It's Nice to "Meet" You!

Hiiii friends! I am so excited to be writing my first post for theRanches'Wives! I thought for my first post, I better tell a little more about my family and I.

I grew up in Lima, MT and in 2010 my parents relocated to Teton Valley, ID for their work. That’s where my husband Jesse and I’s story started. I met Jesse, in high school after we moved to Idaho. No….we weren’t high school sweethearts, but we were best friends. Every once in a while, I would go over to his house to see all the baby calves and after we graduated in 2013, we became inseparable. We ended up only dating for only 11 months before he put a ring on my finger and 2 weeks after we were engaged, we found out we were expecting our first child. We got married on August 23, 2014 on a beautiful rainy day here in Teton Valley. After that, Jesse continued helping on the ranch while I worked full time at a bank in town. Our oldest daughter Brinley was born in February 2015. For the rest of 2015, we lived in MT working on a few different ranch outfits, learning new things and trying to decide what we wanted to do.

Jesse and I moved back to Teton Valley at the end of 2015. When we moved back, we had no plan and no idea of where we were going in life, but we knew we wanted to be on the ranch doing what we loved. We built our house on the ranch in the spring of 2016 and during this time, Jesse was working in excavation and I was working part time at an interior design store. After Jesse worked 10 hours days, he would come home and work on the ranch till dark and I would help out where I could.

Everything changed for us in the fall of 2017 though. We had just welcomed our sweet little Ty James to the family and that’s when Jesse and I knew we needed to make a change so both of us could be full time on the ranch.

I remember it like it was yesterday. We were sitting at our kitchen table when I asked Jesse why we weren’t selling our beef. He replied, “We are, but only a few wholes per year to bring in some extra cash.” Right then, my brain started going a million miles an hour so I said “Why can’t we do it bigger and sell grass fed beef and provide anything from individual packages to a whole beef for locals here in the valley?” I was honestly so nervous to hear what he was going to say, but like Jesse always does, he supported my wild idea and our business Crowfoot J Meats was born.

We have been selling grass fed beef for 3 years now and it’s been the biggest blessing in our lives. This year was a little wild for us though, in January, we welcomed our twins Maci and Jaxon to our family. They were born 7 weeks early and spent some time in the NICU, but they are doing great now. Once they were home, COVID hit us and we were honestly so scared it was going to hurt our business, but instead, it did the opposite. This year, we raised and sold about 40 beef, 10 pigs, 500 meat chickens, and 12 turkeys for meat. For this upcoming year (2021), we are projected to do 70 beef, 20 pigs, 750 meat chickens, and 20 turkeys!

I am so excited to share more about our ranch life, from the grass fed beef business to our cow calf operation and family adventures in future blog posts!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

-Amber-