When I was about 10 years old, my dad asked me if I could keep a secret. Toots was going to have a baby colt. I felt that keeping a secret was a high honor entrusted by my dad and me, and certainly obliged. A beautiful, long-legged, perfectly formed baby colt was born.
It was rare to leave the farm when I was growing up, but my dear, young father tried. One Sunday afternoon we drove through Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, about 60 miles north of our farm, and spotted a lone peacock calmly walking the path, dragging his beautiful plumage on the ground behind...
My first job in life was holding the cow’s tail while my mother sat on a wooden box and milked the cow. There was whole line-up of cows stanchioned in the barn waiting to be milked by my mom and dad. My dad had rigged up a wire stretched from one end of the barn to the other with little wire twists behind each cow for hanging up their tails, but I was still ordered to hold the tail ...
It had been nearly 20 years since I had last visited, yet I felt so at home. The revival of this brand has drawn me so close to the original Harms Farms that I felt a sort of magnetic pull to go back and visit the place where it all began.
Similar to the inception of Harms Farms 2.0, what basically started out as an idea turned into a reality. A spontaneous road trip to visit my longtime friend, Guysen, in Eugene, Oregon, brought me within striking distance of the farm, which was a mere three-hour drive away. The day before my planned departure back home ...
