Neighbors

"Gelbvieh calves are small, but grow very quickly. Gelbvieh cows are excellent mothers and are good milkers, too,” Brenda Shealy said. Brenda knows her breed, thanks to a second chance at a life on the farm.

A fourth generation dairy farmer, Mike Meier has been milking “forever.” Four years ago he was thinking of quitting. At that time, they were a confinement dairy. It took three men working all day to keep up. All the equipment used for feeding the cows was wearing out and too expensive to replace.

At the end of a long, winding road is happiness and fulfillment. At least for Dr. Dale and Diane Kunkel, owners of Kunkel Farms and a healthy herd of 200 mostly Red Angus momma cows in Newton County, Mo., it is.

When visiting a doctor’s office, it is not uncommon to hear about the importance of good nutrition — the value of vitamins or the merit of minerals — and a visit to the office of Doctor Shannah Cassatt is no exception. The only difference is that Shannah is a veterinarian. At the Country Care Clinic, balance is one of Shannah’s biggest concerns.

J.R. and Shirley Little, have a very pretty home, with a neatly manicured yard snuggled cozily in the middle of 306 acres of lush Bermuda grass pasture. Between their Decker Giants, a Rat Terriers breed that has become nearly extinct, and a busy cow-calf operation, Jim and his wife, Shirley have a lot to tell. Jim grew up on a farm down in Mena, Ark., down by the Washita River, his dad raised Hereford cattle, and Shirley was raised just outside Nashville, Tenn., on a farm. They also taught school, Jim was an agriculture teacher, and Shirley was a principle for an elementary school and then superintendent.

"I’ve waited four years to be here and if I don’t get the one I want today, I think I’ll just cry,” said Kriss Yunker of Flippin Ark., just before the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Mustang and burro sale held on Nov. 7 at the Cattlemen’s Livestock Auction in Harrison, Ark.

Hugh and Brandy Reynolds originally owned and operated a dairy but, after adding three turkey houses they still couldn’t make ends meet. “There just never was enough money in the dairy to support the business and make a living,” Hugh said. Hugh decided to go to school to become an electrician while working the turkey houses.

As classes end for the day, Whitney Harrison heads to work at MFA in Cassville, Mo., where she'll spend the next few hours serving area farmers. After work, she'll head home to greet her two horses, Honey and Audrey, along with her herd of Braunvieh cows. 

Cheap land prices and a better climate enticed Mike Nelson to move his family from Minnesota to Missouri in April 2007. Of the weather, Mike said, “It’s too cold up there. You get the freezing winter.” On land prices, he said, “There’s not as much competition for land. Up there if there was 100 acres for rent, you’d have 50 people after it, jacking everything up.” Mike said prices could go as high as $200 an acre to rent. Recently he learned from a family member that land in Minnesota was selling “for $6,400 an acre.”

Volatile propane prices don’t have Larry Long worried.