Focused on pasture and forest raised meats, using responsible practices, allowing the animals to live as close to their natural instincts as possible. While neither my wife or I come from a farming background, we did have elements of it in our upbringing. After he passed away, he willed the land to each of his children; each getting five acres. My family raised cows, goats, vegetables, and a small fruit orchard. I was fortunate enough for us to be right beside my uncle, who had a strong homesteading streak. He used every bit of his five acres to raise animals and vegetables. I’ll always remember playing in his corn fields, eating turnips & tomatoes straight from the garden, and having watermelon seed spitting contests with my cousins. As well as chasing his pigs when they would escape but boy the bacon & hams from his smokehouse were incredible! After years of military service and living in urban or semi-rural areas, we dreamed of eventually having enough land “in the country” to have a small farm. A farm with enough room to do what we wanted in agriculture on a scale that fit our context. This dream evolved to have more meaning over the years as we lost family members to cancer; especially after I lost both an older brother and my mother within six months of one another. My mother actually succumbed to the exact type of cancer that took my father 20 years previously. This loss is what led us to want to better understand what we were eating and what effects it had on our bodies. Learning more about the industrial food system in the US, how it was structured, the poor treatment afforded animals being raised in it, the negative environmental consequences, and the almost sharecropper like treatment of producers, brought us to the conclusion that we needed to raise our own food and buy from local farmers what we couldn’t raise ourselves. That is the best way to truly know what is going into the plants and animals that we eat. Buying from other local farmers for the things we don’t raise ourselves also supports the rural economy that has seen tremendous stress over the last several decades. It is with the desire to remember my parents that we named our farm Lillian Lee Farm. Combining the names of both my mother and father so that not a day goes by that we aren’t reminded of the values and character they instilled in me growing up. As well as the love shown to my wife when she was welcomed into the family. We have two grown sons, both of whom chose to serve in the military. The oldest is a UH-1Y Venom pilot in the Marine corps and the other is an officer is the Coast Guard. We also have an unofficially adopted daughter who serves as a first responder. We look forward to having grandchildren joining us on the farm at some point in the future.
