Stories

"I grew up in a small village in Mexico and was raised by my grandparents. My grandpa counted on me the most because we raised animals and he trusted me to take care of the cows. I would wake up at 5 and go check on the animals. Then, [...]

“My grandpa bought this piece of land around 1940 and when my dad and mom got married, they bought the farm from my grandpa. My grandpa’s parents came here from Austria in the late 1800s. Growing up, there were nine of us kids and we all chipped in on [...]

“When my parents were in their late 30s, my father’s parents died, and the family farm was put up for sale and there was no way for my dad to continue farming in Switzerland. There were ads in an agricultural magazine about farms for sale in Wisconsin and my [...]

"When I was 10, I started working in the fields with my dad harvesting coffee. I would do that with him every summer and when I finished the coffee harvest, I went back to school. When I was 14, I went to another part of my state to harvest [...]

"I spent my adolescent years working around cattle. My dad worked for a large oil company in Mexico and when he retired, he used all the money he made to buy 1500 hectares in the neighboring state of Veracruz. Back in that time, he paid what would be the equivalent [...]

"We came here from Switzerland in 1950 without ever seeing our farm, only pictures. There was an advertisement in the newspaper and we made a down payment. We knew we had to learn English so we studied and it was hard. We came over by boat and then took a train from New [...]

Adam loves living out in the country, he says it is peaceful here. He grew up in a small town in the mountains of the state of Veracruz in Mexico. When he grew up, he was accustomed to caring for pigs, rabbits, hens, and goats. "We would use a lot of the resources around us [...]