[upbeat folk music]
- Hey boss, come on big girls!
- Inga: Just outside of Neillsville,
Haly and Joe are raising a family
and a herd of Murray Grey cattle
on the rolling hills of their family farm.
I came to meet Haly out in the pasture
to learn more about this unique beef breed
and to pick up some steaks for our cookout.
Hi, Haly! - Hi, Inga!
- Nice to see you guys. - Nice to see you;
I'm glad you're at the farm today.
- Thank you, and you have a little one with you today.
- Yes, this is Eden.
He's just about a year old.
- You know, I started out farming when I was this age.
I was on my dad's back,
that's how I learned how to do pasture,
so he's already learning probably.
- Yes, he is.
He takes in everything Mom does.
Hopefully, it's all good. - Good.
This is nice to be out here, seeing your family,
working with the cows in this beautiful valley.
This is how I want to spend my days.
This is why I farm.
- Yes, you've picked a great spot
and a great day to be out here to see our Murrays.
- These are beautiful cows.
This is the first farm I've been to with Murray Greys.
Can you tell me a little bit about them?
- Sure, so Murray Greys came from Australia,
probably in the early 1900s.
It was a cross between Angus and a Blue Roan Shorthorn.
They kept having the similar types of calves
that came out of it,
so that family kept breeding for that same look.
And here we are, however many years later,
and the Murray Grey's a recognized breed;
it's a breed that's known to do really well on pasture.
- They look in good condition.
- Yeah, they're coming out of winter well.
- I think sometimes people think,
"If I just have grass-fed cows,
they're gonna be a little bit under-conditioned."
People will tell me all the time,
"Oh, your cows are too skinny,"
but no, they're just grazing cows.
They're just not carrying any of that extra weight.
- Yes, and they're so much healthier for it.
I mean, better feet and legs, better overall body condition
when it comes to calving.
All those things are great.
- Inga: Why did you choose grazing?
- Haly: So we really wanted to do grazing
because it's just the lifestyle that we want to live.
We want to be outside in the pastures;
we're not interested in being in the barn all day,
and so that's the type of job that we want to have,
and so we kept trying to work our way
towards being able to do those daily tasks.
- So how did you find yourself becoming a farmer?
- Well, Inga, I did not grow up on a farm.
I grew up in northern Wisconsin,
where there really wasn't much farming at all,
but after high school, when people are thinking about
what do they want to do with their lives,
I put the things together that I really like to do,
which is I like to work with animals
and I love to be outside.
And so I started pursuing agriculture, the farming aspect,
and it lent myself to going to River Falls for animal science,
and I took a lot of internships out west,
in Wisconsin, on different types of cattle operations,
and lo and behold, I met my husband,
whose family had a farm in central Wisconsin.
And we got married,
and now we both get to work on the farm together
and raise our kids on the farm. - That's wonderful.
It's always great to hear about people
who didn't grow up farming that become farmers.
It's a wonderful story. - Yes.
I'm a big advocate of people trying things
for the first time,
especially when it comes to agriculture.
You know, I don't think that people should be afraid
to jump into those things
if they would like to have animals of their own.
I think it's something that anyone benefits from,
knowing where their food comes from.
- Sure, sure.
I've been really thinking a lot
just how important our local food systems are,
and you're direct marketing your beef.
You're able to provide this area with locally-raised beef.
Why is that important to you, to be able to do that?
- I think it's important for me
to have customers that I can partner with
that look at what we're doing on the land and find value in it.
- Right.
So if they're looking at the soil that we're building,
the land that we've taken out of row crop farming
to make into permanent pasture,
and to still produce a really tasty,
well-marbled steak off of that. - Yeah.
- Those are the folks that I'm really working with well
to help us continue.
'Cause Inga, we'll probably never be a large farm.
We just don't have the land base, so we had to decide,
do we either get big and go commercial farming,
or do we try to do something unique and direct market
and try and earn a living that way.
- Inga: Sure, yeah.
I love seeing these smaller family farms around Wisconsin.
I love that you can bring your kids out here to farm with you.
Have you ever tried farmers' markets at all?
What are your thoughts?
- I haven't tried farmers' markets
because I have three young kids,
and so, when I have three young kids,
it's hard enough for me to just get out of the house,
much less pack them up for a day at the farmers' market.
- Inga: For sure.
- Yeah, so I really want to spend my time outside
with the cattle doing what we love, doing what we do best.
I don't really think of myself as someone
that's probably a great marketer,
even though I value our product and how we do that.
But yeah, the time to take for farmers' markets
is just not something I'm looking for.
I'm looking more for folks to come to us,
looking more to sell directly off the farm
and directly to the producers through our processor.
- I think something that folks, if they're not farming,
they forget that when they go to the farmers' market
on a Saturday and they're strolling through,
that a lot of those folks have been up
since 2, 3 o'clock in the morning,
packing everything up to get to the farmers' market.
And I can imagine with young kids,
it's pretty difficult to be able to do that.
- Right, and for us, we're in central Wisconsin,
where we don't have any big metropolis nearby.
We'd be packing up to go probably at least an hour away
to get to the closest farmers' market
that would have a lot of customers.
- Right, right, so now it's just gonna be word of mouth.
- Yeah, exactly. - Well, that's great.
Well, I think it's an interesting breed.
I think that's a great selling point too,
and I love anything that's out here on grass.
That's how I grew up farming,
and I'm gonna continue to farm that way,
and hopefully your kids will be able
to continue farming that way as well.
- Hopefully.
We're the fifth generation on the farm,
and Eden and our other kids would be the sixth.
- I think he just agreed that he's gonna be a farmer, huh?
- I think so, I think so.
He's got a lot to say some days. [both laughing]
- Well, this is a great experience.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful farm
and your family with me today. - Perfect, thank you for coming.
- Well, I'm gonna grab some steaks,
and then let's head on down the road to get some green garlic.
[upbeat folk music]