This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we talk with Laura Zoeller, owner of a calf-cow operation in Western Pennsylvania.
Zoeller's road to farming has been an emotional one with unexpected twists and turns. She grew up on a dairy farm, but said she truly got into agriculture after meeting her late husband, a calf-cow farmer, with whom she had two daughters and a son.
Throughout their marriage, Zoeller assisted her husband in the barn while maintaining a full-time off-farm job.
Everything changed in 2021 when her husband died. Zoeller and her son were suddenly left with the emotionally and physically demanding job of keeping the farm going.
"Everything that I'm touching is something that we built together," Zoeller said. "We built it into something, and there's the fear of losing what he spent his life building for us."
Zoeller and her son quickly realized they had a lot to learn, but committed themselves to the task of keeping the farm running. Working together and frequently learning on the job, the two of them have wrestled with runaway cows and taught themselves how to bale hay.
Along the way, Zoeller has found support from the farming community and has been touched by the willingness of her neighbors to step up when she needs a helping hand.
"Sometimes farming can feel like you're alone in the trenches, but you're really not," she said. "(Farmers) know that we're better together. We're able to help one another and be safe and be successful in an industry that already beats us down so much."
Though it's been challenging balancing her farm work with her off-farm job, Zoeller has been able to find the joy in maintaining her cow-calf operation and said it has shaped her into a more resilient person, even if it wasn't what she saw for herself.
"I have found that I am stronger than I thought I was. I'm more capable in a lot of ways than I thought I was," she said. "I would 100% hands down choose to be the farmer's wife if given the option."
