Arkansas Neighbors

Today, most everybody is concerned about his or her health and the health of their family. Marvin and Linda Jones, owners of AJ Grass Fed Farms in West Fork, Ark., are concerned about the way they eat.

It happens at the worst time. Your horse has thrown another shoe right when you are packing up for a ride. Now, you have to call a farrier. What if there was another option? A barefooted option.

"I was a California girl and I can remember that I always wanted to live like the Walton’s,” recalled Stormy Woods. Stormy and her husband Ed, own a farm just north of Hagarville and have been married for about 4 years. “Ed knew that I loved animals,” said Stormy. “So, he took me to a livestock sale, and that’s where I bought a red goat and it’s just grown from there.”

On a crisp fall day in Wyandotte, Okla., Randy and Jeff Parmley take a break from working cattle to explain why their family farm doesn’t play the ‘trend game.’ “We don’t jump on trends,” said Randy Parmley. “We just breed consistent cattle – simple as that.”

A man once said, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” That man must have known Tim Moore.

Jim and Dixie Robinson purchased nine goats in September 2008, and found themselves in a learning process. During the first week, they lost three. Dixie said that it was quite the education at the beginning and still is.

Land and cattle have tied together the threads of Scott Price’s family for more than 100 years. Scott’s grandfather Claude Wofford bought the original 200-acre ranch in Crawford County, Ark., from Scott’s great-uncle in the 1890s. “My grandfather had three girls, my mother being one of them,” explained Scott. “He was a railroader, and me being the grandkid, I tried to spend every moment I could here.”

Five years ago Evelyn and Al Terhune researched sheep breeds with an interest in raising meat sheep on 35 acres of pasture on their 70 acres of land near Gilbert, Ark. Mowing grass and weeds, they felt, was a waste of time and money, where grazing sheep would be a positive contribution to pasture management, without having to spray weed killers.

Joe Powell has a rich agricultural heritage, ranching in the river bottoms in Franklin County. “I have ranched all my life really,” said Joe. “As a kid, I loved cattle. My grandfather Willis Powell started here with a parcel of land that was given to them by the U.S. Government to homestead." The deed to that land is framed in Joe’s home today. “My dad, Grant Powell, farmed, and he had a few cattle and land down in the bottoms near the river,” explained Joe. “When they put the locke and dam in, they had to sell their land to the Corp. of Engineers. Of course that was back in the horse and buggy days,” joked Joe.

Monte Shockley Jr. of Poteau, Okla., is one of the new generation of ranchers. At age 29, Monte already oversees a successful herd sire operation specializing in horned Herefords.