Spreadsheets & Pitchforks

I’m a mom. I’m a wife. A professional. Writer. And farmer. Those who know me know that I run on Jesus, horses, grace, and grit! Oh, and cows.

If anything, that might give you a glimpse as to my approach to life?

Writing has been a cathartic outlet throughout my life probably when perhaps a therapist could be warranted. I’ve used writing not just as a form of therapy, but for telling stories, blogging, and most importantly, I’ve learned that writing has become my testimony. That testimony is weaving my life’s experiences with the lessons I’ve learned throughout, and applying that to who I am, my priorities in life, and where I’m headed next both personally and professionally.

It’s rare that when I’m working, that I don’t think about some lesson or experience from life on the farm either growing up or now. And it’s rare that when I’m farming, that I don’t think about a client or experience from my professional life and how those both intersect into some sort of ah-ha moment. My ying and yang are apparently spreadsheets and pitchforks. I can’t do my professional life without one and I certainly can’t do my farm life without the other and I can’t do either without my faith.

So, welcome…

Welcome to Pine Ridge Farm and the story of how my husband and I decided to dig deep and keep the farming tradition going strong for perhaps another generation or so. I’m not entirely sure where this story will go. It’ll ebb and flow. And, I have no doubt that you too might experience that funny dichotomy that I mentioned earlier: the part about spreadsheets and pitchforks.

For those of you who don’t know: my Maiden name is Shetler. Yes, of the infamous Shetler Family Dairy clan of Kalkaska, also known as the “Shetler Dynasty” to others (so I’ve been told). I was intimately involved with the start up of that business, back when my parents only other option was to file bankruptcy and get out; all the way to the bitter end, 19 years later when my siblings and I had to wind down and sell off the operation after our parents both suddenly passed away just 8 months apart. My husband is from the infamous Olds Brothers family of Kingsley – yes, the one that’s best known for the County Commissioner grandmother with 10 kids. We both grew up as farm kids, milking cows, throwing hay bales, driving tractor, schlepping sap buckets, you name it.

And together, we just knew that we wanted our own kids to experience some of the same sans the dairy cows, that is. These farming roots run deep in our lives – at least 4 generations deep on my side and 5 generations deep on his side, that we know of. It just made sense to dive in headfirst. So, in 2015, we bought a dilapidated, 126-acre homestead steep with history that we’re bringing back to life as a working farm, a place for our kids to grow up, and a piece of this earth that we’re charged with taking care of. There are days where we feel like we’re excelling and there are others where we hang our heads and question why we ever thought to take this on.

Professionally, I’m a consultant and small business lender with a Michigan-based Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and my husband is a local land surveyor. Together, we have two fantastic kids, L and E, who consume our entire lives. And, in our spare time <insert cough>, we farm.

So, I hope you’ll follow along. Maybe laugh with us? Cry with us? I don’t know. But I’m excited to see where this goes with this journey that we’re on.