Beckstead Family - Custom Harvesters & Ranch Operators

For our next feature, please welcome Tana Beckstead and her family as they share with us their unique agricultural story! 

Our agriculture story is made up of Beckstead Harvesting LLC, Mount Oxford Ranch and Oxford Mtn. Ranch LLC. We are Doug and Tana Beckstead and our three children are, Wiley age 17, Savannah age 14 and Hazen age 8. 

We live in southeast Idaho in a small town called Swan Lake (about 45 miles south of Pocatello, Idaho and 45 miles north of Logan, Utah) along Oxford Mountain.

As a family we operate and manage two separate farm and ranch operations owned by different corporations and businessmen. Mount Oxford Ranch in Downey and Preston, Idaho is a cow/calf operation with 350 Black Angus beef cows and calves as well as alfalfa and irrigated grain crops. Oxford Mountain Ranch, LLC in Swan Lake, Idaho is a cow/calf operation with 100 head of Black Angus cows and calves as well as the alfalfa, irrigated grain crops and dry land grain and safflower. Our oldest son Wiley pretty much runs the Swan Lake place by himself - he does all the pipe moving, field work and runs the cattle on his own - with a little help from Grandpa Beckstead occasionally in the summer. All together we farm close to 4500 acres.

In addition to operating the two ranches we also started our own custom harvesting business as a family. Two years ago we purchased a John Deere 9560 combine and we custom cut grain crops for farmers in the local area. Our little business is growing and last year we were able to buy a semi and a grain trailer to haul grain. We also own about 10 good ranch horses and the kids like to participate in local rodeos and jackpots in the summer time. Our older children, Wiley and Savannah both got youth loans through our local FSA office and purchased their own Angus cows and heifers and raise them along with the bigger herds. The kids plan on attending college with the money they make from selling the calves.

Doug and I (Tana) have been married for 18 years and have been involved in agriculture our entire lives. I was born and raised on a small dairy and beef cattle operation in Downey, Idaho and was active in 4-H and FFA while growing up. I was the Marsh Valley High School Chapter FFA president in 1994 and the District FFA President in 1995. Doug started working for a dry farm in the Preston, Idaho area when he was in his early teens and grew to love every aspect of farming. He worked the dry land hills and fields with old D-4 caterpillar machines and John Deere hill side combines. His blood runs green and nothing compares to John Deere when it comes to farm equipment! 

A typical day for our family is long and busy! Right now it is summer time so there is a LOT of pipe moving going on and we are just finishing up 1st crop hay. Wiley takes care of the pipe at the Swan Lake place and Doug, Tana and Savannah move the pipe at Mount Oxford Ranch. (Our little Hazen likes to play in the water and get the end plugs for us-pretty soon he’ll be big enough to lift the pipe!) We work together every day as a family. YES, we all have to work on the ranch! Whether we are calving cows or doctoring or branding calves or cutting or baling hay or disking or drilling a field, we all have important jobs to do! Doug hires a part-time hand to help out in the summer at Mount Oxford Ranch and also hires on temporary help from January to April for calving and branding season, but for the most part we do it all as a family.

My favorite part of working and living on a ranch is getting to raise my kids here. There is no better way in my opinion than growing up and working on a farm or ranch! Our kids have learned the value of a hard day’s work and they are responsible, knowledgeable kids for that very reason. We get up early and go to bed exhausted, but I know my kids aren’t out making trouble or doing drugs or worse. 

We do like to have fun too! Our favorite time of year on the ranch is branding season. We make a big day out of the brandings and I cook a big meal and we make a party out of it. We have great friends that love to help us brand and we never have to pay them to help.

When our youngest son Hazen started Kindergarten they had to give him a test to see what level he was at and the teacher asked him a series of questions and one of the questions was “What are the four seasons of the year?”. Hazen answered just as cool as could be, “Well there is calvin’ season, brandin’ season, farmin’ season and huntin’ season!” The teacher thought that was the cleverest thing she had ever heard. In his world these are the seasons on the ranch. Our local FSA agent heard the story and has a poster hanging in her office with the Four Seasons by Hazen Beckstead.

The one thing I wish people could understand about our particular ranching and farming story is that just because we work for a corporation doesn’t mean the money for the ranch is just flowing free at our disposal. Many times we hear people say “You have it so easy because the owners just buy everything you need or you don’t have the stress because you don’t have to worry about the bottom line.”. This is so not the case! If anything we worry more about making things work and being in the “black” at the end of the year. Doug and I have to put together a yearly budget and operating expense account and we have to pencil out how things will work and run smoothly. If we are short or don’t pay off these expenses we have to answer for it at the end of the year. We run these ranches just like we would our own if we had our own ranch.

Thanks for the great feature Tana! Agriculturalist come in all shapes and sizes - just like you! If you or someone you know should be featured on Faces of Agriculture please contact us today! 

A Ranch Mom - Kay & Cliff

Please welcome Kay and Cliff as they share with us what it's like to live and work on cattle in Wyoming! 

Howdy folks! I'm Kay, from A Ranch Mom. I live with my husband and our 4 kids on a ranch in SE Wyoming. The ranch is located along Horse Creek. We run Black Angus cow/calf pairs. We are about 25 miles from the nearest town, so I've learned how to keep milk in the fridge! But we enjoy living out here, away from the city. We are too busy to get bored! My husband (Cliff) and I both grew up primarily in the Midwest. We had been married 5 years when we loaded up our horse trailer with a few household items and one horse, and moved to Pueblo, CO, where we learned to do care on yearling cattle. We moved to WY 6 years ago, and really enjoy life here.

I home school our children - they love to finish early and go play outside! They spend a lot of time playing down by the creek or riding their bikes. They are also great helpers with the chores, and they enjoy riding with their dad when he moves cattle. We believe that ranch life is a great way to raise kids - they learn hard work, responsibility, neighborliness, and so much more.

We usually calve out heifers in late winter. We keep them in corrals close to the calving barn, so they can be taken inside during the brutal winter storms we get here. The heifers get checked every 2 hours around the clock. That takes a lot of time, as you might imagine! Sometimes they have some trouble, and then Cliff has to pull the calf. After the heifers are done calving, the main herd of mama cows start calving in early spring. We just leave them in the fields, but keep them close to the ranch headquarters. They get fed hay and 'cake', which is cow feed in the form of large, pressed pellets. They generally have easy births, and take care of their babies, unlike the first-time heifers, who sometimes don't know what to do with their babies.

After calving is spring branding. This is my favorite part of ranch life! There is a lot of ranches around here, and whenever we have a branding, there's plenty of neighbors to help out. Even so, it takes 3 days of branding to get them all done. Then we go help the neighbors when it's their turn to brand. I don't help a lot with the branding - I'm too busy cooking for the cowboys and taking photos. Summer is haying time...or at least it was until the drought hit last year. Summers here are quite lovely - temps don't top 90 too often, and there's usually a breeze. I enjoy gardening, and working in the yard in the summer. In the fall we gather the cattle, process them, and sell the calves.

Cliff and I own a small leather business, CK Custom Leather, which we do on the side. Cliff makes custom saddles, tack, and chaps. I weave traditional mohair cinchas. We do have a Facebook page for our business.

Most people don't realize how committed you need to be when you live and work on a ranch. The cows don't stop eating, drinking or getting sick on weekends. They never heard of holidays, either! You have to enjoy this lifestyle to put in the time and energy that it takes. But watching a new baby calf begin to breathe after a rough start, or watching the sunrise through the trees, or roping a steer - makes it
all worthwhile.

Thanks so much for the great feature Kay! Be sure to follow along with Kay and her ranch life over on her blog - A Ranch Mom. You can also check out the page for their custom leather shop - CK Custom Leather. 

Remember - if you or someone you know would like to help spread awareness about agriculture and the real people behind the cows and combines (and everything else as well!), please contact us today to learn how! YOU could be the next Face of Agriculture! 

My November Column

Every month I write a column for the Dakota Farmer magazine.  I've really enjoyed writing it over the last couple years.  Last months column was pretty special for me.  I've had several people tell me that this has been their favorite article I've written.  Take a look and tell me what you think.


Click here to see the magazine article.

The cable news channel CNN ran a story on their website this summer that raised the question “Does 4-H desensitizes kids to killing?”.  As a former 4-H member for 13 years and the parent of a first year 4-H member this certainly caught my attention.  Over the course of those 13 years I spent countless hours leading, washing, combing and clipping on calves.  I did everything I could to make them as comfortable and healthy as possible.  So how could anyone ever believe that this somehow desensitizes kids?  

According to the story, some believe that 4-H helps desensitize youngsters into having no emotional attachment to animals raised for food.  A few of the commenters even tried to claim that this was some grand conspiracy by the meat industry to keep them in business.  Apparently by forcing these kids to sell their livestock to be processed somehow turns them into greedy, uncaring people and will lead to a life of mistreating the animals in their care.  

The truth of the matter is that it teaches kids about responsibility and how life works and is sustained.  We just capped off our 4-H year with a trip to Rapid City, SD for the Western Junior Livestock Show.  It’s a tremendous show that our son was very excited to be part of.  For his first year in 4-H he decided to show a bred heifer named Morgan.  All summer and through the fall he learned how to care for his calf.  He probably put a hundred miles on his bike just going back and forth to the barn to check on her.  In the end his hard work paid off when he proudly marched his well-behaved heifer into that show ring with a grin on his face.  

While we were at the show I tried to figure out how all of the hard work each one of those kids had put in that summer could somehow be a bad thing?  I didn’t see any desensitized kids.  What I saw were hard working, polite young people, working with their families and their fellow 4-Her’s to learn responsibility and proper livestock care.  

I also couldn’t help but think what a better place our world may be if every kid had a “Morgan” in their life for just one summer.  Morgan will be in our herd for the next several years but like every cow on the ranch her time will come to an end.  However, the lessons she taught our son will last forever and for that I’m grateful.  

Farmers Union Partners with HSUS in Nebraska

HSUS tries a new approach in Nebraska

October 18, 2011 By Ken Anderson 6 Comments

Is the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) changing its strategy in regards to state-by-state ballot initiatives?

At a news conference in Lincoln Tuesday, the HSUS joined the Nebraska Farmers Union (NeFU) in announcing the formation of an advisory body called the Nebraska Agriculture Council of The Humane Society of the United States.

Chief among the new council’s goals will be creating market opportunities for farmers and ranchers who want to market “humanely-raised” meat and poultry products.  Officials of both groups say the council will also “facilitate a dialogue with individual farmers, ranchers and the organizations that represent them.”

NeFU president John Hansen says that, as part of their agreement to work with HSUS on the project, the animal rights organization has assured him that it will not pursue an animal welfare ballot initiative in the state.

But other Nebraska ag and livestock groups, who have been girding for battle with HSUS, were not impressed with the announcement.  Pete McClymont of Nebraska Cattlemen, who is president of the We Support Agriculture coalition, says they are “shocked and disappointed that any Nebraska ag group would align itself with an extreme animal rights organization such as HSUS.

“It is disturbing that somebody would reach out to groups that want to eliminate, if not restrict, animal agriculture like the animal rights groups,” McClymont says.     Read More

It's hard to fathom that anyone in agriculture would be willing to trust what HSUS has to say.  It's also hard to understand why a group like Farmer's Union would turn against some family farmers by claiming that they don't raise their cattle humanely.  HSUS doesn't own the right to declare what is humane and what isn't and for a group like Farmers Union to sell their soul to work with them shows an incredible lack of leadership and backbone.  It's an apparent desperate attempt to legitimize themselves at the expense of their neighbors.  If they were truly interested in this subject they would have worked with the other ag groups in Nebraska rather than the group that has declared war on all types of animal agriculture.  

Animal Rights Group Allowed Abuse to Continue

Games over Indonesian animal cruelty videos cost animals' lives

EXCLUSIVE by Simon Benson

From: The Daily Telegraph

June 17, 2011

ANIMAL rights groups withheld film evidence of shocking animal cruelty in Indonesian slaughterhouses from the government for three months - before launching a major publicity campaign.

The RSPCA said it had considered the "ethical" dilemma of refusing the government access to the footage until the ABC's Four Corners highlighted the abuse two weeks ago, and admitted its actions meant thousands of animals would continue to be slaughtered between the time it discovered the brutal killings and when the footage was finally made public.

But the RSPCA said it feared the government would have done nothing had it been shown the footage earlier.    Read More

As has been the case with so many undercover videos filmed by animal rights activists, their political motivations were more important than actually stopping the abuse.  For months they were aware of this cruelty yet refused to inform authorities about it.  And now their solution is to end live exports, not how to improve facilities that handle the cattle or better training for those that work in them.  This is like ending the production of cars to prevent traffic accidents.  Their true motivation is to eliminate animal agriculture which explains their actions.  -TH

Farm American's 2011 Debut

I was very honored when the Furniture Row Racing team asked me to announce the date of the 2011 debut of the Farm American car!  But first, here's a rundown of the past weeks activities.  And if you haven't heard of the Farm American project you can learn more about it here.

This past week has been a whirlwind of exciting news about Farm American.  Earlier in the week it was announced that Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizer has become the first official financial sponsor for the program.  This third-generation family business based in Michigan is rooted in the same values and has the same commitment to family farmers and ranchers as the Furniture Row team does.  It's going to be a great partnership!

Having the Agro team come on board this week also reminded many of us about why this program is so important.  It's been designed to directly connect farmers and ranchers with consumers.  It doesn't include some quasi-celebrity delivering a canned message that nobody believes.  We are our own best spokespeople and that exactly who consumers want to meet.

Even the team owner Barney Visser was re-inspired by everything that's been happening lately.  Because of that he has decided to personally donate another race to the Farm American schedule.

So....the 2011 debut for Farm American will be at Texas Motor Speedway on April 9!!


I want to personally thank Barney and the entire team at Furniture Row for their unwavering dedication to America's farmers and ranchers.  I've never witnessed an organization with no ties to agriculture dedicate themselves so fully to helping tell our story.

Talking Agriculture with Mike Rowe

Last weekend Stacy and I had the privilege of meeting with Mike Rowe.  If you haven't heard of Mike you've probably been living under a rock for the past six or seven years.  He's practically become the face of the Discovery Channel with his hit show Dirty Jobs and along the way he's also become the face of the American worker. 

Through his experiences doing Dirty Jobs across the country he's come to realize and appreciate that everything we have is either grown or mined from the earth.  Along with that his appreciation for the people that do that work has grown.

Out of that the mikeroweWORKS.com website was born.  It's a site dedicated to educating people about the importance of skilled trade workers, including farmers and ranchers.  Through that Mike happened to find my youtube video where I dumped a bottle of Yellow Tail wine on the frozen ground to tell people that they had made a donation to the world's wealthiest animal rights group, the Humane Society of the United States. 

Our work with the Farm American project also caught Mike's eye and they featured a blog post of mine about the program on their site.  When it turned out that we were all going to be in Atlanta at the American Farm Bureau Federation meeting we were able to finally meet in person. 

Mike and his team were very interested to hear about our efforts to advocate for agriculture, including our work with the Farm American program.  Mike gets a lot of requests to be spokesman.  In fact he was the most sought after spokesman in the world in 2010.  His name has been thrown around many times in the world of agriculture as someone that would be a great spokesman for our industry.  But Mike can wisely see that we don't need a single spokesman, we need lots and lots of advocates for agriculture.  Mike isn't an expert in food production, not the way that farmers and ranchers are.  So while he is certainly willing to help share the story, ultimately we are the ones that need to be doing it. 

Mike also highlighted the efforts of the Farm American program as a great way for farming and ranching families to spread their message.  He was impressed by the unselfish efforts of Furniture Row to start the program because it was the right thing to do, not as a way to pay for a race team.  When you explain to someone all of the things we could do with Farm American to tell the story of agriculture it starts sounding too good to be true.  One look at the race car proves the intentions of Furniture Row though.  There's not a single mention of Furniture Row on the car.  That really caught the attention of Mike as it has with so many others. 

We are really looking forward to a continued partnership with Mike and his team at mikeroweWORKS.com to tell the story of agriculture.  Mike is a genuine guy who was a pleasure to meet and visit with.  He's certainly a friend of every hard working American and as he put it, a big fan of "chewing and swallowing".  It was a real pleasure to spend a few hours "chewing and swallowing" with him last week. 

You've heard me telling you to be an advocate for agriculture, now hear it from Mike Rowe.

Free Estate Planning Webinar

I posted an article a few weeks ago talking about estate planning and the personal responses I got back were great.  There's no doubt in my mind that this is one of the most difficult things that farming and ranching families have to deal with.  It's also one of those things that an expert must be used to complete. Finding that expert to guide your family along the estate planning path is hard.  

Stacy and I have found that expert and have developed a partnership with him to help bring the best estate planning tool to you. Randy McKee, is a nationally recognized expert on guiding farming and ranching families through this difficult process.  He's South Dakota born and raised, has a passion for agriculture and mostly, he has a passion for helping families in agriculture. 

Because of the interest that so many of you have, including me, on this topic Randy has graciously scheduled a free webinar to talk about some of the sucessful strategies he's developed for families to use.  Everything from dealing with family relationships (good and bad) to learning the pieces of an estate plan will be discussed. 

Please take advantage of this unique opportunity.  All the details on how to register for this free webinar are posted below. 

Your friend in ag,

Troy


A quality estate plan can literally save your place (farm) from negatives such as estate taxes, family fights, legal losses and uninsured losses.


During this short, 45-minute seminar you will learn why it is so important to take care of estate planning. We will also introduce the most effective tool available today - specifically designed to educate and motivate farm and ranch families to get that estate planning work completed. This is the national webinar premier for this program and you are sure to learn some valuable strategies and enjoy the content.

Title: "Persuading The In-Charge Generation To Do Estate Planning"

Date: Thursday, January 13, 2011

The webinar will be offered at: 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM EST and  8:00 PM - 9:00 PM MST

Register now by clicking the link below:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/983080825

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.