Neighbors

When New England poet Robert Frost penned, "Good fences make good neighbors," he wasn't thinking about trees.

"I just love my goats,” chuckled Patty Horner from Rockin’ Rock Ranch in Salem, Ark. “I could just spend hours out with them and the babies. They are all jumping and hopping around the field and me. They are just fun to be around,” she added.

When it comes to shooting trap, brother and sister duo, Cord and Brooke Riley are right on target. The siblings are members of the Huntsville FFA Chapter’s shooting sports team. Huntsville’s FFA team has won the state trap shooting tournament for two consecutive years, and they are hoping for their third win in April.

Focused on efficiency and profit, Coy and Charlotte England raise Brangus/Angus cross cattle on their 250-acre farm making up the England Cattle Company. They currently have 50 cow/calf pairs and three registered Angus bulls, and have 40 acres of their land for hay cutting. Their goal is to promote beef animals that will meet market demands. The Brangus was developed by crossing Brahman and Angus cattle.

Lightening Ridge Farm is a long way from the Scottish Highlands, but the terrain and weather conditions haven’t been much different here in the Missouri Ozarks. Near the southern line of Texas County, on the headwaters of Jack’s Fork River, the hills are steep and live water from springs is abundant. Dave and Ruth Embry raise Highland cattle on their 150-acre farm that is mostly wooded with about 20 acres open. You might think it would be impossible to raise livestock in these conditions, but their Highland cattle are thriving here.

Juanita “Janie” Martinez Perez is a woman whose hands are very full. She's the owner and operator of a 165-acre dairy farm with 39 Holstein cows, 14 heifers, 8 calves and 10 horses,  the mother of a 14-year-old son whom she home schools and she's newly widowed.

"We wanted to move towards being self-sustaining,” said Crystal Eutsler when asked about why she got started with production agriculture when neither she nor her husband, Chad, had grown up on a farm. Thirteen years ago when Crystal’s family moved to Bois D’Arc, Mo., she bought some chickens. Soon her son, Ethan, took an interest in his junior high FFA chapter, and wanted to start a project. A small goat herd was the result. Crystal had helped her son, Ethan, buy three Boer goats. At the end of the project, they had 16 goats. “We loved having goats, but that particular breed required a little more care and upkeep than we had the time for, so we sold those and were introduced into the French Alpine breed by a friend,” said Crystal.

Just off highway 82 in northeastern Oklahoma, there is a green metal barn housing one innovative poultry business. The flock of chickens cared for there is among the healthiest possible, and is produced with several all-natural methods.

John Ely has been in the grass business for more than 40 years.

Jimmy Stephens was born into a family that gave him two dreams. One of those dreams, or passions, as Jimmy called it, stemmed from riding around in the pickup truck with his grandfather when he was a young boy, while he checked cattle. The other dream stemmed from an uncle that worked in law enforcement. Jimmy started working in law enforcement first, by becoming an Arkansas State Trooper, but he still had a longing to have a ranch of his own. So, in 1995, Jimmy bought a ranch just off of I-40 Interstate, with a creek running through it. He raises registered Black Angus and Brangus cattle, and has built a working barn and pens along with a dog kennel for his Catahoula cow dogs.