About Me

 

A native of urban Palm Beach County, Florida; my athletic endeavors took me to Hanover, New Hampshire to swim for Dartmouth College in the fall of 1993. Although I cannot even begin to describe all of the wonderful experiences that Dartmouth granted me, meeting a farm boy from Nebraska tops the list.  I met my husband Matt only two months after arriving in Hanover and I knew the moment that our eyes met that my life had changed forever.  We were married in June of 1996 and spent one more year at Dartmouth before making the move back “home” to Nebraska where Matt’s family owned and operated a diversified farm business. God blessed Matt and I with three wonderful daughters – Ashley Grace, Megan and Karyn who were all raised on our farm.

I spent twenty years as the “boss lady” of our cattle feed yard. In 2009, I was awarded the Beef Quality Assurance Producer of the Year Award for the volunteer work that I did promoting beef farmer education in cattle care (animal welfare), and food safety.  In 2013, I was voted to Vance Publishing’s 40 under 40 in Agriculture, in 2014 I was awarded Beef Magazine’s Trail Blazer Award and in 2017 the National Beef Checkoff awarded me the “Advocate of the Year” award — all awards for my work in consumer outreach through this blog site and corresponding social media on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

In January of 2017, we made the hard decision to close down our family owned cattle feedyard. Unsure of what I was meant to do next, I went to work for Progressive Beef, the quality management system for animal welfare and sustainability that we had used at our feedyard. For 3 and 1/2 years, I worked to improve animal welfare in feedyards across the Plains States. In 2020, God asked me to take a different turn in life. On April 30th, I “retired” from Progressive Beef to have more time to live out my faith through service. I volunteer as a youth small group leader and a coach when I am not working on our farm or filling in as a substitute teacher in our local public middle school.

This blog began in the spring of 2011 as a way for me to explain to my “city friends” about our cattle feedyard and the life that Matt and I were building on the farm. Over the course of close to a decade, I wrote posts on cattle welfare, caring for the environment, farming, and chronicling my life as a wife, a mom and a farmer. In 2018, God put on my heart to shift the blog and I began to write about my faith journey. The posts archived in the “Wednesday Wisdom” category are these faith writings. To date, I continue to write about the “doors and gates” that God opens and closes in my life.

Thank you for taking the time to visit! I pray that our stories of faith and farming are a blessing to you as you travel the journey!