Having grown up on a dairy farm and later taking a geology field trip in the West, Christy Hansel Lohof came to realize—in time—that her sense of place was grounded in the love of the land. But while working the land in various ways can be harder or easier, life always serves up challenges. Find out how stewarding the land can help you see the continuum of life.
Guest Christy Hansel Lohof grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York, attendant with all the feed and milking duties. Her parents were sure to leave time for other activities such as competitive sports, which Christy continued in college. With a biology major and geology minor, she left college without a clear picture of what was to come next, assuming that she would go to veterinary school. After a year of living at home and working for a veterinarian, she realized she wasn’t committed to that work. So she headed west, where she had visited during a break trip with the geology department in college.
She initially worked at a dude ranch, leading groups of leisure travelers on the ranch, before moving into the world of wilderness trip leading. Though given the opportunity to take over that business, she wasn’t sure how many more years she could stand sleeping on the ground. Instead, she moved with her cowboy boyfriend, marrying into a fourth-generation ranch family in southeastern Montana. She raised her growing family and raised her cattle and, in going back to school for a masters in kinesiology, that the type of ranching their family did was actual more healthful than the typical commercial meat business so developed a direct-to-consumer business for the ranch. Successes were balanced, however, by hardship, all put in perspective by the agricultural lifestyle.
In this episode, find out from Christy how stewarding and being grounded by the land can help you see the continuum of life…on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode's Guest
Christy Hansel Lohof is now part of the fifth-generation family that runs LOHOF All Natural Grass-Finished Beef with cows that are bred, born, and slow grown on her family's Montana range-land for over 2 years. If you're near Billings, Montana, Sheridan, Wyoming or even Denver, Colorado and you want a cow share, or if you have three months to spend on a ranch internship, you are in luck. Find out more at LohofGrassFinishedBeef.com.
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Christy Hansel Lohoff: I wouldn't say it was an immediate, “oh, I just love the west. I've got to move out here.” It was really just a few years ago when I realized it's land that I love. That's the thing that really literally grounds me, but that is what I fall in love with its land, wherever I go. It's the land that matters to me.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: Having grown up on a dairy farm and later taking a geology field trip in the West, Christy Hansel Lohof came to realize—in time—that her sense of place was grounded in the love of the land. But while working the land in various ways can be harder or easier, life always serves up challenges. Find out how stewarding the land can help you see the continuum of life...on today's Roads Taken, with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
Today, I'm here with Christy Hansel Lohoff and we are going to talk about probably some dirt roads that take us places, but the roads that you didn't know, some you didn't want to travel and that you're ultimately glad you did. So Christy, thanks for being here.
CL: Thanks for having me; glad to be here.
LJR: Good. So I start this with two questions each time I meet a guest and they are these, when we were in college, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would become?
CL: Well, I think when I was in college, I was pretty competitive and I really thrived on a competitive sports. And when I left college, I didn't honestly have a really concrete plan of who I would become or where I would go. And that's pretty much the road I've taken.
LJR: Yeah. But I'm not going to let you off the hook that easily about your time at college. So competitive sports. And were you thinking, okay, that's been my main source; I'm not going to go do that professionally; so how am I parlaying that into the next thing or how did you start making transitions, even if you didn't know where you were going?
CL: Well, I ended up going back home to where I was raised after college, and I've always been active, so continued to be active, but not in a competitive way. And having spent so much time in school, I thought, well, I might as well just continue and go to veterinarian school was my next thought. And so I went to work for a veterinarian. And did that for a year or so, and then eventually realized I wasn't that committed to veterinarian school and I didn't want to get into something I wasn't committed to. So I just sort of took my love of being outdoors and headed west.
LJR: Yeah. And so where did you grow up? I grew up in upstate New York on a dairy farm. So I grew up in agriculture. And never had any intention of staying in it or being involved in it in any way or never saw that as a pathway. No one ever suggested it as a pathway, but I guess it was in my soul. I didn't get rid of it all the way.
LJR: No. I know. Did you have like farm chores as a kid?
CL: Oh yeah, we worked for sure.
LJR: You kind of always be grudged that or were you like, oh, this is okay. I mean, certainly you loved the animals enough to try that school or think about it, but like, what was that relationship to kind of the work as a kid?
CL: Both. Yes. You definitely begrudge it many days, but you just accept it as that's how life is because everyone works on the farm. Up early and up late and busy. And that's just how it is. But I can't complain. I mean, my parents were really good about allowing us to do sports. And I grew up in a, what was considered a rural community growing up. And we had a lot of, of students on farms and a lot of students couldn't play sports or participate in activities because they had chores to do. And fortunately, I wasn't that burdened by it.
LJR: So when you said “I'm headed west,” what did that mean to you in terms of just what life, what you thought life might be like?
CL: Well, I had been out west only through the geology stretch program and it did make a big impression on me, but I didn't fall in love with it. I wouldn't say it was an immediate, oh, I just love the west. I've got to move out here. I just went back home and finished Dartmouth and stayed in the east for another year before I thought, no, I did, there was something there. And so I went back to one of the places that we had visited on the stretch, which was in Shell, Wyoming and went to work on a dude ranch there. And that was my first summer back out west. And this time I did, I did really fall in love with it.
LJR: Yeah. Yeah. The lifestyle, the place?
CL: Yes. Yeah. And it was really just a few years ago when I realized it's land that I love, you know, that's the thing that really literally grounds me, but that is what I fall in love with is land. Wherever I go, it's the land that matters to me.
LJR: Were you geology major?
CL: Minor. I was a biology major.
LJR: Okay. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Alright. So I know why it makes sense, but let's fill everybody else in. So there you are dude ranching, which encompasses land and beast and all sorts of things. I'm sure. But that wasn't, that wasn't going to be your end, like a dude ranch. That doesn't sound right. So what was the progression?
CL: So I worked just that one summer on a guest ranch, you know, taking people out on horseback rides during the day, and then that winter morphed into, oh, there's a little ski area here. Always skied. So I went to work as a ski patroller at the little ski area. Then I bumped into a gentleman who was an outfitter, more wilderness based horseback trips. And so the following summer, I went to work for him and absolutely loved it. I mean, we were in the wilderness, all the areas surrounding Yellowstone and the Wind River Mountains. It was great. I loved it. So we did the longer pack trips, you know, we'd stay up to two weeks in the mountains and pack everything in horseback and just got to see a lot of country. And so I did that for, I think, five summers I worked for him and then I would work at the sci area in the winter.
LJR: By then we were almost 30 ish.
CL: Yeah, sure. Yes. That sounds good.
LJR: Was it the intention at that point, like, okay, I'm a mountain woman. I'm staying here. This is it. And then I'm going to figure out how to make a life forever? Had you gotten that far yet?
CL: That was an option; the outfitter approached me at some point and said, you know, are you interested in taking over this business? And then all of a sudden it became real. Oh, this would be a real business, real responsibility. I mean, I was already leading shifts myself. So it wouldn't have necessarily changed that much, but I also, I guess in the back of my mind could see that it would be a hard life to live. And certainly with, if you ever had a family, it's just hard. You're in the mountains all the time. So I realized No, I don't, I don't think I want to take this over. And honestly, like I was, I was wearing out, you know, my hands hurt, my knees hurt. I was sleeping on the ground all the time. I didn't know if I, how many more years I could do it.
LJR: So then you ultimately did something really easy cushy and yeah. So talk to us about that figuring out what was real.
LJR: Well by then, you know, there was, there was the cowboy in the picture. That's kinda how that went. So I eventually got married and I moved to Otter, Montana, where my husband is a fourth-generation on his family.
LJR: Right.
CL: And so then I just threw myself into that.
LJR: And in, you did, because now it's a fifth generation ranch almost. I don't, I guess they're not taking over. You can't say that yet. But you have another generation there and what is it called? Can we say?
CL: The brand is the Quarter Circle U ranch. That's the family brand.
LJR: And how much of that dairy farm days’ memory was like, oh, this is, I remember this. I remember the good aspects. I remember the bad. Was it similar? Was it completely different? How did it feel?
CL: Ranching is so much easier.
LJR: Wow. How so?
CL: Dairy farming is just constant chores. I mean, you're milking. We milked twice a day, some dairy farmers milk three times a day. So your day is, you know, bracketed by these two events, you absolutely have to do every day, no matter what, whether there's power, rain or snow or whatever, you've got to milk the cows twice a day. And then in between, you've got to put in the feed and put up the hay and do all the other chores that need to be done. Whereas ranching’s, you know, more flexible for the most part, the cattle are out grazing and of course, you've got to keep track of their water and their pasture and make sure, you know, they have adequate feeding water, but you're not bracketed by this constant, you know, three hour chore you've got to do at both ends of the day.
LJR: Yeah. And your ranch is both personal for your family, but a commercial ranch—yet, not as you said, bracketed by these things, but there's also like this, if it gets too big, then you're having to do things kind of at a scale that's unsustainable in another way for a life. So you have this kind of sweet spot and a niche. So talk to us about what your ranch does.
CL: Yeah, so, like I said, my husband's family has been at it for a long time. You know, they homesteaded out there some of the first European settlers to enter that area along the Tongue River, I guess it was about 2004 or five when I ended up going back for my masters in health and kinesiology, and it just really sort of hit me all of a sudden, I'm like, all these things we talk about, grasp it and pasture raised in, you know, higher omega-3s and whatnot. That's what we do. That's what all ranchers do. But then at some point, you know, it gets transferred to a middleman and ends up in a feed lot. And so it really did hit me. Why don't we just try to sell a few direct to the customer, go ahead and finish the beef all the way and, and see if we can get them sold. And so I really came at it from a health perspective. It was important to me. I mean, of course all ranchers eat their own meat and don't think anything of it, but that's not the same meat that ends up on the grocery store, which is always a shocker to people, especially out here in the west where you see so many cattle on pasture and people think they just go straight from that pasture into the freezer and onto the shelf. And, and that's not really the case. They actually go to a feed lot and end up going through sort of a chain of events there. And so, yeah, we just started selling a few direct and it's grown from there and we just continue to sell the people who want grass fed and grass-finished beef.
LJR: Yeah, and I wish I were closer, but to ship a whole, you have like, you can buy a whole cattle from you, a cow from you. I don't even know how you call it. What do you say?
CL: Usually we say beef, a whole beef.
LJR: Okay. I could get a whole beef or a half beef. And then that is amazing numbers of pounds that I would have to go through forever, but I don't live close enough. But those of you who do live close, we should definitely make sure that we'll put everything in the show notes.
And now you're raising a family on top of that.
CL: Like everybody.
LJR: Well, not everybody and not everybody gets to do it under wide open skies. So talk to me about motherhood on the ranch.
CL: Again, that was a moment when all of a sudden I was like, oh my gosh, I had my first child in 2007. And you know, after a few months, when he began to do things, I thought, oh my gosh, what would it be like to not be on a farmer ranch and have children? I was so thankful to be back in agriculture because I know it was obviously such an influential part of my upbringing. So I have a 14 year old and a seven year old now. And you know, they're very active on the ranch. And they get to live outdoors and be part of everything we do. I homeschooled for a few years and you know, my oldest one just went with us everywhere and he's our best hand. I mean, he's by far our best cowboy and our best hand around cattle and fencing. I can send them out to build fence, you know, all by himself. And I'm just so thankful that that is the upbringing that he is getting.
LJR: And he might not think that; I have a 14 year old and yeah, I don't, they're never happy with where they are, so…You have two little Cowboys and it, it really, I would love to, in theory, it sounds like, oh, I could just have them frolicking and building fences. It is not all fun and games I'm sure, but no family is of course. And it might not even matter where you are. Sometimes tragic things happen. And so I know that you have not had it easy. And if you wanted to share, what's gone on with your family, I'm sure we'd gain from it.
CL: Sure. So I had another child in between the two that I have now. And he was two years younger than my oldest one. And he drowned on the ranch when he was about one and a half. And of course, no one told me there would be very hard things in life that were so hard, I guess. And so it's been a long journey and it's not over. [LJR: No.] But I think all of us will, will and have come out better in life because of it.
I guess everyone loses, loved ones and maybe I was never prepared for it. Even when I lost my grandmother in college. I remember just not having any idea what to do or how to feel, or…I think death is a struggle and in many ways I think I needed agriculture to get through death. I needed to come to terms with it and I need to be okay with that's part of life is dying and that's very much part of agriculture. You know, my friend always jokes. If you're going to have livestock, you're going to have dead stock. And I don't know if it gets easier, but you do have to come to terms with maybe you're not going to save every animal. You know, random things can happen. Animals can get trapped in stuff or…I mean, you certainly, we see dead animals, it's part of our life. And of course in the process of selling meat, I mean, we are responsible for the end of life for those animals. So it's really important to me that they have a good life while they are alive. And I guess I feel the same way about people. Like there will be an end, so all we can do is sort of do the best we can while we're here.
LJR: Yeah, exactly. And I mean, all of those, those lives have been gifts. Right? And there've been moments and maybe they weren't, as long as we would've liked them to be, but they were gifts and they are gifts in their reminder that, okay, while we're here, we got to make the most of this. And to your point to do it healthfully and respectfully of the land and the opportunities we're given. So yeah, I, and I could talk about this for days that I think, you know, our culture’s inability to even approach the idea of death and talking about death and becoming cognizant that it is part of life and without it, what would really life worth living. So I love that you are seeing, you know, that your resilience to that likely horrible moment in your life that you are having to revisit now with me, has just probably made your other children more resilient and the way you approach things, just so whole. So I thank you for sharing that. I think it's important and we don't, we don't talk about that enough.
CL: Yeah. Well, I appreciate you listening to it. And also, I mean, of course it just makes you feel. Like it always says, every sign you see, you know, you don't know what the other person's going through. And it was interesting to me, you know, after my son died, how many people came up to me and told me they had lost children. And nobody says that when you're walking down the street; you don't know all the struggles that everyone is going through. And so it has helped me to be more empathetic. And, but at the same time, it's also made me want to prepare my children, maybe more than some parents for hard things in life. I want them to know, like they can get through it. They can do it. It's things are not easy just because this subject is hard in school. You're not the best one on this team or whatever. That's no reason to quit. Like you, you're going to have to go through hard things in life. And that's that grit piece. I don't know if you can create it or not. But I'm working at it.
LJR: Yeah. Yeah. Now, are they going to get the other burden of being the fifth generation that's going to happen? I didn't figure it out. Or maybe they already are like breathing in it's like foregone conclusion, but you know what happens, you know, at that point.?
CL: Yeah. It's the age old question and I guess all businesses, but certainly in agriculture where there's so much land involved and what will happen to it and the whole estate planning and…You know, I appreciate that my parents didn't push me into it. But my brother and I have talked about this now that we're adults, we almost wish they had, you know, we wish they had sort of laid that groundwork to start to get us involved in the business and show us a pathway through, into it.
LJR: Do you ever go back to the dairy…actually, do your parents still own the dairy?
CL: Well my parents had just recently passed away in the last. Year and a half or so, but we do still own the farm land and my siblings and I do so we're not sure what this looks like in the future, because that farm was also our fourth generation of family farm. And it's hard to let it go. I mean, we're, we're still attached to that land. I think we're all kind of trying to see what this is going to look like. But it's rented out as agricultural land to a big dairy in the area.
LJR: So still that love of the land, making sure it's doing what it's supposed to or not becoming developments. That's good. That's good. And what do you think your guests is for your kids? What their plans might be?
CL: I don't know where my children will go with it and I'm open to whatever, but I have a feeling. I want them to go out into the world and I have a feeling they might circle back around.
LJR: Yeah. And it sounds like particularly, even with the kind of looming questions of the New York property, even if you're not there, there's still a stewardship that you feel, this is, this is forever land. And how do we, how do we steward it? Even if I don't have to be the one, plowing it to make sure that it's here forever?
CL: Right.
LJR: Yeah. So there are some good constant things, you know, we are, we hope for more constancy in some ways. Well, Christy, I think that I can not wait to see what the next generations hold for both farms. And I'm just delighted to have been able to talk to you, I guess. At try to end with that reflection piece of, if you were able to go back to the 20-something Christy and say, okay, guess what? You are going to be our rancher, and this is going to be your life. Would that Christy had looked at you as though, yeah, okay. That sounds right. Or as though you were an alien and had three heads,
CL: I think I would have just gone with it. Even though at the time, I didn't even know what a rancher really was, but I know pretty well now, though. And I'm very thankful.
LJR: Well, we're thankful for your telling the stories. So thanks so much for being with Christie.
CL: Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.
LJR: That was Christy Hansel Lohof, now part of the fifth-generation Quarter-Circle U Ranch in Otter, Montana, where she helps to run LOHOF All Natural Grass-Finished Beef with cows that are bred, born, and slow grown on her family's Montana range-land for over 2 years. If you're near Billings, Montana, Sheridan, Wyoming or even Denver, Colorado and you want a cow share, or if you have three months to spend on a ranch internship, you are in luck. All interested folks can find out more at LOHOF (that's L-O-H-O-F) grass finished beef dot com. From all accounts, Christy's beef is as extraordinary as her story. And as we intend to keep bringing you extraordinary stories, we're so glad you continue listening and telling friends about our show. At both RoadsTakenShowDOTcom and whatever platform you prefer for listening to podcasts, you can find my guests and me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, on more episodes of Roads Taken.