Grit with Grace

The Identity Trap: What You Do is Not Who You Are

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 18:56:50 GMT

I will never forget how helpless I felt on Jan. 24 when I watched my son stumble across the wrestling mat. He took two major blows to the head during a match – a sound I could hear from the top of the gym bleachers. As he struggled to orient himself, I felt like I was going to throw up.

In a matter of seconds, he was on his back convulsing with trainers at his side trying to take off his shoulder brace so he could breathe. Sweat poured off his body in a way no workout ever could have done.

I held my hand over my mouth and wailed, watching nearly 13 years of hard work, sacrifice and commitment get carried off the mat on a stretcher. I knew in my heart that this was not a “shake it off” moment as they raced him to the emergency room by ambulance.

By God’s grace, the X-ray of his neck was clear. He never lost consciousness. He answered his questions correctly. Minus the uncomfortable neck brace, within an hour, our son seemed a little drowsy, but normal. We were able to leave Loyola Hospital in Chicago later that day and made it home through the snow that night. With time and rest, he was expected to make a full recovery, but it just wasn’t enough time for his brain to heal to allow him to wrestle in his senior year state series starting a couple of days later.

As a parent, this was a pretty excruciating moment because for thousands of days, I watched this kid commit his whole heart to this sport – a three-time state qualifier who overcame a hip avulsion fracture suffered during his sophomore year during the state tournament, a car accident at the end of his junior season and a torn labrum in his shoulder just weeks after his senior season began. It seemed like all of that was enough. And yet the disappointment was not over.

If I can be honest, I’m angry. Not at anyone in particular, but I’m just angry at the way it played out for him. There is nothing worse than watching your kid hurt and not be able to fix it.

The following weekend of regionals was hard to sit through, though we absolutely wanted the best for his teammates. At church the next day, some friends we hadn’t seen in a while came up and talked to our son. I overheard him say, “Wrestling is something I do, it’s not who I am.”

Parallel Paths: From the Mat to the Ranch

Fast forward a few days to the Top Producer Summit where I listened to a powerful panel. Leaders of top companies in agriculture weighed in on a variety of thought-provoking topics, but one message stood out to me.

“All too often, we confuse what we do with who we are,” said Lamar Steiger with The 808 Ranch. “As farmers and ranchers, we are our job. It’s our identity. That was my problem as a young man.”

Steiger grew up on a dairy. High interest rates in the late 1970s made farming particularly challenging. When he was in his 20s, their family lost the dairy. After working so hard to make that operation work, Steiger took this as a deep personal failure.

“There was nothing I could do to save the dairy because outside forces were at hand. But it’s so hard for farmers and ranchers to separate that,” he said. “Looking back, I had depression for quite a while after that, but we didn’t talk about that then.”

When he was in his mid-30s, Steiger attempted suicide.

“I had to be removed totally from my working life and start completely over,” he shared. “I learned the hard way how to separate my identity from my role.”

Steiger said it wasn’t pretty, but he is grateful for how this time of his life changed him.

“When you come to the end of yourself, you look for something bigger and better. That’s worked out really good for me,” he said. “Being a rancher is cool to me, but it’s not who I am. I’m Lamar. I try my best and I fail. We have great successes and then we have some things that just don’t work out. But it’s not all my responsibility.”

There’s something so humbling about another person vulnerably sharing their story. We can learn so much from each other. All it takes is a willingness to share your story. Left unshared, our stories may only change us. But by sharing, we can help each other find our way through the very real burdens of life.

A Truth Worth Holding Onto

It’s easy to confuse your identity with what you do because it becomes such a big part of our lives. As another Shike kid closes one chapter and gets ready to start the next, I find myself confusing who I am with my role as a mom. I’m not sure what life looks like without Saturday wrestling tournaments and late nights posting photos of our wrestlers.

As I sat there at Top Producer Summit, I kept hearing my son’s voice in my head saying, “Wrestling is something I do, it’s not who I am.”

He’s only 17 and has a lot of life to live, but I’m grateful he recognizes this truth. I know there will be times when he will be tempted to measure his worth by his performance. But I believe when we get honest and share these stories, we can help one another avoid the mistake of confusing what we do with who we are.

Long Road: Kansas Family Rebuilds and Revives Dairy After 2019 Tornado Wiped Out Family Farm

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 21:37:02 GMT

It’s a day Rob and Lisa Leach will never forget.

“May 28th, 6:43pm,” says Rob, remembering the day their lives took a dramatic turn. “That’s when it hit us.”

May 28, 2019 is the day the Leach’s entire farm was wiped out by an EF4 tornado .

“It was noisy, but it was just like nonstop wind,” Rob told Farm Journal just days after the tornado hit in 2019. “It was just the most incredible wind you ever can imagine.”

The Aftermath

The twister that hit their Linwood, Kan. farm was a monster at a mile wide, carrying 170 mile per hour winds.

“We’ve got a lot outbuildings, we have our shop, freestall barn, calf barn holding pins, grain bins, garages, silos: it’s all gone,” Rob said in May 2019.

Two days after the tornado ripped through their farm, Farm Journal’s video crew was on the scene and captured the aftermath. Metal in trees, the milking parlor and barns flattened. The structures were gone, but what was even more painful was the fact the Leach family lost part of their herd.

“When we came up the hill, out of our basement, we expected the worst , and we immediately found what we had cattle meeting us, we had cattle in our yard, cattle walking all over the place and also dead cows,” said Rob.

The winds were so powerful, some cows were carried more than half a mile away.

“The one that was the farthest away, we didn’t find for 24 hours, and she was the most valuable cow on the farm,” said Rob. “She was down in a ditch and couldn’t get up.”

Will We Ever Dairy Again?

Taylor Leach, Rob and Lisa’s daughter who is also part of the Farm Journal family, reflected on the tornado recently. But when we talked to her just days after the tornado hit, she was still in disbelief.

“Trash everywhere, nails everywhere, wires everywhere,” she told us. “If we ever have cattle here again, I don’t even know how we’re going to be able to clean up all of the wire and nails out in the pasture,” said Taylor.

The raw reaction was fresh, as the Leach family had scrambled to immediately get the surviving cows to help.

“We could only get 20 out of here the first night,” says Rob, who says roads were blocked by down trees. “Those are the ones that were hurt the worst.”

The next morning, Rob says what was left of their 125 head herd, were also hauled out. Volunteers, some who had never touched a cow, helped lead the cows, halter free, to the road.

“We have so many friends,” says Lisa. “I mean, they’re very good friends, that took them to roughly 14,15 farms at one time.”

As ones with minor injuries went to farms, the animals were scattered throughout the area and sent to anyone who had space. The furthest location was a farm in Colorado. The cows wounded the most, were rescued and taken in by a local farm.

“Vets that worked all night long on cows that were cut up,” says Rob.

“And they never charged us,” remembers Lisa.

“No, we never got any bills for any medical work. And they said, ‘well, we’ll just have to charge you for drugs.’ And then some drug company donated drugs, so we didn’t have to pay for that. So, we were very fortunate,” adds Rob.

We Will Rebuild

From a tattered farm two years ago, with pieces scattered for miles, the scene looks much different today.

“We’ve brought home about 60 cows or so,” says Lisa.

“So, we’ve got at least that many still farmed out,” adds Rob.

As rebuilding is still taking place in Linwood, major headway has also happened thanks to countless volunteers.

“There were literally hundreds of people, volunteers, that came,” says Lisa. “I would say we averaged 100 people a day for over three weeks.”

An army of volunteers who came, many without even being asked, all who helped pick up the pieces left by the 2019 tornado.

“We had several massive cleanups that summer that we cleared as much debris out of the fields as we could,” says Lisa.

“I think we walked about 200 to 300 acres, just shoulder to shoulder, walking in the fields and picking up debris,” Rob says.

It’s those efforts that slowly cleaned up shredded structures and debris once scattered across their farm. But it wasn’t something that happened quickly. Every nail. Every piece of metal. All of it had to be picked up.

“We sold 350,000 pounds of scrap metal in this in the summer of 2020,” says Rob.

They say the effort to mend the damage and pick up all the pieces not lasted for more than a year.

“We drained seven ponds, because they were just completely filled with steel, barn, tin, lumber,” says Rob.

But from the rubble, rose new life and a new look for the Leach family.

“We started with a commodity barn. It was kind of the catch all,” says Rob.

One structure replaced at a time, with foundation poured for the next, in an effort to replace 11 barns battered by the storm.

“COVID-19 didn’t help our cause at all,” explains Rob. “After COVID-19, it was kind of a strange phenomenon. People were building stuff all over the place, the price of materials went through the roof and you couldn’t get a crew to do anything.”

Much of this work was done with their own hands, with three new blue barns planted on the same dirt their old barns were on.

The Effort to Milk Again

The final barn was built on December 21, 2020, and one that Rob, along with 17 friends and family, constructed themselves. It marked the final piece in a two-year orchestrated effort to finally start milking again.

“We’ve been approved by the co-op to start milking again,” says Lisa. “We’ve got a trucker lined up that’s going to haul the milk for us. And we we’ve got six cows that we’re milking right now.”

All the work, the hours, the constant efforts to rebuild; it was all to accomplish one thing: be able to milk again. And that day finally came for Lisa in June, a moment she captured on camera as the first milk truck drove away.

A New Era

As the milk truck left, it signaled a new era for the Leach family. Rob and Lisa now travel the same path from the house to the barn they took before the tornado hit, to milk the cows today.

“This is our passion,” says Rob. “This is what we do for fun. This is all we’ve ever done for fun. We like to show cows, that’s kind of our thing.”

“I wasn’t ready to quit,” says Lisa.

As Lisa says calling it quits never crossed their minds, she also didn’t want to give up on our cows.

“Honestly, we had some of the best cows we had ever had,” says Rob.

“We had some really good cows, and that’s probably the only reason we came back,” adds Lisa.

And a comeback it was. The same year the tornado hit, the Leach’s youngest daughter, Sophie, took home Grand Champion at the Kansas State Fair with their Holstein named Lin-Crest Bradnick Tess, a cow that still bared the scar after surviving the tornado that left a gash in her neck just months before.

The family also won the “Jersey Jug” at Louisville with their Jersey Juju, another survivor, and one shown by the woman who rescued Juju and 20 other cows the night the tornado hit.

“We’ve had some good days in the show ring since the tornado,” says Rob.

“Some phenomenal days,” says Lisa.

“So, we were very lucky,” adds Rob.

Stronger than the Storm

As the Leach family cherishes what they’ve accomplished in two short years, they say their family farm was restored for their three girls.

“I mean, they love it, too,” says Rob. “We’re doing it for them. This is their passion.”

And as a family, they continue to defeat any doubts, while beating the odds.

“I think the only doubt was, whether or not we could milk again,” says Lisa.

“We just weren’t sure, you know, if we were going to be able to rebuild,” says Rob.

“Every now and then, you really need to go back and look at the pictures just to remind yourself how far you’ve come,” adds Lisa. “And how many people have helped you get there.”

A lifetime of passion, with the people who knew it wasn’t Rob and Lisa’s time to call it quits.

“Getting all these buildings built back, when it took us a lifetime to build what we had,” says Rob. “So to get back here within two years, is amazing.”

As even two years later, the leaches continue to prove they’re truly stronger than the storm.

Farmers and ranchers continue to show grit with grace while battling various challenges farm and ranch families face. Read more “Grit with Grace” stories here .

Ring of Glory: Pennsylvania Teen Chases Dairy Dreams After Surviving House Fire

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 21:48:03 GMT

It takes a lot of days in the barn to be ready for the ring at places such as the 2022 All-American Dairy Show in Harrisburg, Pa.

For Reese Burdette and her family, each precious step along the way is quite literally a miracle.

“Showing and going to shows are some of my favorite memories,” Reese says.

The Burdette family lives and farms just outside of Mercersburg, Pa., at a dairy that’s just the right size to keep two teenagers busy.

“Reese will water and I’ll feed grain and then she’ll get milk and I’ll feed milk and then she’ll do bottles,” explains sister Brinkley Burdette. “We’ll usually get done fast, and then we walk our show calves.”

It is a step-by-step process their parents, Justin and Claire, are only too happy to watch.

“Oftentimes, it can bring tears to your eyes, when you look back to where we were,” Claire says. “I just know how hard it has been and still how hard it is for Reese.”

“She has some grit and determination,” echoes Justin. “She likes to prove to people that that she’s capable of doing it.”

What Reese is doing in the showring is nothing special in her eyes.

“I mean, it’s difficult but everybody has difficulties in the ring,” she says.

The challenges for Reese started Memorial Day weekend in 2014 during a visit to her grandparents’ house.

“It was a Sunday evening and what we now know is an electrical fire started in the room Reese was in,” Claire recalls.

Her mother quickly rushed into the room among the flames to pull Reese to safety while Claire’s stepdad went after sister Brinkley.

“I do remember getting out, sitting on the porch and waiting,” Reese remembers.

Badly burned, Reese was flown to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland.

“I was in a lot of pain, I was scared, and they were telling me all these different things I didn’t know,” Reese says.

Justin and Claire arrived at this hospital as quickly as they could.

“First, they told us we’d be there one to two weeks and then it turned to one to two months,” Claire says. “We thought: How are we going to do this? How are we going to continue to farm both of us being away? Then it turned into 662 days.”

Reese was in the hospital for 662 days of recovery, of setbacks and unknowns.

“Through this journey Reese has had five cardiac arrests and she lost her leg in the hospital in that first couple of weeks due to blood flow issues,” Claire says.

Reese’s lungs needed rest, so doctors used an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine to pump blood outside of her body, remove carbon dioxide and send oxygen-filled blood back. However, there were complications and Reese’s parents were forced to make a call about amputation.

“Our surgeon looked us right in the face and said if it was my child, I’d do it,” Justin says. “You now have to be willing to have bad days to make good days.”

The good days were often overshadowed by the difficult ones. From the amputation, to learning to stand and eventually walk again, the days were long. Reese’s parents recognized she needed a goal.

That’s when a favorite dairy cow Pantene -- named after the haircare products -- came back into the picture.

“She was actually the first calf I showed at our county fair,” Reese says.

That’s why Pantene has a little extra hold on Reese’s heart. After weeks in the hospital her friend from home was the right incentive to keep stepping forward.

“One of her doctors was an off-the-wall thinker,” Justin says. “He said, ‘Well, bring Pantene down here.’”

So, through the streets of Baltimore they went with a trailer, right to the main entrance of John Hopkins. Reese remembers that day clearly.

“She came to visit me in the hospital when I first learned to stand up,” Reese says. “That really made me want to get home.”

“It was definitely a moment,” Claire says. “It also gave the nurses and doctors who were fighting along with us perspective on where Reese came from and what she loved.”

Just about two months shy of two years, Reese came home to a hero’s welcome.

“There were a lot of people and one of the first things we did was come down here to the barn to see Pantene,” remembers Reese.

For Claire, the return home reunited her family of four.

“I felt like it was okay to laugh again,” she says. “It was OK to go out to dinner again. It was OK to go to the movies because we weren’t slighting her in any way. We were all included as one.”

A family and a farm were together again, and they were ready to restart the life they’d put on pause.

“We know she has something in store for her and she’s meant to be here,” Claire says. “We don’t know how her story is going to unfold, but it will.”

Reese returned to the showring. The first year she needed a wheelchair to back her up. This year she will be stepping through the sawdust on her own.

“I was actually just telling my friend that most of my favorite memories have been made at the Harrisburg show,” Reese says.

Now she’s setting her sights on Madison and World Dairy Expo, if she can get her parents on board.

“I’m working on it,” Reese laughs.

Along with showing, she’s taken up dance and recently joined FFA. Those extracurriculars happen between follow-up trips to the hospital.

“She had a tracheotomy in 2014 and that was taken out this last year,” Claire says. “The progress she’s made from that has been amazing.”

She also had a leg revision in 2022, which has helped improve her mobility and reduce pain when walking.

“It’s easier for her to feed hay and stuff,” Brinkley says. “It’s easier for her to water, although I still have to hook up the water for her sometimes.”

It’s all helping Reese find a future without limits.

“She has visions of going to college and I’ve given her a three-hour radius,” Claire says.

“Our reality for Reese is that Reese is normal,” Justin says. “She needs to get the childhood she missed back.”

These steps along life’s path, may seem so small for most but for Reese they’re the road back to a future nearly lost. Her future now is stacked high with possibilities.

“You can get so caught up in the little things and at the end of the day, the little things don’t matter,” Claire says. “It’s the big picture and as long as you have your health and your family that’s all that matters.”

Last month at the Harrisburg All-American show, Reese stood fifth in showmanship out of 140 kids.

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How Social Media Sensation NY Farm Girls Defied Odds to Expose the Truth About Farming

At 36, Brooke Taylor Has Battled Cancer Twice, Now She's Working To Spread Joy To Others

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 18:11:55 GMT

At 36 years old, Brooke Taylor has many chapters to her life.

“After I graduated from Oklahoma State twice, I went on a circuit of working in the food and agricultural industry,” says Taylor, who now resides in Gore, Okla. “I started in Oklahoma City working in for commodity organization before taking the switch over to the agency side, working then in Oklahoma City, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee and Wisconsin before returning to Oklahoma.”

Taylor’s post-graduation chapter kept her constantly on the road. And six years ago, she says she woke up one day with the realization that life just wasn’t for her.

“If only there was a way to do what I do now working for large and international ag and food organizations, but in rural Oklahoma, and that would be the life, and somehow we made that happen,” she says.

She launched a company, Rural Gone Urban, in rural Oklahoma at a time when she had no internet at home. The business blossomed into a dream come true. That dream got even better in 2018 when Taylor found out she was pregnant.

“It was the cherry on top of all of the things that I’d ever wanted. I was living in Oklahoma, I had this job working with really big, important agricultural brands, while creating a family. I didn’t think anything could get any better,” she says.

Taylor describes her pregnancy as very normal.

“I did notice there was a spot in my breasts that kept getting a little larger, and I brought it up to my medical team, multiple times. They said, ‘No, this is just part of being a new mom. This is what your body does,’” she remembers.

But for Taylor, something was still wrong.

The Diagnosis

Maybe it was her maternal instinct already kicking in, but Taylor was right.

“And so my 38-week appointment, I literally ripped my shirt off in that doctor’s appointment, and I said, ‘I’m not leaving until you feel this,’” she says. “And I watched the color drain from her face.”

Her doctor referred her to a breast health specialist, and within 15 minutes of leaving her 38-week appointment, she received a call from the specialist’s office to schedule an appointment the next day.

“That next Monday, he called me at 8 a.m., and he said, ‘I’m sorry, kiddo. It’s cancer,’” Taylor remembers.

The diagnosis? A very aggressive type of breast cancer that primarily affects women under 40.

“And by 2 p.m., I found out the child I was carrying was a girl, and she entered the world via c section so we could get that [treatment] party started,” she says.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by brooke clay taylor (@ruralgoneurban)

A baby girl named after her great grandmother who was a dairy farmer in Indiana.

“So, Elsie James Taylor is the reason that I’m still here today,” says Taylor.

A New Mom Undergoing Cancer Treatment

Just days after giving birth, Taylor says she was treated to the entire breast cancer buffet.

“I had four different types of chemo. During that time, I had an infection they had to clean out. I had two cases of shingles,” says Taylor.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by brooke clay taylor (@ruralgoneurban)

She was undergoing the treatments all while still working and transitioning into life as a new mom.

“After that, I chased it with a double mastectomy. I chased it with five weeks of radiation during a pandemic. I had a preventative hysterectomy, and oophorectomy, which means before my daughter was a year old, I said, ‘Here are all my reproductive organs, please don’t come back.’ I had reconstruction surgery, and then I was good,” she says.

Positive News After Treatment

The news after the intense treatment? It was positive. Her body had a complete response to chemo. No cancer was left.

She lived life for about a year in complete remission. Her follow-up appointments and scans after she finished treatment showed the cancer was gone.

“And then Christmas this last year, I was driving home from my parents’ house, and my family had been sick all week,” she says.

It was also during that drive a year ago that she felt a swollen lymph node on her neck.

“My husband said don’t overthink it. So, I didn’t,” she says.

Taylor started on antibiotics, just thinking it was from the same illness that had been running through the family. But then weeks later, she saw photos of herself and knew that something just wasn’t right.

“So, I called my doctors and I went in I said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, something’s broken.’”

The Cancer Was Back

Once again, her instincts were right.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by brooke clay taylor (@ruralgoneurban)

Stage four cancer. It was heartbreaking news that she shared on her Instagram.

“It was back. It was mad. It was so mad. I got the results. The pet scan on the anniversary of the day my dad had passed away from cancer. So, really just twist over the knife on that one. I learned that the breast cancer had returned—it was in my neck and clavicle, my ribs, my spine, and then most of my pelvis,” says Taylor.

The cancer was everywhere. As the news sunk in, Elsie James was still just two.

“You’ve given me a metastatic diagnosis, which means end game. It’s what it means statistically. No one really makes it out that if you have metastatic triple negative breast cancer, and the average lifespan after that diagnosis is 13 months, which is this March for me,” says Taylor.

With the diagnosis came other news. A cancer-fighting medicine that had been in trials for 10 years had just been approved by FDA.

“Because I had responded well to a platinum-based chemo, because I am a BRCA1gene mutant carrier, I checked the boxes for this medicine. And it’s working for me,” she says.

It’s not been smooth sailing. That medicine that’s helping her fight cancer, also caused Taylor to undergo nearly 20 blood transfusions this past summer.

“And I’ve had clear scans. I’ve looked at the scans, I’ve seen the March scan, and then the scan in June and the scan in September. And while my doctors won’t say that it’s gone, it’s not there,” she says.

The Reality of Living With Cancer

Taylor says it’s a miracle she’s here, but the reality of beating two aggressive forms of breast cancer is something that doesn’t go away.

“I went to a girls’ dinner this past week and we were talking about teachers and who else you might have for pre-k or first grade,” she says. “And all I could think about was, we’re all just there talking like it’s okay and it’s normal, and I might not even meet those teachers. It’s just, it’s just my reality.”

Her reality of not knowing if she’ll be here to see her daughter’s milestones are her reality today.

“I would be lying to you if I told you that it’s not hard,” say Taylor.

Leaving a Legacy Larger Than Cancer Through the Rural Gone Urban Foundation

Yet, it’s not stopping her from doing what she’s always done. Taylor’s cancer battle is one she shares on social media, documenting the ups and the downs of fighting cancer twice.

And as a young wife and mom, she also wants to leave a legacy that’s bigger than cancer.

“And so I had this idea of what if I created something while I was still here, that way I could control its roots and its foundation. And then whenever I graduate to heaven, that people continue that living legacy for me,” says Taylor.

That’s how the Rural Gone Urban Foundation transpired.

“It came out of thin air really, and it’s the best thing that’s happened from this year,” says Taylor.

The mission? Investing in strong women doing brave things with three pillars of support. All the pillars reflect Taylor’s life and heart in some way.

“So the first pillar of the foundation is investing in B and C students, because gosh, they work hard to they’re probably the entrepreneurs of the world that we need,” says Taylor.

The second is investing in small business owners, which stems from her second season of life…

“When I launched my small business, I was living in an apartment in a horse barn. I had no internet. I had no infrastructure. I was reading irs.gov on Friday nights to figure out what was going on. And I had lived a career in very large corporate environments, but doing it on my own was a whole different ballgame,” she says.

And the third pillar is supporting others battling cancer.

“I just haven’t come up with a better name than love bombs for cancer fighters,” says Taylor.

Taylor says worrying about bills, childcare or things around the house is a lot for cancer fighters, especially ones who don’t have a huge network of support. So, the foundation will not only award women with financial grants, but also do the little things to help cancer fighters however they can.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by brooke clay taylor (@ruralgoneurban)

Taylor first announced the foundation on Instagram, an effort to leave a legacy of giving.

“We raised almost $25,000 in like 48 hours,” she says. “That’s grassroots; that’s like $5, $10, $50 donations. It’s wild.”

In less than a year, the foundation has raised close to $50,000, all thanks to generous donors and the foundation’s board.

“On behalf of the board, not just me, we want to gift entrepreneurs who are already doing the hard work and let them know we see you, we value you and we want you to succeed,” she says.

The Foundation Will Start Spreading Joy in 2023

The board has already overcome the paperwork and others hurdles of starting a foundation board, and in 2023, the Rural Gone Urban Foundation will start to spread that joy to others.

“I am the chair of the scholarship committee, so I’m pulling that committee together, right now. We’re going to open the application process, and this spring, and we’re going to give away $15,000, this spring semester,” she says.

Then, Taylor says the foundation will also get to work on the love bombs.

“March is triple negative breast cancer awareness month, which is the type of cancer I was diagnosed with, so it’s important that we start launching in March,” she says.

Taylor’s Memory Building Trips with Family

Taylor says while the foundation supports others, she’s been able to take Elsie on a few memory building trips of their own this year, including one to New York.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by brooke clay taylor (@ruralgoneurban)

“We went to a Mets game. She ran on the field. We saw the Lion King,” she says.

During that trip, they also made a special visit to a jewelry store and picked out bracelets together.

“Someday, whether I’m here or not here, she will open gifts that we picked out together on the day she graduates high school, the day she graduates from college, on her wedding day and the day she becomes a mom,” says Taylor.

One item Elsie was drawn to was a delicate bracelet with a lady bug.

“At that time, all I can think about is what about when this story becomes full circle and she is has her first baby. What if I’m not there? It’s just a ladybug. But if that’s all I can do, I mean, I’m going to do it,” says Taylor with tears.

Taylor may be a mom now, but she knows what it’s like to go through monumental moments in life without a parent.

“As a child who lost a father to cancer, those are the days where I was surrounded by the most people, and I kept looking around to see if he was there. I’ve never told anyone that,” she says. “And I was 6 when he died.”

As Taylor looks to the future, she’s not only thinking about her only family. In a season of giving, Taylor is working to make a difference year-round.

“This has been the most humbling year of my life,” she says. “Through tears, in my weakest moment of saying, ‘My daughter’s not going to remember me,’ to breathing foundation that people also believe in.”

And she says instead of living life like every day could be her last, she’s simply living life to the fullest every day she can.

“It’s not up to someone how what the outcome looks like, but it is up to us how we live through it; how we identify the silver linings,” says Taylor.

Taylor says her faith has grown even stronger since her initial diagnosis three years ago, and while she’s not scared to graduate to heaven, she’s not ready just yet.

“The thing I’ve struggled with is, how can I ask for me to be a miracle when maybe the miracle is that I’m here right now, anyway,” says Taylor.

Taylor’s mission isn’t finished yet. She says she’ll continue to work to raise money for her Foundation. If you’d like to help support her efforts and donate, visit the Foundation’s website .

One Month After Hurricane Ida Destroyed NJ's Largest Dairy Farm, Rebuilding is Still Underway as Family Refuses to Walk Away

Tue, 05 Oct 2021 16:18:40 GMT

Located just south of Philadelphia, Pa., outside a New Jersey suburb, is where Eric Eachus calls home.

“We’re located here in south Jersey; we farm around 3,000 acres here,” says Eric, who farms in Mullica Hills, N. J.

In the middle of subdivisions and a crawling metropolis, Eachus and his family continue the farm’s 73-year history of dairy farming. Started in 1943 by his grandparents, today, they’re one of the last ones left -- not just in the area but across the state.

“We’re a dairy farm with 1,400 cows, and we milk around 650,” he says.

Out of 114 dairy farms left in New Jersey, Wellacrest Farms is now the largest in the state. And just over a month ago, it became a dairy farm that’s managed to withstand a huge obstacle from Mother Nature.

A Rare Tornado

An area not known for dairying is also one where devastation from a tornado is rare. But on Sept.1, 2021, Wellacrest Farms was the target of Hurricane Ida’s wrath.

“We had a F3 tornado come through and that left a lot of destruction ,” says Eric.

At 6:30 p.m. that night, Eric and his wife got the tornado warning alert. Away from their phones, they didn’t see the warning right away.

“My wife ran out and got her friend who said that there’s an imminent tornado just touched down a couple miles that way,” he remembers.

“Everything is Gone”

As they took cover, they didn’t realize the extreme scene unfolding outside: one of the largest tornadoes in New Jersey history was ripping across their dairy.

“As soon as we pulled up here along the main driveway, I just couldn’t believe what I was looking at,” says Eric, as he tours the damage still left.

The scene on Wellacrest Farms looked more like a scene from something he’d only seen on the news about the Plains or Midwest. Instead, with barns flattened, equipment trapped and infrastructure tangled all across their farm, that tornado damage was sitting in their backyard.

“You couldn’t even drive up here as trees, all the wires were down,” he recalls. “Buildings were blown down, cows all over the place. It was just disaster. As soon as we came here, I called my dad and he came over and just walked around; he was just in shock. What do you do? Where do you start?”

Picking up the Pieces

But starting somewhere is exactly what they did. Checking to make sure the power lines were off of the roof, they started right in to save any cows they could.

“Back that way we have three different barns that house heifers and dry cows, and there’s nothing left to those buildings, so we had about 600 cows running loose,” says Eric. “The first thing was all the cows were out, so we were trying to gather them up somehow, just so they would be safe.Then we worked on trying to get trapped cows out of the buildings,” says Eric.

Read the original story just days after the tornado struck: ‘Everything is Gone’ New Jersey’s Largest Dairy Devastated by Hurricane Ida

As Eric and his family were still in shock, they knew the job was too much to do on their own. Plus, it was nightfall and dark out. So, they called a few farm employees and neighbors for help.

“By 7 p.m., we probably had 50, 60 people here,” he adds.

As more started to show up, he says 75 people were there until after 11 p.m., all working collectively to move the cows to safety.

“Out of the one freestyle barns that was down, we had about 120 cows on either side of the barn, and the one side was leaning a little higher, so we were able to get all those out. But on the other side, the cows were trapped,” he says.

Cutting metal trusses one by one, they were able to free cows on one side. While the cows were pinned on the other side, they were not injured. Considering the Eachus family couldn’t even access much of their machinery, they knew they couldn’t rescue the rest of the cows until the next day.

“So, the next thing was we called the local electric company and tried to get power to our parlor, because we still have to milk what we can,” he says.

Working through the night, with the help of a specialist to fix mechanical issues, and enough generators to power the barn, the Eachus family was able to milk the next day. An amazing feat, one that happened with a community who helped. And the next morning, even more help poured in.

“Then, a local construction company came in, because they heard about it. And one of the foremen said, ‘What do we need to do?’ I said, ‘Well, the first thing is, we have120 cows still trapped, we can’t get to them,’” says Eric.

All day Thursday, that construction company worked to help get the remaining cows out. And Eric says the company has been on the farm ever since, continuing to help the family clear a temporary place for the dairy to milk.

“We put makeshift gates up, just so the cows can go back to their state of flow, they have no roof or building, but at least it’s their spot where they have a place to lay down; it’s where we feed them, they have water there,” says Eric.

How Do We Rebuild?

A temporary plan was put into place just two weeks ago, as the Eachus family wades through more rubble and navigates decisions of what to do next.

“The struggle is trying to figure out what are we going to rebuild? How can we rebuild?” he says.

At a time when building supplies are already tight, the plan to rebuild isn’t just coming with decisions of how to rebuild, but how quickly they can construct something to protect the cows from the harshness of an upcoming winter.

“Then the next big problem is insurance and dealing with insurance companies to figure out what they’re going to pay and what we can afford to do based on how all that works out,” Eric adds. “It’s been a lot of phone calls here the past couple of days, then there’s been quite a bit trying to decide what we want to do.”

As the Eachus family nails down a new building plan for their dairy farm, it’s a major decision, as almost every barn on their farm was a total loss. And he says it’s still a surprise out of 1,400 cows on the farm, they lost less than 20.

“The buildings were collapsed,” Eric says. “There was nothing left to them, but all the cows were scattered around their pastures, but there’s no fences left.”

While the rebuilding process will take time, the material things can be replaced, which is why the Eachus family is not only grateful for the animals that were spared, but that other lives were not lost.

“The main thing is we’re thankful that despite how much destruction has happened, our family wasn’t hurt,” says Eric. “And also thankful that none of our employees were here milking in the barns at the time.”

Finding the silver lining is second nature for this dairy farmer. You can see it with any conversation. He wears a smile almost everywhere he goes, even in the midst of devastation.

Community of Support

“You look at all the stuff going on in the world and not just the world, but in our own country; everything seems so divided. But when a big disaster like this happens, everybody comes together and tries to help out in any way they can,” says Eric.

Many who knew nothing about farming, rallied around to help the Eachus family pick up the pieces left.

“We had school teachers here, we’ve had lawyers, we had everybody the night after it happened just coming in and saying, ‘What can we do to help?’”

It was a tragedy that brought together all walks of life, as this dairy family refuses to walk away.

“We will try to keep it going, so that maybe one day my kids can get to do it,” says Eric.

Fighting to have a future in dairy, instead of being overcome with the obstacles, as this dairy farmer is doing so with grit and with grace .

A GoFundMe campaign has been established to help in the recovery.

Read more inspiring stories from the Grit with Grace series here.

Stronger Than the Storm

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 19:21:32 GMT

Nobody knows when the worst day of their lives will happen, but I remember mine like it was yesterday.

On May 28th, 2019, my younger sisters and I were attending a good friend’s dispersal sale 10 hours away from our home in Linwood, Kan. We were excited to spend some quality ‘girl time’ together that week in Wisconsin, and we were looking forward to catching up with my boyfriend’s family who took us in during our stay.

The morning of the sale, my youngest sister, Sophie, and I, along with my boyfriend, Brett, woke up early to drive to the sale location. Sophie was leading cattle in the dispersal that day and I was on deck to run buyer slips. But before the sale started, the farm owners took their place in the center of the sale ring and prepared to say a few words.

I’ll let you in on a little secret – I cry at every dispersal sale I go to. It doesn’t matter if I know the family or not, I will always tear up. That morning I remember thinking to myself, “I can’t imagine having to go through this…having to say goodbye to the things you worked so hard to build.” But little did I know that I would be saying those same goodbyes to my family’s farm just a few hours later.

At the conclusion of the sale, I made a phone call to my mother to let her know how the day had gone. She couldn’t talk for very long as she and my dad were preparing to milk early that night. She had mentioned there were some severe storms not far away and they were headed in their direction. As I hung up the phone, I remember saying to her, “Alright, well stay safe. Love you.”

Erin, my middle sister, was interning in Wisconsin at the time, so she and Sophie had made the decision to stay at her place that evening. Brett and I started to drive back to his farm, which was just a few hours away from the sale. We were three miles from home when I got the call that would change my life forever.

“The Farm is Gone”

When I saw that my father was calling, I had Brett put the phone on speaker. As Brett fumbled with the buttons, I remember thinking my dad sounded out of breath as he started to talk.

“The farm is gone,” he said. I looked at Brett, shocked and confused, before saying to my dad, “Say that again.”

“The farm is gone,” he said. “We were hit by a tornado and it’s gone. We’re alive, but it’s all gone.”

I don’t remember much of the conversation after that, but we only talked for a few seconds before he had to hang up. Somehow, I was able to drive those last three miles home without crying, but as soon as I put the car in park, I lost it.

Things just started to blur together after that.

> I remember shaking uncontrollably at Brett’s kitchen table as I started to process what had happened and make the phone calls I didn’t want to make.

> I remember being on the phone with my mom when they found a favorite cow of mine and hearing her tell my dad to put her down.

> I remember hearing my sisters scream as they turned on the national news and saw our farm off in the background.

I remember so many things about that night that I have no desire to remember at all.

That night, a mile wide EF4 tornado completely destroyed all of the hard work my family and the generations before us had put into our farm. I was heartbroken, angry and grateful all at the same time. Heartbroken for the loss of our buildings and animals, angry about why it happened to us, and grateful that my sisters and I weren’t going home to plan funerals.

The emotions we experienced that night and the months to follow were traumatic. I still have nightmares and hate thinking about what our animals went through. I think we all experienced some form of depression that year, something I had never struggled with before. A random thought or action would trigger a flood of emotions, and I was scared for what was to come of our family farm and if we would ever return to a sense of normal.

While nothing will ever be the same, my family has returned to our “new normal.” The animals have returned to our farm and my parents are milking a small, registered herd of Holsteins and Jerseys again. It took a whole lot of grit accompanied by some grace for us to get to this point, but we’re thankful to be here. While our emotions still may get the best of us at times, we know that we’re stronger than the storm. And we’ll stick together, as family always does, through thick and thin.

For more on my family’s story, read:

Leach Family Proves They are “Stronger Than the Storm”

Grit with Grace

Grit with Grace highlights farmers’ and producers’ resilience. From survivors of breast cancer and farming accidents to stories of families who were stronger than the storms that ravaged their farms, get inspired here.

Leach Family Proves They are "Stronger Than the Storm"

Sat, 30 Jan 2021 16:06:33 GMT

May 28, 2019 was a day Rob Leach and his family will never forget.

“I grabbed our phones, our portable charger, some flashlights,” the Linwood, Kan. farmer said. “We thought worst case we’re going to have these things, and I’m so glad we did, because we needed every one of them.”

He needed those items after an EF-4 tornado ripped through Kansas. The twister was a master, at a mile wide, carrying 170 mph winds.

“I mean, it was noisy, but it was just the most incredible wind you ever can imagine,” said Leach. “Then, there was some really loud pounding, which we thought were nails, but it turns out there was my chimney coming apart, you know, hitting the roof.”

At one point, the winds and rain had stopped, and so Leach and his wife went upstairs. What they didn’t realize was the “calm” was the eye of the storm. Once the winds started back, they rushed downstairs to get back to safety.

“When we came upstairs after it was over, we couldn’t see anything, because it was raining the hardest I’ve ever seen it.”

When he finally waded through the limbs and debris covering his house and windows, the damage to Lin-Crest Farm was unreal.

“We have a lot of outbuildings, we have a shop, a freestall barn, calf barn, holding pins, grain bins, garages, silos; it’s all gone,” he said.

As a dairy farmer, Leach’s worst fear quickly became a reality.

“When we came up the hill, we expected the worst, and we immediately found that we had cattle meeting us in the yard, cattle walking all over the place, dead cows” said Leach. “But there was nothing we could do. I couldn’t even get to one to euthanize her.”

Some cows were carried more than a half a mile away.

“The one that was the farthest away, we didn’t find for 24 hours and she was the most valuable cow on the farm,” explained Leach. “She was down in a ditch and couldn’t get up. So, you know, we tried our best when we finally found her. We lifted her, we we spent a lot of time trying to decide if she was able to be saved.”

As the devastation continued to mount, what happened since the tornado ravaged the farm is something Leach says is remarkable.

“I made one phone call,” he said. “I haven’t even asked for help. I only made one phone call. And I’ve probably had a couple hundred people here and maybe more. The first guy here was some stranger who walked probably a mile to get here. He was he was just some guy that came over the hill, because all the roads were blocked for within a mile in every direction. And he walked in from the pasture and and wanted to help. He got on the skid loader and was trying to help, because he knew that the road was blocked. They probably spent three hours trying to clear their driveway. And then the county roads were also blocked. So access was impossible.”

As cleanup continues to take place, and reality sets in, Leach said he’s reminded what matters most.

“Nobody got hurt. My family is good, nobody got hurt,” said Leach. “My sister’s house, which is across the pasture, she was in her basement, and she lost everything. When she came upstairs her house was gone. And probably within 15 minutes she was over here, because nobody was hurt over there, she was over here helping with the cattle, and she never went home that night. She never went home.”

Caring for their cows, even with a natural disaster strikes.

“I mean, it seems silly, but our cows are our family,” said Leach. “All we cared about next was getting the cow somewhere safe. That one phone call s how he set the whole thing up.”

Strangers and friends helping save the cows they could, no matter the lengths they had to go.

“That night we walked 20 of the worst ones that were saveable out the driveway, so people that had never seen cows in their life, we halted them and they walked them all the way to the road, which must be a half a mile, in the dark and in the rain.”

Leach is thankful his daughters weren’t home that night. The girls were in Wisconsin, including Taylor Leach, who’s part of the Farm Journal family .

“Trash is everywhere, nails everywhere, wires everywhere,” she said scouring the aftermath. “If we ever have cattle here again, I don’t know how we’re going to be able to clean up all of the wire and nails out in the pasture. Our alfalfa needs cut and there are shingles in it.”

The farm, cows and the backdrop of her childhood ripped up in minutes.

Time stood still that night, with the clock in the milking parlor stuck on the time the tornado struck, reminding the Leach family they are stronger than the storm.

“Your friends and your family are all that matters,” said Rob Leach. “None of this is worth anything; this is just stuff. That’s what I had to tell my kids who were out of town, and thank God they weren’t here, I just thank God nobody got hurt. And none of this stuff matters at all.”

Related Story:

Taylor Leach Walks Through the Tornado Damage at Lin-Crest Farm .