Farm and Ranch Living December 2016 - January 2017

FLIP THROUGH this issue and you’ll notice a familiar theme: It’s the happy-holiday issue. Craig Laubach, our winter story winner for the Favorite Time of Year contest, gets to the heart of the season by quoting his father: “See how much joy, peace and life a Christmas tree gives to a family? … Farming is as close as we can get to God creating life on Earth.” Craig reminisces about lessons learned from his father and the family Christmas tree farm on page 54. You’ll find random acts of Christmas scattered in many of the stories and photos on these pages. There’s the story about an unexpected visit from an angel in the guise of a long-distance trucker who brought joy to a grieving family. A barn, the Bible, some…

Prettiest Place in the Country What do you love about where you live? Gorgeous landscapes? Impressive barns? Colorful seasons? Big skies? Send us the story of your homestead with a couple of pictures, and it might be featured as Prettiest Place in the Country. Trucks We Love We love a ruggedly handsome farm truck as much as a tractor, a grain hauler as much as a people carrier—and even white-glove-only restoration projects. Submit your truck stories with a few pictures, and be sure to include before-and-after or action shots. What’s Your Job? Americans are going “back to the land” in droves to make a living and raise a family on farms and ranches. We’ve highlighted niche crop farms, barn painters, and CSA farms providing food to city dwellers. Send in…

Our ranch, Black Velvet Bison, is about 300 miles northwest of Edmonton, in Alberta, Canada. We don’t allow hunting on our ranch, and we feed as many of the animals as we can. All of that means we have a lot of wildlife around here, especially in the winter. Because I’m getting older, we have only about 50 bison left, mostly pets that we raised by hand over the years. It’s a quiet life, but we believe the animals are important, and we treat both the tame and wild ones with respect.…

I HAVE HUNDREDS of fond childhood memories from my parents’ farm near Granville, Ohio. More than a few revolve around sledding on the hill in front of the barn whenever a few inches of fresh snow blanketed the farm in white. Those years performing silly stunts on sleds with my brothers were a lot of fun, and I cherish them. Thankfully, I can share those memories and create new ones on the very same hill with my daughters Miranda, 5, and Sarah, 3.…

“You have been handed a gift,” the fortuneteller said, “and with this gift you can help a lot of people.” While on a business trip to England in 1995, Dennis Thompson and his late wife, Cindy, spotted a gorgeous black-and-white stallion standing in a field. They soon found themselves involved in an odyssey that changed their lives forever. Within two years they’d introduced a new breed of horse, the Gypsy Vanner, to North America and established the Gypsy Gold Horse Farm. The story of the Gypsy Vanner horse in North America begins at the Thompsons’ picturesque farm, located off a dirt road in the Horse Capital of the World, Ocala, Florida. The farm boasts 40 acres of land covered in Spanish moss-laden oaks, as well as a 14-stall show barn…

My grandparents’ farm is located just west of Seymour, Indiana, in the small town of Cortland. I have fun every time I visit. Their house was built in 1898, and there are always things for me to do. I woke up as the grandfather clock chimed six. Then I remembered I was at the farm for a whole week! P-pa was asleep in his recliner, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. (I call my maternal grandparents P-pa and Grammie.) I decided to get to the chores right away. There was no need to wake P-pa, so I was extra quiet. I figured I’d just go let the chickens out and come back in. I got dressed and tiptoed out of the house. When I stepped outside, I stood still and…