The Rest of The Story

February 17, 2010 
6 Comments

I grew up in Longview in the Piney Woods of East Texas. I have always loved animals, and remember when I was a little girl planning how many different animals I would have on my farm one day–cows, dogs, cats, horses, sheep (I don’t think I ever wanted pigs, and I can’t say I do now). I did not grow up on a farm and had very little contact with any farm animals. I got involved with Windridge Therapeutic Equestrian Center (http://www.windridgetexas.org/) when I was 13 and gained a lot of experience with horses. After graduating from high-school and working for 4 years in Therapeutic Riding and other horse related jobs, I decided to go to college with the goal of becoming a vet. I had never forgotten my dream of living on a farm, but I did not consider it a real option for my future.

At started college at LeTourneau University in Longview and 2 years later in 2006 I decided I wanted to make some changes. After applying and being accepted as a transfer student by Texas A&M in College Station, I sold my house in Gladewater, TX, packed up my two horses and my dog into a horse trailer with living quarters and drove North and West. I had no definite plans except to be gone until I had to start the next Fall semester in 3 months. I never had any idea where I would stop for the night, but managed to find farms, fair grounds, ranches, and other places to stay along the way. I eventually made it to the Canadian border in Northwest Montana and back again. The states I traveled through included Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas (completely by accident), Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Montana. Through staying at farms and ranches and meeting so many great people, I decided that I would like to become a large farm animal vet rather than a horse vet.

One night in late August of 2006 while driving through a mountain pass in Colorado, this guy called me. I remember mostly being struck by how much this guy could talk and second by how strong his Texas accent was (until I met Nathan my accent was very mild, enough that I had people from up North ask if I was from the North; not so much anymore). He had called me because some friends of his (my second cousins twice removed or something like that) had told him that I needed a place to stay with my horses and trailer when I moved to College Station. He gave me the name and number of a place where he had stayed in his RV while living in College Station, and then talked about a bunch of other stuff I can’t even remember. I had been unsuccessful in finding a place to live so I called up the number and found a great place to stay only 2 miles from campus. I never called him back even to say thanks.

A few days before the semester started in late August, I was out buying my text books when he called again to see if the place had worked out. When we got to talking I couldn’t believe how much we had in common in how we felt about animals, life, God, the environment, and more. I had been looking for a farm to visit and do some work on as I was told the more experience I had with as many animals as possible the better chance I had of getting into vet school. After finding out that Nathan had just about every farm animal, I asked if I could come up and visit and work with him a few days to get the experience. (I did drive 4.5 hours for this experience one way so I have to admit that I was interested in more than the animals).

After meeting and working with Nathan I started actually calling him back. We were married the following January, 2007. I transferred to Texas A&M University-Commerce where I finished my bachelors degree in pre-veterinary Animal Science (basically animal science with a bunch of physics, biochemistry, etc. added) in December 2009.

For the most part life on the farm has been a dream come true for me. As I said my dream from the time I was a little girl was to have a farm, but becoming an adult and understanding reality, I chose the next best option of becoming a vet. I love the medical and scientific part of becoming a vet and may still go to vet school in the future, but I would much rather be raising my own animals than taking care of everyone else’s. Our farm is far from perfect and sometimes it is discouraging to look around and realize how far we still have to go to become the farm and business that we would like to be for ourselves and our customers. However, I am fully aware of how fortunate I am, and I will always be thankful to God for bringing Nathan and me together even if it was against my will :) “And now you know the rest of the story”, as Paul Harvey would say.