About Us
We inherited our love of small farm production from our families, even though neither of our immediate families are (or were) involved in farm production. Go back another generation, though, and we have strong ties to both beef and dairy farming in different parts of the country. Go back further, and we have multiple connections to market farming, commodities production and homesteading. As we work on our own little slice of heaven, we frequently reflect on how our families have faced similar situations, and explored all sorts of options to not only get through this current challenge, but come through it with a better operation as a result.
We both trace our lineage to various countries in northern Europe, and ancestors who left hardscrabble tenant farming life for a better future in the New World. Over time those individuals had families, four of whom homesteaded in Colorado, Montana, Idaho and Minnesota. Those branches eventually went into commercial warm season market crops, beef production and dairy production.
The stories which have come down through the years are of fulfilling, occasionally extremely challenging lives. There are stories of rich years with a lot of success, and thin years with a lot of sleepless nights. Weather events, economic upheavals such as the Great Depression, and environmental events such as the Dust Bowl years, shaped our families. Yet our families are still farming and ranching all these generations later, trying each year to do it a bit better.
We have worked at continuing that tradition, with a small farm in western Washington state, USA, featuring a market garden, both meat and dairy animals, and forest products. We are starting to explore fodder production, value added processing and direct-to-consumer marketing methods. Hopefully we are still learning some things from past mistakes, while carrying forward the determination to always figure out a better way to do things. We will bring some tradition, some innovation, some determination, and hopefully a healthy dose of enthusiasm to this website, so that we can help you improve your operation too.
Our Successful Farm and Ranching Books
We released our very first self-published book, The Chicken Coop Manual, in 2014. It is a full color guide to conventional and alternative poultry housing options, including 8 conventional stud construction plans, 12 alternative housing methods, and almost 20 different design features. This book is available on Amazon.com and as a PDF download. Please visit our sister website's The Chicken Coop Manual page for more information.
Rabbit Colonies: Lessons Learned
We started with rabbits in 2002, and we've been experimenting with colony management ever since. Fast forward to 2017 when I decided to write another book, this time about colony management. Rabbit Colonies: Lessons Learned is chock-full of practical information, and is available from both Amazon and as a PDF download. Please visit our sister website's Rabbit Colonies page for more information.
The Pastured Pig Handbook
We are currently working on our next self-published book: The Pastured Pig Handbook. This particular book addresses a profitable, popular and successful hog management approach which sadly is not yet well documented. Our handbook, will cover all the various issues involved with pastured hog management, including case studies of numerous current pastured pig operations. If you have any questions about this book, please Contact Us.