I took a lot of pictures during my visit to Pure Foods Colorado, a family-run ranch in Peyton, CO. You’ll have to forgive me if most of them are of a baby cow. You would be surprised how charming baby cows are!
Could you turn your camera away? I couldn’t.
I was reminded of a visit I made out there in August 2014 while talking with Yosef, of Ahavah Farm.
“We have really great neighbors, Brian and Katelynne,” he mentioned.
“Oh!”, I exclaimed, narrowing my eyes and searching my memory. “I think I visited them once.”
“Yeah, Katelynne said they know you. She said, ‘Bonnie was going to write an article about us, but I don’t think she ever did’.”
I’m embarrassed to tell you, dear reader, that it’s true. This can happen when a person’s attention is constantly being pecked at by rogue chickens. Honestly, I just can’t believe I forgot to write about the baby cow. But it’s not too late! Even if the baby cow is now a full grown adult cow, Pure Foods Colorado is right where it was in August and I can revisit that pleasant day in an article
“Get on with it,” says the baby cow. “Tell the story before naptime!”
Brian and Katelynne Hall used to live a different kind of life. Though Brian grew up around farmers in California, he became a commercial pilot as an adult, working first for an airline and later in corporate aviation. Pilots can make a good living, but, as you can imagine, it’s a job that takes you away from home a lot.
There it is, the big blue sky. Does it call you to travel? Or does it make you love your place that much more?
In the end, that kind of life wasn’t really what they wanted for themselves and their children. They bought their land in Peyton in 2005 and began living an agricultural life.
In addition to adorable baby cows, they also raise these unusually clean goats and a few chickens.
Today, they raise food for the family in the form of vegetables, eggs, meat and milk. The food extends into the community. You can buy their pastured beef, their cow and goat milk and their organic chicken feed for your own family. They gave me a jar of their delicious raw milk to try. It was just what you would expect from cows raised peacefully on pasture and milked by hand in a clean, quiet milking parlor… creamy and gone long before the store-bought milk next to it in the refrigerator.
Katelynne mentioned how rewarding it is to raise food for her family and that they’ve done this together. Brian is home now to work alongside Katelynne and their children.
“The broader community aspect is very attractive,” added Brian. “We know we’re part of the whole.”
After visiting the barns, we got to see the pastures and the big cows.
I remember enjoying this tour a lot. Pure Foods Colorado was the first of several farms I’ve seen that are run by families dedicated to making a simpler way of life. They spend time together, rely on each other and their own hard work and teach their children what it means to be part of a community. They have clear ideas about kindness to animals and using the land with respect. They face the life and death struggles which are always on the surface of a farm with strength and equanimity.
I’m glad they’re out there, showing us all that we’re not trapped in an impersonal rat-race world, with their clean food, their pioneering spirit … and their baby cows.
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©Hungry Chicken Homestead 2015
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