Our Story

There are moments in your life where, if you are looking, you can actually see how God has worked in your life. This is how our story starts, not just the year that we moved here, or the years since we first laid eyes on the property in Missouri. No, our story started long before.

When we were first married, we would vacation to Table Rock Lake with my family. Eddy and I would take a day from the lake and venture off touring the countryside. I can remember specifically stopping at the end of one driveway with a weathered wood fence, and us pining for a ranch of our own someday. Little did we know that God was, and still is, listening to our murmurings.

Eddy and I have always had a love for farming and working with our hands.   Those days of our early 20’s we figured out not only did we like farming and animals but we loved to garden, design, and build. We bought 34 acres that had a cement block building, a well, and a gravel drive; we thought we had hit the jackpot. We spent the first 10 months of our marriage turning that dirt floor building into a one bedroom home.

Our can-do-eager-to-learn spirit encouraged us to try almost anything related to farm and home. This lead us down a road of desired self-sufficiency as time allowed. We were both working full time off farm jobs and going to college, but we decided to start with a few beef cows. Can I just say, we grew up on farms, we knew some about animals, but we had so very much to learn. Eventually we progressed into growing crops. In 2001, our lives took a 90 degree turn as we were blessed with twins. We honed our building skills as we put an addition on our tiny little house. 

In August 2006, our son was born and through testing when he was two weeks old we discovered a heart defect.  Six months later, a letter arrived from the University of Iowa which explained he was on the National Register for Birth Defects, and a nurse would be calling for research.  Sometimes there are pivotal moments in a person’s life, and this was mine. When the nurse on other end of the phone line inquired about what we ate, cleaned with, and was exposed to not only during my pregnancy but including the six months prior to conception it makes you wonder the why and how of everything around you. 

Those few months changed our entire way of thinking, and in the winter of 2006, we read everything we could get our hands on about organic farming and food. Once we realized how healing the land can heal our bodies it set us on a path of change, slow and gradual, but different.  We were certified organic for one year in Iowa, but bureaucracy kept us from continuing. Despite not being certified, those moments in 2006 are forever etched in our memory and compel us to learn more, expanding our organic practices in all areas of our lives.  

I remember driving down my driveway in Iowa a few years ago and praying, “God, please let Eddy and I farm together before we retire.”  We were exhausted from working 16 hour days and burning the candle at both ends. Little did I know that God would be answering those prayers when and how He did…. 

Fast forward a bit and events in our life started a chain reaction. Driven by the passion of supporting and operating a family farm, we craved the farm life, which once populated the country. After all our reading, we had a desire to start learning and meeting these authors in person. Our next step in the learning curve involved attending the Mother Earth News Fair, Acres U.S.A. conference, becoming members of Practical Farmers of Iowa, and eventually traveling to the on farm class at Joel Salatin’s farm, Polyface. An opportunity to convert some neighboring farm ground to organic for SILT arose shortly after our Polyface farm class. We were thrilled to apply what we had learned in the previous years. Through this connection with SILT, we were introduced to Raj Patel for a documentary on food and environment, which was released Fall of 2021. We had a film crew out to our Iowa house. With him he brought two women from Malawi, Africa, hoping to learn more about farming for their starving village and global warming impact.  I have never been more humbled to eat with two Christian women who have suffered so much, and yet were so determined to make better lives for their family. It was a defining moment for me to think of how we, here in the States, have so many resources and freedoms; why should I not be as bold?  During that same July of 2017 we received a letter in the mail from the county about a proposed paved road, expecting a car a minute, going through or bordering our farm ground. Our initial reaction was one of helplessness and anger; we had built a beautiful life in Iowa. However, this proposed road was just the nudge we needed to follow God’s plan for our life.

In May of 2019, we sold our small Iowa farm along the Loess Hills of the Missouri River to follow our dream of being full time ranchers moving six hours south, away from the friends and family we knew, to almost 400 acres in Missouri.  It was an arduous task of selling and moving not only a house but a farm.  The nine month long process was accomplished through the help and prayers of family and friends both in Iowa and Missouri.

Now fully grounded in Missouri, we are daily rotationally grazing our herd of cows, building the soil as we go, and restoring this history rich property,.  Hopefully soon, we can add back the enterprises of patured chickens, pastured hogs, sheep, goats, vegetables, and flowers that once dotted our Iowa farm, but until then we focus on what we do have. Every day we strive to make for a better tomorrow knowing the improvements will lead us to our ultimate goal of self sufficiency and regenerating the land God has given us.

Not a day goes by when we do not see the pure beauty that God has created from the wildflowers, birds, and butterflies to the sparkling druzy quartz in the rocks we find.  We hope to continue God’s plan through hard work, stewardship, and prayer. We desire to make this farm an opportunity for our children to prosper and raise their own families. We will continue to pass on the knowledge, learned the hard way, to our children and those who want to follow along on our journey.

Blessings~Tricia

WHO WE ARE