In 1992, we decided to leave the suburban area of Chicago, IL to come to southwest Missouri with our then five children in order to eliminate our family’s debt and live a slower lifestyle. We purchased a small fixer upper home in town in Carthage, MO. We spent several years fixing up our home. While fixing it up, we got used to the slower lifestyle and the rural area and decided that we would like to raise healthy food for our large family of ten (at the time). It was quite difficult to afford healthy food for a one income large family. While living in town, we started reading everything we could about raising livestock and gardening. But, in order to accomplish the goal of raising our own food, we had to move. So, we bought another fixer upper small house on ten acres about ten minutes northwest of Carthage and moved there with our now eight children and had two more while on our ten acres. For seven years, we milked our family cow Becky, raised lamb, beef and chicken for our own table and had plenty of laying hens to provide us with eggs. As we learned to raise our food in a healthy way, we decided that we would like to help others enjoy the taste of naturally raised meats and eggs. Over the years, we had sold some of our surplus, but we didn’t really have enough property to expand much. In 2005, we had finished fixing up that house and we had the opportunity to move to fifty-five acres just northwest of Miller, MO to another fixer upper house. We don’t like moving, so when this house is finished, we intend to enjoy it.
Now that our children are all grown, we have decreased the products we produce. Our daughter, Amanda and her family, live on ten of our original 55 acres and have taken over the pastured sheep. They may add broiler chickens and eggs in the future. We continue to raise beef for ourselves and others.
Our goal is to raise animals without hormones, antibiotics, arsenicums, manure byproducts as feed, chemical wormers and any other substance that an animal would not ordinarily choose to eat if in its natural environment. Because we know how hard it is for average income families to purchase healthy food, we try to keep our prices as low as possible.
We are located about 30 minutes west of Springfield, MO and about 45 minutes east of Joplin, MO