A Humbling Award

What an honor. We were awarded the Beginning Farmer Award from the Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association at their annual farm conference this weekend. Thank you Lauren Hirtle for nominating us and for bringing us into the policy world to share our farm story with legislators!  

As we shared in our remarks…

We're truly humbled by this award. There are many beginning farmers growing wonderful farm businesses in Ohio who are just as deserving of this
award. We're in good company!

When we started coming to this conference just a few years ago, we didn't
know anyone here. Now we see many familiar faces in the crowd and farmer friends across the state who inspire us.

We want to thank our families who support us literally - by watching the
farm right now so we can both be here - and emotionally, always cheering
us on and never doubting our choice to farm or CJ's decision to leave
his job last year to full-time farm.

We also want to thank our community in Athens and all of our customers who buy our product, come to our farm events, and want to see us succeed.

Finally, we are particularly grateful to the farmers we have learned from and the mentors who spent time showing us how to graze cattle, raise
pastured pigs, know our numbers, and learn by doing.

One of our friends and mentors, Bill Dix, told us about a time when disease
ran through their dairy herd, machinery was breaking and they had no
other option but to keep moving forward. We asked him why he bothered
with the challenges of farming and told him there are easier ways to
make money. He looked back at us and quickly said, no there's not. Not
for me. That's how many of us farmers feel, spiritually speaking at
least - there's no easier way to make a living.

Thank you for seeing us and for rooting for us.