Spring growth

When we began spending more time on the farm in Montana last year, we really didn’t expect to be living here nearly full-time within a year. We have made a few trips back to our home in Burien to work on our house and deliver some orders, but for the most part we have been hunkered down in the Tarkio farmhouse caring for the animals, remodeling the house, and making plans for the future.

We have not been running many orders over the past several months (but that will be changing soon). One thing we’ve kept under our hats a bit, is that we have been raising 15 grass-fed steers for direct-to-consumer sales. We also ended up with 10 bred cows to care for, and as of today all but one of them has calved! Winter was long and cold, but the sight of spry little calves running around in the sprouting green grass somehow makes me forget how hard those winter months were (I won’t speak for Justin since he was the one working on the water tank in -13 degree weather on more than one occasion…his memory of winter may still be intact).

Another even bigger project we’ve been keeping under wraps is that we purchased materials to build a small farm/general store. This building is also going to become the headquarters for Farmhouse Collective. As we expand our business to offer more products, grow more food, and create more community, we will continue to adapt and adjust. It’s important to us to stay connected with our community in Burien/Seattle, while we grow community here in Montana as well.

We will be sharing more about each of these things, along with more, in the coming weeks. If you’d like to learn more and stay up to date on all that’s going on, just make sure you’ve subscribed to updates below.

Welcome and thank you

(This letter was originally published on our homepage last year.)

To all of our members,

We started Farmhouse Collective in the Spring of 2022, but within a month of launching, we found ourselves having to make some extreme changes. Over the past several months, we have split our time between our home in Burien and Justin’s family farm in Montana.

Throughout the Spring and early Summer, we were able to spend time with Justin’s father, Wayne, while he ended his 15 year fight with cancer. We lost Wayne in mid July, and our plan had been to spend some of our time in Montana with Justin’s mom, Deb, but most of our time at home in Burien.

Life has a funny way of changing plans though. It’s a bit of a long story, and we will share it at some point, but the short version is that we are now living in Montana more often than we are in Burien.

We are taking on the care of Wayne & Deb’s herd of cattle and learning as much as we can from Deb about raising them. We will be direct marketing the beef we raise through Farmhouse Collective, and we plan to continue the wholesale buys for our members both in Montana and Washington. We will be returning to Burien about once per month to deliver goods to all of our members there, and we will be in Montana tending to the land and animals the rest of the time.

Now that we have turned the page on one of the hardest seasons we have ever faced, we are looking forward to the future. We are grateful for all the patience and understanding you have all shown as we weathered the last several months, and we are excited to have you with us as we move forward. So, check out this new website, and as always, don’t hesitate to let us know if you have questions.

We appreciate you,

Heather & Justin Boyes