to take care of my sister, brother and me.They continued to rent the pasture land they’d found a few years earlier and built their cattle herd up from 12 to 20 head.

In 1991, just after my third sibling was born, it worked out for us to move to another rental house about 10 miles south of Strasburg.My grandpa and grandma lived just a mile up the road from it and my grandparented and farmed the place the house was on.

By 1993, it was apparent that it wasn’t ever going to work for my folks to move to the place in Nebraska –my dad couldn’t find a decent job there – so my parents decided to sell it and look for another farm. 

The selling process took three years, but they finally found an unexpected buyer – a foster family living in downtown Denver. The couple bought the place, pending the sale of their house near Washington Park.

About that time my grandpa decided to retire, and the landowner’s son planned to take over for him and farm the place our rented house sat on. My parents knew that they were going to have to move soon, so they eagerly searched for a new place to live.

They looked at several farms to buy in Nebraska and Kansas. Our favorite (well, the one I actually liked best was near Great Bend because it included a horse with purchase) was a farm near Smith Center, Kansas. The place had a big, beautiful, older two-story house and some crop and grassland. We were all pretty excited about it – so much in fact, my parents wanted to put a contract on it. But, the seller wouldn’t let them put any kind of claim on the place until the sale of their Nebraska farm was final.

The house and most of the land on the Smith Center place sold just 2 weeks later. We were all bummed about it, but in hindsight it turned out to be a blessing.

It took a few months to find out why so many things hadn’t worked out for my folks, but later that year my dad got an unexpected call from the landowner. Her son no longer wanted to farm the place, so she offered to lease it to my folks.

My parents graciously accepted the completely unexpected offer. And thanks to the sale of the Nebraska place, they had money saved to make a down payment on machinery.

Now it’s been nearly 17 years since my folks started farming the place south of Strasburg. They both acknowledge that they never could have begun or expanded their operation without the help of friends, neighbors and other area farmers who offered them support, help and opportunities to rent land. My folks always wanted to move out of the busy Colorado Front Range area, but looking back, there was no better place for them to get a start.

Today, my parents’life isn’t ideal – my dad still has to work a full-time job contract pumping oil wells in addition to running the place (he’d love to just farm and ranch) and my mom works full time too – but they are both grateful to get to be people who are living their dream.

Lessons I learned from my Parents’ Road to Ranching
My parent’s farming and ranching story gives me hope that the ranching dream is still possible. My folks didn’t start out with much, but today they are doing what they always dreamed they would do.

Here are some things that they did right:

Live Below Your Means
Though my parents admit that they haven’t always been good savers, they’ve never spent more than they’ve made. Overspending is a serious problem (and ranching roadblock) for many people – especially those my age and younger. Whether you are religious or not, if you have ever been in consumer debt you know that the Proverb “the borrower is servant to the lender”is so true. Staying out of unsecured debt helped my parents more than anything else.

Make Sacrifices
When I was growing up my parents rarely took more than a weekend vacation and they usually drove older, used vehicles. Instead of buying a house, they lived in old, inexpensive rental houses so that they could put money towards their goal.

Live by Farming Family or Friends
My parents always wanted to move out of the Strasburg, CO area, but ultimately living in the area they grew up in was the best way for them to start. My grandpa lived nearby and helped run the tractor when my dad had to check oil wells. Neighbors knew my parents, so that gave my parents a better chance of getting land to lease from them.

I didn’t follow this advice, but I wish I would have. Staying by farming family or friends (if you can get along with them) is the best way to get a start.

Don’t Dwell on Mistakes of the Past
My parents will tell you that they’ve made lots in mistakes in life. There are places they wished they would have bought, things they wish they wouldn’t have bought and opportunities they missed. Ultimately though, today they try not to focus on all of the “what ifs” and just look forward.

Take Your Dream the Way it Comes
If it would have been up to my dad he would have started farming right after he got out of high school. Instead, he was in his 30s before he got his farming start. Today he’s in his 50s and still has to work a job to support the farm. His road to ranching isn’t what he would have chosen, but he’s wise enough to focus on the fact that he is getting to live part of his dream.

I encourage you enjoy whatever part of agriculture you are in now (even if it is just reading The Fence Post!) and have hope that if everything aligned for my parents to get a start, it can for you too.

Thanks Shelli for this important story. The road to owning a farm and ranch is often full of trials. It takes hard work and perseverance to make things work!

You can follow Shelli and her family on their road to ranching on her blog. You can also check her out on Facebook.