History of A&J Angus
Being in the education field for over 30 years, and building our farm and cattle herd in the afternoons and every weekend, we were both excited when we retired from teaching some 15 years ago. While we loved it very much, we knew that retirement would not be retirement as we plunged full time into our farm. Anita's dad told us many times that we needed to continue to tell ourselves that we were supposed to be retired -- we never have.
Having a lot of desire with little financial status, we knew that starting small, starting with excellent genetics, and working hard in everything we did would bring us satisfaction and hopefully a great deal of success in our Angus endeavor.
We began with a small purchase of 11 acres near Alvord, Texas. While this was a very small start, it was large enough to support two nurse cows and several bottle fed calves as well. Anita's parents, J.P. and Maxine Howard lived at Alvord and were as excited as we were about what we were doing. Their love, advice, and encouragement kept us moving toward our goals.In 1984, we were able to purchase our home place near Valley View, Texas. It was called "the Thayer Place" previously. While we are not relatives to the original "Thayers" to us it was just one more signal that we were doing the right thing. It was 111 acres of the prettiest land we could imagine, while at the same time being in one of the friendliest areas you could find. We quickly moved a mobile home on the property, drilled a well, constructed roads, a tank, boundary fences, and improved the existing barn on the place. In 1988, we were able to obtain 60 additional acres with road frontage that we desperately wanted and needed, and thus we were set to go. Needless to say, the work was just beginning.
In 1992, we built our home on a beautiful site on the newly acquired property. We again were blessed when Anita's family, uncles and cousin helped us build our home at a tremendous savings.
We are blessed to lease an additional 86 acres that borders our home place. This gives us ample land and opportunity to continue to expand should we feel led to go in that direction.
We thank our Lord daily for all the blessings we have. Every day we feel that we are doing the right thing with our genetics and our lives.
