Why Bison?  ​

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Many people have asked us why did you get into bison?  What made you want bison?  I grew up on a farm...first a dairy farm and then a row crop industrial farm.  My grandpa and dad farmed conventionally. After graduating high school, I went on to college and became an elementary teacher. I loved kids as much as I loved the farm.  I taught first grade and then became an education specialist working with kids of all ages.  "What did I know about bison or even about being a grass farmer!?!" Even with the dairy cows, they were never on pastures.  My mom, from a young age installed a love of bison in me.  Every time we would go up north to visit my aunt and uncle we would go by a bison farm on highway I-75 and my mom would always tell my dad to pull over so we could watch these magnificent animals in the fields grazing.  

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I knew from a young age that one day I would love to take over the farm. I wanted the land to stay in our family that had been farmed so many generations by my family.   I loved the animals, the land and the country life!  I also knew that I did not want to farm the same way as my grandparents and dad had.  I did not enjoy driving tractors all day; tearing up the fields, planting them, spraying them, combining them and then tearing the fields up again killing the life that was living in the soil. I grew up listening to my mom talk about her childhood in Laingsburg running through the fields with grasses and flowers exploring them for hours.  She would talk about the land how beautiful it was and unchanged.  I also could see the rise in diseases, the rise in sickness and the rise of ADD, ADHD, ODD, etc. with the children at the schools.  My time in the classroom enforced my reasons to farm regenerative.  Seeing the kids so distanced from the land and their food was heartbreaking. I would ask my class where does your food come?  Usually they would answer the food truck, grocery store or McDonalds! Their answers were disturbing to a farm girl who grew up doing chores on the farm everyday collecting eggs, feeding baby calfs bottles of milk, cleaning pens, planting gardens, etc. and who's summers vacations were spent at the local 4-H fair showing pigs. I clearly had classrooms of children that had no idea that food did not always come processed in packages! It is because of these children I believe with my whole heart our farm needs to become a community based farm. We need to educate our children....our future. With the bison's help and one acre a time, so starts my journey..........

 

I felt as a new farmer I needed to change.  The way our farm was farming was a part of our worlds' problem and not a solution. We need to build soil, so plants can grow without the dependence of chemicals. We need to plant trees and perennial grasses so our bison would have forage to eat and shade for summers, windbreakers for the winter. By practicing these methods our farm is also providing healthy food and an environment for wildlife. We have already saw the ecosystem on our farm becoming healthy again as the pheasants, birds and butterflies are returning to our fields in the natives that we haven't seen in years!  I thought back to my childhood seeing the magnificent bison along highway I-75.  Could we raise bison on our farm?   The next five years were research and many discussions with my parents...well as far as my dad he was not on board.  It was terrifying to make such a huge change on the farm!  Was it possible?  Switching so drastically could make or break a farm.  Could we take the risk?  After many bison farm visits, roundups,  joining the national bison association, conferences and research we just had to take the leap of faith!  

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Bison once took care of the lands and we hope that they would help us heal our land again.   We put our faith in God that he would help us through this wild journey that we are on.  Through him (and the bison) we would restore the farmland back to healthy soil, land and ecosystem. The way it once was before conventional farming.        

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