Two families, ninety acres, and a lot of grass
Jake and Barbra raised eleven children on this ground. Allen and I married the two youngest, and we are the ones taking it over now.
I did not grow up farming this way
Allen and I both grew up on farms. But our fathers farmed the conventional way: chemicals on the fields, modified corn, hormones to push the cows for more milk, animals kept inside most of their lives.
That was normal. That was just how it was done, and nobody around us was doing it differently.
Then I married into the Zook family, and started paying attention to how my father in law did things. Jake had been farming this ground in grass for twenty years before I ever thought to ask him a question about it. No chemicals. Cows out on pasture. Selling straight to the families who ate the food. He was doing it before most people around here had a name for it.
So I started reading, and asking. Joel Salatin's books got hold of me and would not let go. Eventually I sat through a three day course on soil health that rearranged how I saw the whole thing: the soil, the water, the air, the animals, the food. It is one system. Everything affects everything.
Once you see that, you cannot unsee it. We started raising our own food on three and a half acres, kept a family cow, butchered our own chickens and pigs, put in a garden, all of it alongside a full time job. Eventually it made more sense to join Allen here on the farm and do it properly.
What we are doing now is what we wanted for our own families first. Sharing it is the whole point.
Michael Fisher · Noble Pastures
Jake was doing this before it had a name
In grass since 1997. No chemicals on this ground the entire time. Selling direct to families when everyone else was selling to a processor.
Jake Zook was grazing this farm before the word regenerative was common around here, and long before anyone was making videos about it. He was not following a movement. He just worked out what made healthy soil and healthy animals, and then kept doing it while the rest of the county went the other direction.
It is one of the oldest continuously grass farmed pieces of ground in Lancaster County. That is not a marketing line. It is just the number of years, and the years are the reason the ground looks the way it does.
Everything Allen and I are building sits on top of what he started. We give him the credit, and we are trying not to waste the head start.
Selling straight to families, the way he always did it.
Two families, one farm
Between us we handle the animals, the milking, the making, and the getting it to you. Nobody here is a hired manager. It is us.
Allen and Amanda Smucker
They look after the cows and the milking, and they are the ones making the butter, the cottage cheese, and the yogurt. Allen also raises the meat chickens. They live here on the farm.
Michael and Linda Mae Fisher
We handle getting everything to you, the orders, the store, the deliveries, and we keep the laying hens. We live half a mile down the road, which means I am back and forth all day.
Between the two houses there are four little ones: Bethany, Alvin, and Kristina down the road with us, and Miciah here on the farm with Allen and Amanda. They are a good part of the reason we farm this way, and odds are you will meet at least one of them when you come to pick up.
Forty cows, and a good deal else
The milking herd
Forty cows, every one A2/A2 tested
Sheep
Grazing the same ground
Meat chickens
Moved to fresh grass in shelters
Laying hens
Following the cows through the pastureThere are pigs and horses here too, and one of these years we mean to raise turkeys for Thanksgiving. The mix is deliberate. Different animals eat different things and leave the ground better than a single species would on its own.
It starts in the soil
This ground has not had a chemical on it since 1997. That is not a marketing decision, it is the whole thing.
Healthy soil grows better grass. Better grass makes healthier cows. Healthier cows give better milk. It runs the other way too: what you put on the ground ends up in the water, in the air, and eventually in the food.
If you walk the pasture you will notice trees growing through it. We planted them in 2020: honey locust, black locust, willow, poplar, persimmon, white oak and mulberry.
They earn their place several times over. Shade on hot days and a windbreak in winter. Roots that hold the soil against erosion and reach deep to pull minerals up into the leaves. Habitat for birds and the insects we want. And the cows eat the honey locust pods and the persimmons and browse the leaves off most of the rest, which gives them a more varied diet than grass alone. You can taste that in the milk.
The old Ford still earns its keep.
Come walk it yourself
You do not have to take our word for any of this. Come out when you pick up an order, look at the animals, ask whatever you want to ask. That is the part we like best.