There are 5 in our family and we work, study and play together. We started our little ranch in 1996, we purchased our first chicks! Then came a little Nubian/Alpine which led to our purebred Nubians, which led to a Great Pyrenees livestock guardian, and you can see it has grown from there!! We still are in the growing planning stages, we would like a place with more land ( Texas would be great, but since we are in New Mexico now and Dad’s job feeds everyone, we are looking here too!) Plus we want horses…. So who knows where God will lead us in the future, we just know one thing: It will be an exciting trip. We are currently leasing some of our Nubians to a couple of loving families to give us some time off from twice a day milkings.

Now if you want to be bored to death with the detail, keep on reading if not just go back home and you can see our great links! Don’t Miss the Craft Corner (we are trying to earn money, us girls (a horse) and our brother ( motorcycle or ATV), although he will be happy with a horse!

Now here is the story of the beginning of our little ranch:

I fell in love with animals when I was a little girl, {about 6},I had rabbits, cats, dogs, chickens, guinea pigs, and ducks. I loved them all and was heartbroken if I lost any of them. Yet despite everything my heart tug was always having children and a ranch.

When I met our James, my family had 2 dogs and a cat. James' family hadn’t had pets since he was a little boy (and then only outside). So he felt rather safe… We lived in the big city of Dallas, and I never thought to share my heart tug with James. We were young and in the city, right? By the time we were married for a year and had one dog and 3 cats.. We moved from the Great State of Texas, where our I grew up, to Nebraska, where my James grew up. Still 3 cats and one dog. We moved to Colorado 2 years before the first our first child was born, and because of our landlord we had to find a home for our beloved dog, Penny.

Fast forward to when my Merissa (now 16), was a baby. James and I started looking for land away from the city {My dream was taking shape and James grew up in a small town, so it was a definite joint venture} 2 years later when Marc (14) was born they were still in Denver, but itching to move. We were ready for a dog again, so when James saw his first Great Pyrenees in the back of a pickup, he described it to her and she looked it up in the dog books, it was a livestock guardian {hmm, great for a ranch}, great with kids, a good family dog, very gentle, but also protective.. A few weeks later they were off to meet an amazing woman named Snowy Davis, little James know that trip would alter the course of his life {or at least fuel it!} When we got there the pups were wonderful sure enough, but what I found even more amazing: Snowy weaved and spun wool! I found you could raise sheep, and rabbits, for… WOOL! That was the link I had been needing. We could do it right at home, {we intended to home school}.. We didn’t get a pup at that time but I devoured every book on livestock, sheep, rabbits, angora goats, I could find, and 6 months later we bought our first Great Pyrenees in January of 1993, Tantonka, a big white loving babysitter. At that time we were on our way to New Mexico. Tonka bonded to our family very well, he was our friend and guardian. So we now had a guardian and 2 children, Merissa and Marc, and 1 1/4 acres, we were on our way. This part of the story ends around September of 1993.

We fast forward again, we land at 1995 briefly when we had a wonderful blessing added to our family, our youngest daughter, Caitlyn joined us. In 1997 , the kids and I loved driving out in the county. We drove up a local highway, and a sign caught our eyes, ‘Dairy Goats’, so of course we stopped and I quickly discovered you could milk goats, Caitlyn and I were both allergic to cows milk, so 2 weeks later we had our first baby goat, she was a Nubian-alpine accident with cute airplane ears. We were on our way.

Then in 1999 God set us on our path of herd ownership, at a goat show we finally found our foundation stock, thanks to the help of Carole Southwick of Sunny-Haven Nubians. She was in the process of retiring and helped us get an awesome start, just look at our Nubians, we even have some beautiful goats from Blue Thunder of Canada again thanks to Carole, she has been such a good friend and help in our learning process, her knowledge, goats, and friendship has definitely been God sent! At that time we decided to get a Livestock Guardian, our foundation female, Sequoiah. The neighbor’s dog had been eating our chickens for several months no matter what we tried and our pet Pyr, wouldn’t let him hurt the children, but he didn’t seem to interested in protecting the chickens! As Sequoiah grew we were amazed at how she just knew what to do, of course she did have her moments, and like all dogs, , we did have train her to a certain extent. But she was wonderful and when she was about 8 months old, our beloved Tantonka died at just 7 1/2 years. At that time we found out that livestock guardians live a longer and more productive life when they are guarding in pairs . So about 3 months later, when our hearts were starting to heal, we found Force and knew he would be our foundation male!

We use herbs instead of medicines as much as possible. And raise all of our animals as naturally as possible.

If you know anyone that uses CB radios, check out Dad’s Gorilla CB antenna, he designed built and tested it himself.

Now sit back and click around. Email Us if you have any questions…