Happy Starts Here

Dad always said that farming is not a job, it's a lifestyle.  My siblings & I grew up that way, rural living, raising raising cattle and hogs and hay on many thousands of acres through the years.  The family has gone through countless changes since then but one thing has remained--our love of nature and the desire to live our lives deeply connected to her beauty & abundance.   

 

My parents came to Canby in 2015.  Our Aunt & Uncle had lived here for decades, and Dad had always loved the the many farms & gardens in the area.  They bought the first property when it was little more than a brush pile & 14 acres of blackberry bushes. A few years later, Dad's relentless drive for improvement had transformed the property, but a trip to the doctor in 2018 revealed metastatic prostate cancer & the subsequent treatment left him weak, exhausted and depressed. 

 

My husband, kids & I left Central Oregon & moved to the farm to be a help to my parents.  Dad was hardly able to walk then and every day was a reminder of all that had been lost in the past few months.  Dad had gone from driving tractor and hauling hay to hardly able to walk across the yard. 

 

One day while talking in the barn about a friend's cattle, Dad showed a spark--maybe we should get some cattle again he said.  The smaller cattle would be great on the farm, and they'd give us a project to work on together.  

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A few weeks later we purchased our first small herd of Lowline Angus and Over the Moon Farms was born.  Over the next year, Dad went from unable to get on the tractor to feeding the cattle twice a day & riding the fields on his 4-wheeler to check the calves. We bought another group of cattle from Eastern Oregon and added them to the herd.

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A year later we leased the neighboring property and Dad set to work once again clearing brush and putting up fences.  In April 2020, we purchased the new property and began a massive rehab of the long-neglected 1912 farmhouse.  The Lowline Angus herd continued to grow and we sold beef, eggs, & poultry at the local Farmer's Market and through our website.  Along the way we began selling other hand made Oregon products from some of our favorite makers, and have even made a few of our own.  

 

In the early morning of August 28, 2021, Dad left this world.  What an incredible blessing to have shared a life with him, and now we work to gather our bearings as we begin to look toward the future of Over The Moon Farms.  

 

Dad and I often spoke how we might share this property with our local community, and our efforts to do so continue in his memory.  Please continue to follow our journey and as always, thank you so very much for supporting your local farming community.