Hello

Dad always said that farming is not a job, it's a lifestyle.  We grew up on a ranch, raising cattle and hogs and hay.  The family has gone through countless changes since then but one thing has remained--our love of nature and the desire to live our lives deeply connected to her beauty & abundance.   

 

My parents bought the original Canby farm in 2015 when it was little more than a junk pile & 14 acres of blackberry bushes. A few years later, Dad's relentless drive for improvement had transformed the neglected old farm, but a trip to the doctor in 2018 revealed metastatic prostate cancer & the subsequent treatment left him weak, exhausted and depressed.  My husband, kids & I left Central Oregon & moved to the farm to be a help to my parents.  Dad was hardly able to walk then and every day was a reminder of all that had been lost in the past few months.  Dad had gone from driving tractor and hauling hay to hardly able to walk across the yard. 

 

One day while talking in the barn about a friend's cattle, Dad showed a spark--maybe we should get some cattle again he said.  The smaller cattle would be great on the farm, and they'd give us a project to work on together.  A few weeks later we purchased our first small herd of Lowline Angus and Over the Moon Farms was born.  Over the next year, Dad went from unable to get on the tractor to feeding the cattle twice a day & riding the fields on his 4-wheeler to check the calves. We bought another group of cattle from Eastern Oregon and added them to the herd.​

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In 2019 we leased the neighboring property and Dad not only cleared the whole place of trash & blackberries but built a perimeter fence around all 13 acres to keep the cattle in.  The cancer continued to be a challenge but each day brought the gift of working with my dad and introducing our kids to the joys of farming.  

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In April 2020, we purchased the property and started a massive "down to the studs" rehab of the 1912 farmhouse you see above.  Our herd of Lowline Angus continued to grow and Dad & I shared visions of developing our own registered herd as we continued the massive task of making this long-neglected property a place to call home.

 

In August of 2021, Dad left this world, taking with him so much of the love and energy that had driven our efforts.  I continued running the farm mostly on my own with the occasional help from my brother, but it soon became apparent that without Dad's daily contribution, I could not keep up with the demands of family, work and the farm.

 

The following Spring I continued raising and selling cattle, while beginning to sell off a portion of the herd, until at last we were down to just a few bred cows and our registered Lowline bull.  That spring we had an unprecedented 12 bull calves born, one after the other.  My husband and I began hauling the sold animals to their new homes each weekend and soon I had buyers for all of the meat and cattle we had, leaving only the bull.   That summer, a small farm in Southern Oregon agreed to purchase the bull as well and our time with the Lowlines came to an end. 

 

It has been a challenging couple of years learning to live without Dad.  Thankfully, his essence still surrounds us owing to the countless beautiful plants and trees he left behind.  I am just now beginning to repair his fences and make new plans for the farm.  In 2023 we began The Lamb Experiment, taking on three bummer lambs from the farm up the road and in Spring of 2025 welcomed our first Over The Moon Farms baby lamb, a girl we are calling Angel, at least until a better name dawns.  She is adorable and we are delighted to continue developing our herd of black fine wooled sheep. We are also in the process of bringing back a small group of Lowlines from the same bull we sold to the folks in Southern Oregon, and are continuing to develop the farm into the beautiful place it deserves to be.

 

We still provide free range eggs, local hay, seasonal orchard produce and the periodic batch of custom farmed poultry, as well as grass fed lamb and various plants, seeds, starts and trees.  This spring we are planting a small field of bare root trees as I double down on my efforts to plant 10,000 trees in my lifetime.  The farm stand is still in the works and progress is moving along in fits and starts.  Limited campsites are also available seasonally.

 

Thank you for continuing to support our efforts to share this lovely place.