Becker farm is agriculturally diverse

Dirt floors, plenty of hands-on opportunities and a heck of a view. This is what the office of Sonja Becker looks like northwest of Thermopolis.

Becker's grandparents Fred and Marjorie Becker bought 150 acres in 1957. She noted her grandfather was a welder for the Empire Oil Field.

"He farmed," she said, "but didn't subsist solely on the funds from the farm." Becker's father Keith came back in 1973 to take over, when her grandfather felt it was too much to handle; he had purchased a couple other places, bringing the total acreage to a little over 700.

"My mom was a nurse at the hospital," Becker said, "which helped facilitate farming." Many farmers and ranchers seem to have a spouse who off-farm job, she noted. Her father's return also caused a change in livestock, from sheep to cattle. "He ran cows and put up hay. That was what we did instead of the sheep at that point."

As for the animal changeover, Becker explained the land had been severely overgrazed, in general, because of sheep production and not managing things properly.

During the farm crisis of the 1980's, Becker's father sold the cows and got to an off-farm job, which allowed the family to still retain control of the land. After graduating high school, Becker headed out of the community, but moved back in 1997 when she and her husband at the time were deciding where they wanted to raise their children. However, her dad cautioned they would not make a living farming on Owl Creek because of Anchor Dam not holding water properly. Further, she said, the State of Wyoming attempted to take the water from the tribes, changing the situation further to where the creek would sometimes dry up.

Instead, Becker and her husband bought the Ritz Theater and ran it for 10 years. They divorced, and Becker would go on to marry Jon Schickel from Wisconsin. Schickel had a farm in Wisconsin, but chose to come out west to farm with Becker, and they wound up with a herd of dairy cows.

After her divorce and before marrying Schickel, Becker went to Chadron, Neb. with her father and picked up three Jersey dairy cows. "Two of them ended up not being very compatible," she said. "I ended up with one sweet, adorable Jersey milk cow." She asked her husband for another milk cow, so she wouldn't have to go for two to three months while the one cow was getting ready to calve.

Jon's mother notified them of an auction in Wisconsin, held by a nearby neighbor who had a herd of Jersey cows. Jon was already planning to go for his children's spring break, so he went a week early to attend the auction.

With a loan from the bank, they planned to buy a few heifers. After the younger, more expensive heifers were auctioned off the older milk cows were brought out. "They went through really cheap," Becker said. "He got kind of carried away with his alarm and ended up buying 10 of them." Then, the two-year-old un-bred heifers were brought out at the same price and "he just couldn't help himself. He sent home 11 heifers and 10 lactating cows." He also found 14 bull calves around the neighborhood and put them in so they could be with the lactating cows.

"I was not up for milking 10 cows twice a day," Becker said with a laugh. Accompanying the cows on the trip home were 20 piglets as well, she said, adding her husband didn't come back for a week because of the spring break. By the time he returned she had things up and going, in part thanks to a portable milking machine borrowed from Duane and Rose Watkins.

The 14 calves wanted to be on a cow, she explained, but had never been on one, and the cows never had their calves, so it took a while to get them "mothered up."

They started selling off some of the cows, and began thinking about how they were going to make a living. Still an owner of The Ritz at that time, around 2008, Becker noted they were in the process of selling the theater.

Nobody was making cheese at that time in Wyoming, Becker said. "So, of course, Jon coming from The Cheese State, we thought that might be a good, value-added product to be able to do. We ended up stopping selling the cows . . . so we could get set up to do cheese."

At the same time, they got the first hoop house set up, and they started contemplating setting up the facility to start doing cheese. Tragedy came when Jon passed away in a hunting accident in October 2010, seven months after they got the cows.

Becker was determined to continue farming. She noted Carl Anderson, from whom they first got their cows, came out to help with projects on a "work for food" basis. Anderson and her late husband had spent a week together getting animal health records and other pertinent information together, and spoke on his coming to Wyoming; at a memorial service for Jon, Anderson approached her and offered his help. Not a hired hand, he has been providing assistance for now nearly six years.

Prior to the decision about making cheese, Becker and her husband had decided to breed the dairy cows to calve in January so the farmers and ranchers would have nurse cows for their bum calves.

"You don't calve Jerseys in January," Becker said, as the calves are so scrawny they can't handle the January Wyoming weather. Each one was picked up, brought in the house and given a bottle of colostrum before being taken out to their mothers.

As for the hoop house - also known as a high tunnel - Becker said "they move you one grow zone to the south, and inside there I can cover with another row cover, and that moves me another grow zone to the south. I can extend my growing season in the spring and the fall significantly."

After her husband's passing, Becker took the Master Gardener class, and got together with the local Master Gardeners to start the Farmer's Market in 2011.

As for the farm itself, Beckers has increased the diversity of the animals to include pigs, sheep, chickens, turkey and broilers, as well as some livestock-guarding dogs. She also does gardening, and to keep up with everything she participates in Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, commonly known as WWOOFing. Her farm is listed on the WWOOF website as a host farm. People can sort through the host farms and decide where they want to go for a learning experience.

"They come out, they spend time on the farm as part of the family, basically. I put them up, I feed them and they help farm," Becker said. Some come out to learn about where their food comes from, while others want to know how to start their own farms. She further noted most of the people are in their 20's, but she has had visitors from 18 years old to 35, from all over the world. "It's been fantastic. It's awesome."

A passionate supporter of organic foods, Becker is hopeful more people will take on the farming lifestyle and work to produce products that are free of herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals.

Regarding her experience with the farm, she said, "It's a passion. It's a love."