Thanks for letting us connect with YOU for more farm and ranch stories, experiences, tips, and resources.
June 7, 2023
Nick and his family have a productive history as small business owners, investors, and planners. After getting his construction management degree from Michigan State University in 2009, Nick returned to join the family cons…
May 9, 2023
From Becky: My husband and I moved our kids to a farm in rural southern Minnesota in 2016 to grow better food. We were already purchasing most of our meat from local farmers, but wanted to do it ourselves while giving our ki…
April 29, 2023
“We cleared eight acres and piled the trees by hand. Not the trees but the brush. We had 96 brush piles in one field. And we had no friends left, because we would say to them, ‘Come on over for the weekend. And we'll give y…
April 22, 2023
“I can't express enough how just beautiful it is to watch the growth. The growth of a farm year after year where you're putting your inputs in, which may just mean your animals, they’re just fertilizing and grazing for you. …
April 15, 2023
“I think that you have to listen to what everybody has to say, and then just pick and choose different parts of their advice. That's complicated for some people; they just want a How-To Guide for starting their farm. It’s no…
April 8, 2023
"I get a lot of people saying, you're living my dream life. I'm so jealous. I know it's a compliment. But I'm not living your dream life. I'm living my dream life. And I know what it comes with. I know all the s-h-i-t it com…
April 1, 2023
“I am very delightfully holding on to the things that I hold dear about myself that are a part of my life as a farmer, and not integrating that into my life going forward, where I'm not commercially farming. I really appreci…
Feb. 9, 2023
Here’s a quick mini-episode I wanted to share about agritourism. I recorded it while driving home from the International Workshop on Agritourism last fall. Fair warning that it’s only lightly edited. I just came across this …
Jan. 28, 2023
“From what I’ve learned, it's always best to learn from other people. Learn from people who have been doing this before. If you can find a mentor in the field that you are interested in, I think that's the best thing you can…
Jan. 11, 2023
“I really love the sheep. They're not stupid. Nor do I think they desire to die, as I've heard on more than one occasion. I do think they require awareness. They also are so instinct driven--which makes sense, based on what …
Oct. 1, 2022
Coming soon! The second season of Choosing to Farm is bringing you even more great stories of the journey into--and sometimes out of--farming. We'll talk about new models, new ways of being successful, and where new farmers …
July 12, 2022
“I didn't have mechanical background, I didn't grow up fixing tractors. I had never driven a tractor. I wasn't good with equipment. Grazing was very approachable. It just really appealed to me. You're outside, you're working…
May 26, 2022
“Go and work for a bad boss. Go and spend some time breaking somebody else's machines, losing tens of thousands of dollars on their payroll, before you're doing it on your own payroll. That timing is probably somewhere betwe…
April 30, 2022
“I think sometimes the choice to farm also means that folks choose not to have a life. They may not recognize it as that. Sometimes the choice to farm or ranch doesn't necessarily automatically set them up for that. Responsi…
April 23, 2022
We finish up our second part of the chat with Margaret and read some listener comments. Lots of gold to hear and respond to in this episode!
April 11, 2022
“For a long time, it's been just like struggling to get my farm to the bare minimum of what I would consider acceptable in my head. There was no pride, no accomplishment, because before that I was failing. So I was simply no…
April 2, 2022
“Since coming back, it's been sort of this really challenging and interesting evolution to understand how a working mother who is not farming with her partner can take over an operation that has traditionally been run by fou…
March 27, 2022
“The jobs that I worked were a pickle factory and a spinnery and an apple orchard, All of those were learning how to operate in a system watching how other people create systems and deal with the logistics of production. I t…
March 20, 2022
“It feels scary to work with a dangerous animal, but it's within our wheelhouse. To do something that is unknown--to reach out, to ask for help, to admit we don't know--to go into that sort of dark place outside of our circl…
March 12, 2022
“I think that climate change, and the collapse of so many of our ecological systems is the pressure that's going to push human evolution into a new phase. And I think that has to be the story. “ Part 2 of my conversation wit…
March 6, 2022
“It was the next generation for the farm…and so it came to [my wife] Cally or nobody. And we thought, well, hell, we might be better than nobody. So we raised our hand and said, “Let us give it a shot.” Jesse McDougall had n…
Feb. 26, 2022
“I think part of the reason that I have pursued a career in real estate development in addition to being involved with my family’s [ranch] business is because there’s so much overlap…if you don’t understand the land piece, t…
Feb. 19, 2022
“So I went around on the farm tour and I went to check out all their barns and I spent like eight weeks almost every day going to visit somebody, talking about their sheep. Going from barn to barn I realized, ‘Oh, everybody …
Feb. 12, 2022
“Rangeland science is this crazy complex combination of living and non-living things and people. It’s not simple at all.” While the Art of Range host Tip Hudson is an experienced rangeland ecologist on the technical side, I …