A Farming Family

In just a few months, Russell and I celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary.

When we met first some 14 years ago, I was a young intern who had just arrived in Washington D.C., ready to change the world. Russell was working for a Senator, and half way through his MBA, on track to become an investment banker.

And here we are today, taking a casual stroll on The Hill.

I’m definitely joking. I mean, that is us on a recent trip to DC to advocate for agriculture. But, you’re way more likely to find us like this:

Wearing Carthart, wind blown hair, and in a tractor (or combine more specifically, in this case). Instead of walking the halls of Congress, we find ourselves in rural Texas, working the soil, and growing food for our world and our family.

When we said I Do ten years ago and started thinking about a family, it felt like time for us to leave D.C. and return to our mutual home state of Texas. His family was expanding their farm, making it a logical time for Russell to return to the family business.

He’s now an 11th generation production farmer - and 5th generation to work the soil of the Texas Panhandle. It often feels like we are a world away from our old lives and old selves ... and other days, it all makes sense.

We moved to Russell’s hometown for a brief time, before heading north to the top of Texas to manage the family’s newest farm - Middlewater. It is a 6,000 acre farm, where Russell typically grows corn and cotton. In our area, our corn mostly goes to cow feed; while cotton mostly goes to making denim.

Large scale farming like this is the norm where we live - and frankly, it’s what our land is good for. Our weather is extreme, water limited, and population sparse. In fact, our county has far more cows than people!

As a farming family, we are proud to contribute food and fiber to the global agriculture chain - while tending our land as best as we can, with the hope of having a 6th Williams generation farm it one day!

Most Americans today are a couple of generations removed from the farm. I certainly was! (I may or may not have thought that cows could freeze together.)

We look forward to sharing a glimpse of our family farming operation with you in the pages of this blog and in the squares of our Instagram!