A Fun Little Family Update
As a young guy, I’m definitely not going to act like I’ve got it all figured out. One thing I’m confident about, though, is that it’s important to stop and appreciate what you get to do, where you get to do it, and who you’re doing it with every now and then.
My family dreamed for years of owning a ranch. After about six years of looking, Dad and I finally found our dream ranch. Then the family moved here to grow and learn an entirely new lifestyle. I feel like, over the last 12 years, I have witnessed firsthand the closest people in my life identify what they want to live for.
My sister is pursuing medicine, wildly passionate about her field and learning how to be the best physician she can be. Pearl is striving to be a rural physician, bringing top-tier medical care to rural communities that have historically not had the best healthcare—that’s awesome.
My brother Richard is landing promotion after promotion and killing it at his job. Richard has always been a big dog guy. He is six years older than me, but back in Seattle, whenever we were walking around, if he saw a dog, I felt like the older brother. Once he saw the hound, Richard would get all little-kid excited to go pet it. Finally, he has a dog of his own, and fittingly, it seems like his world revolves around this dog, which is perfect to see.
For my father and me, we are here at the ranch doing all we can to chase our dream of creating something really special with a beef business. We are doing a lot of things uniquely, whether that be raising our Wagyu and Red Devon cattle all ourselves, without hiring out a step of the process. We do not buy yearlings to finish or send our animals to a feedlot. In some cases, this may make more sense economically, but Dad and I want to be with our animals every step of the way. We are also very in tune with each animal as an individual. Often, Dad or I can tell you the birth dates of our cattle and how their mother’s labor went, out of the hundreds that we witnessed give birth last season—among many other traits and quirks each of the ladies and gentlemen has.
It is crazy to think that just 12 years ago, we lived in the heart of Seattle. I commonly find myself stopping while feeding cows, working on fences, or doing any of the crazy things I get to do daily, and I wonder what that younger city kid I used to be would think of all this. The kid that thought beef came from the grocery store and was used to a view of the Cascade Mountains out the living room window instead of a barn. I like looking at our barn a lot better, though. :)