Hi I’m Mike, have you ever wished you could visit us here on the ranch?
See the animals, the sites and yes even the smells?
Well beginning today you can and we are going to talk about 3 ways you can do that and give
away a year long membership to 1 of those ways , its all today as we visit, our Wyoming
life.
Welcome back, over the last three years or so here on YouTube and other social media,
the biggest question and request we get is how can I visit the ranch?
Up until now there really wasn’t a good way to do that.
Of course anyone can stop by and visit the farm store while its open, and you can drive
by, and wave and honk, but the chance to spend time on the ranch was pretty limited.
Trust me we tried.
We have had well meaning folks stop by and we’ve given tours and spent hours with them,
but eventually though that became something that wasn’t really feasible.
Imagine having vistors everday at work, who wanted to hang out, get a tour of your office
and the building and meet all your coworkers.
You know as well as I do, that you wouldn’t get much done, and that’s kind of what happened
around here, almost every day.
So we decided to lock down the ranch over the winter.
We had really no visitors, people that came to the farm store, that’s what they got
to experience, the farm store and we concentrated our efforts on finding a way to allow people
to experience the ranch life, without disrupting it.
I’ve been asked by many, why bother?
And in reality that is a good question.
We decided to put ourselves out there on social media for two reasons, one was to ensure the
continuation of the ranch.
The income required to keep the ranch going was more than it was making, we had to diversify
our incomes and taking our skills and use them to help the ranch exist and keep existing
in to the future.
For those that came before us and for those that will come after.
Another reason that we learned we are doing this is to help agriculture as a whole.
Through the years, agriculture has become a forgotten child of America.
Once upon a time, we all knew how important it was, but now, as long as we have a cell
phone in our pocket and working internet we are happy.
Not much thought is given to where your food comes from.
People are angry over farm subsidies that they don’t even understand how they work.
They have preconceived notions that ranchers and farmers don’t care about their animals,
or even the consumer that eats the food that comes from the ranch.
We over the last few decades have watched the separation grow, and farmers and ranchers
are just as much to blame.
We became resentful, we adopted the mentality that if they don’t care about us, we don’t
care about them and a wound was allowed to continue to fester.
Everybody is looking for someone else to blame.
Cow farts, Organic foods, GMO’s, Subsidies, The Government, roundup, vegetarians, deforestation,
monocultures, subdivisions, and of course kale.
I have heard, been emailed, and called about every single issue that you can think of,
from every political party and belief.
But the one thing that I know, is that every one of those people that feel that way, are
just that people.
So over the past years I haven’t been studying issues or trends, I have been studying people.
And I do believe that most people have a need to understand.
Some of the most interesting people that I have met and had conversations with through
our Wyoming Life, came through the fact that we are different.
We are all different.
And its because of that fact that we not only wanted to show people online and in videos
what we do to help feed people, yes with meat, cows and pigs, chickens and other livestock,
as well as the tons of produce that comes off the farm each year but we also found it
very important to allow people to visit and see for themselves.
You never feel closer to something than when its all around you.
So we spent the last 2 years getting ready for this very day, we had the help of friends
to clean and remodel and redesign so that we could welcome people to the ranch.
To start with, we have three ways of doing that.
The first and most exciting for me is the farm house.
Construction on this house began with the very first homestead on the ranch, a small
basic shack, that now has become just a portion of this house.
Its been added onto over the years since and now stands as a three bedroom testament to
what this ranch has become in the last 100 years.
In
the past we have rented it out to those
that have come and
gone but from here forward we would like to consider this house as a guest house for those
who want to experience the ranch life for themselves.
Beginning today you can go to our website, ourwyominglife.com and click on book your
stay to take a look at availability of the house, the income generated from it will not
only keep the heat running and the power flowing but it will also be put right back into preserving
the house itself.
I have done of a ton of work getting it to the point it is now and spent way more money
than I planned but we still want to continue to fix it up, we would like to replace the
windows, add another bathroom and paint or reside it.
This house is living history on the ranch and soon, you will help make that history,
and we are really proud to offer it to you.
Another way to visit the ranch, takes place in only October, but if you are a hunter this
may be right up your alley.
We are now offering antelope hunts exclusively to our subscribers and fans of our Wyoming
life.
These hunts can be with you and up to 5 of your friend and are coordinated by our family
and friends, the Hunters from California who you may have met before.
These guys came to me with not only an idea but a way to implement that idea and now if
you go to our website and click on the hunting tab, you will be put in touch with one of
them, who will help you plan your hunt and explain the entire process to you.
There is a cost involved and a short application process but in the end you have a free pass
on the ranch, permission to explore and even if you don’t get an animal, I have had plenty
of hunters say the experience is worth it no matter what.
The final way, for today, that you wan visit the ranch is through a company called harvest
hosts.
You can head on over to their website and the basic gist of their program is that if
you are in a camper or RV you can find interesting and free RV camping locations.
A few of those are located right here on the ranch.
All you have to do is be a harvest host member and give us a call for a reservation.
Its that simple.
Also the folks at harvest host have actually given me a free membership to their program
to give away, so if you are an RVer and you would like to be entered in to win a free
one year membership to harvest hosts, all you have have to do is make sure you are subscribed
to Our Wyoming Life and comment below that you would like to join harvest hosts.
Catch us for our livestream on Sunday night on the beyond the ranch channel and we will
announce our winner there.
So there you go, we want people to be able to experience the ranch life.
Maybe coming and visit will be a once in a lifetime adventure, or maybe your going to
Yellowstone anyway and a one day stop is in your future, who knows.
All we know is that those of us in agriculture can’t afford to lock anyone out, and no
matter what your background, we would be honored to have you be a part of Our Wyoming Life.