The Morning We Didn’t Expect
On a farm, new life is often bittersweet. This is just the reality of farming.
You love them from the very beginning — even while knowing they won’t be with you forever. You welcome them, care for them, protect them, all while understanding the role they will eventually play. They will one day be food on your table, sustaining your family. And still… you love them deeply anyway.
That reality doesn’t harden you. It softens you.
Our animals are more than livestock to us — they’re individuals we know and care for, like the ones we introduce in the animals we raise on our farm.
Some mornings on a farm begin exactly as planned.
Others begin with a surprise standing on wobbly legs, blinking up at the world.
When we walked out and found a little bull calf waiting on us, it took a second to process. We knew she was bred — she had been with a Black Angus bull in January when we got her — which put her due date somewhere around September or October. We didn’t expect him this soon.
Looking back, the signs were there. A few days before, she started showing subtle changes. We kept a closer eye on her, checked more often, watched more carefully.
Still… nothing prepares you for the moment you realize a new life has arrived overnight.
He was perfect. Tiny, sturdy, curious. The kind of cute that makes you stop what you’re doing and just sit with it for a minute. ❤️
Firsts Matter
The beautiful reality of farming:
This calf carries a quiet significance for us.
He was born in July, just months after we got the farm and brought his mama home. At the time, we believed she had been bred in January — which would have put his arrival much later — but it became clear she had come to us already bred.
That made him the first calf born on our new farm, and we raised him here for a year and four months.
That’s not a snapshot in time. That’s seasons — what daily livestock care actually looks like on a working farm.
We fed him through heat and cold. Rubbed his head. Watched him wobble as a calf, then grow steady and strong. We knew him — his habits, his temperament, his place in the pasture.
We enjoyed his presence the way you do when something good becomes part of your everyday life.
And yet… this is the reality of farming
The Part People Don’t Always Want to Talk About
The hard reality of farming:
He was born in July, right here on this farm, and we raised him for a year and four months before he went to slaughter.
That’s not a passing moment. That’s daily care, seasons changing, routines, feedings, fence checks, and watching him grow from a wobbly calf into a solid, healthy animal.
Tomorrow, he becomes food for our family. Saying goodbye is never easy, that is another reality of farming.
That sentence makes some people uncomfortable. It makes me pause, even after years of farming.
Because when you raise your food — when you care for it, protect it, feed it, and give it green pastures — you don’t stay disconnected.
You notice things.
You feel things.
You look at your food differently.
There is attachment.
There is respect.
There is gratitude.
Bittersweet by Design
Farming is not pretending that this part doesn’t exist.
It’s living in the tension of it.
We give our animals a good life.
They, in turn, sustain ours.
Both things can be true at the same time.
This is the reality of farming — not the sanitized version, not the romantic-only version, and not the cruel version people imagine. It is honest. It is intentional. It is deeply human.
Loving our animals doesn’t shield us from loss — the reality of farming includes days like the one we lost Ida Belle, a truth we carry into every decision we make.
Why We Keep Doing It: The Reality of Farming
Because knowing where your food comes from changes you.
Because raising animals this way demands responsibility, humility, and respect for life — not distance from it.
We don’t pretend this part is easy. We don’t rush it. And we don’t take it lightly.
We give our animals a good life, green pastures, care, and time.
They, in turn, sustain our family.
We eat easier knowing our food lived a good life — not a factory life — before becoming life‑sustaining nourishment.
Both truths live side by side.
This is farming — not sanitized, not romanticized, and not cruel. Just honest.
And on the bittersweet days especially, it reminds us why this work matters.
Welcome to the farm little one.
Thank you for sustaining our family.
You can read more stories from life on our farm here.
❤️
We share more of life like this — the good and the hard — over on our Kiser Ridge Farm Facebook page.
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