Greg Farnell

So, I lived in the capital of Alberta right in a town of a population or about 1 million until I was 17, all of my family is from the city and has a normal 9-5 job. At the time I was working as a full-time heavy-duty mechanic, I started a new job part time running a service truck and ended up going on a lot of farm related calls! A guy at work and I always talked about how cool it would be to start farming and eventually make that full time.

A few months later we drove past a small cattle farm and looked at each other and just knew, we better do this!!

" ...we drove past a small cattle farm and looked at each other and just knew, we better do this!! "

– Greg Farnell

That week we incorporated our farm “Rafter F Ranches” and started surfing buy and sell pages for some equipment. We stumbled upon an only 1965 Case 830 for $1,500 and partially restored it up to a tad better than working conditions. Found a really, really, really crappy baler and commandeered a swather off the neighbour. At this point I decided I better find some land so we upped and moved out to Legal, Alberta.

Long story short, working full-time as mechanics from 8 am – 5 pm and full-time as farmers from 5:15 pm – 8 am, we are here. With the purchase of 5 bred black angus heifers and a very uneasy feeling going into this, we patiently await calving season. Through all of the antics dealing with the seemingly worst equipment out there for now and not knowing anything about anything in this world other than knowing how to fix things, neither of us would trade this for the world.

Greg Farnell
Rafter F Ranches
Legal, Alberta