Our Story

Why? Not enough hired hands to pick it.
Result? Acres of onions left to rot under the sun.

(If you’ve never smelled that much onion in one place on a hot day… well, count yourself lucky.)

By the 1980s, with electricity prices climbing sky high, all farming came to a screeching halt. The land was divided up and sold in parcels. And for decades, it sat quiet.

Until 2019.

That’s when a couple of Wisconsin transplants, Andy and Katie, wandered in, took one look at the wide open fields, and felt their boots sink deep into possibility. The place was overgrown and quiet, but the bones of a great farm were still here.

We started sketching out hay production plans in 2020 and promptly learned just how much Arizona likes to throw curveballs.

First up? A massive 180-foot arroyo carving right through the north end of the property, just south of our irrigation well. A real beauty of a wash. Pretty to look at. Terrible to farm across.

Solution? Custom-build a pivot section to span the wash and engineer a setup so unique it involved dangling our son, voluntarily we should note, over the wash to unhook crane chains lifting irrigation pipes. (Sometimes farm solutions require a little creativity… and a willing teenager.)

Next came the irrigation pipe: twelve inches wide, buried four feet deep, stretching along the perimeter of every field. That job took the many weekends of help from Robert and David, plus some loaner equipment from our friend Mark.

And then there was the machinery hunt. Andy crisscrossed the Southwest collecting gear like a kid at a county fair. Tractor from Roswell, New Mexico. Wheel lines from Idaho. Baler from New Mexico. Rake and disc from Colorado. By the end, we’d logged thousands of miles and learned the best gas station coffee between here and the Rockies and that if you get stuck in Shiprock, New Mexico with a blown transfer case - Mark will come save you.

Finally, in August 2025, we dropped seed in the ground. Five years of planning, digging, building, sweating, and learning all for that first crop.

Farming in the high desert teaches you two things pretty quickly: how to prepare, and how to adapt when your preparation doesn’t impress the weather one bit. From the start, we’ve believed in doing things the right way—taking care of the land, the livestock, and the people who depend on what we raise. We also believe in learning lessons the honest way.

Our first Sudan grass crop made sure of that.

Fall in Arizona is usually dry - not “maybe dry,” but bone-dry. We were right on schedule for an early October cutting. The forecast looked great, equipment was ready, and we kicked things off feeling pretty confident. Sudan grass has thicker stems than alfalfa, so instead of a quick one-day dry time, we planned for about a week in the field. Nothing unusual there.

Then Hurricane Priscilla showed up.

The storm pushed off the coast and decided the high deserts of Arizona looked like a nice place to visit. What followed was five straight days of nonstop rain directly on our freshly cut Sudan grass. For our very first crop, it was one of those moments where you stand in the field, look at the sky, and quietly wonder if you just made a very expensive compost pile.

Thankfully, Sudan grass doesn’t scare easily.

Those thick stems held up through the rain, dried out beautifully once the storm passed, and proved exactly why this crop works so well in our climate. Within a week, we had all 3,000 bales loaded onto trailers and stacked safely in the shed with equal parts relief, gratitude, and a little disbelief.

That first crop set the tone for everything that followed. It reminded us that you can’t control the weather, but you can control how you respond to it. Preparation matters. Patience matters. And sometimes, things turn out better than expected even after five days of rain.

Today, End of the Road Hay & Cattle focuses on producing dependable, high-quality forage and raising Hereford cattle with care and intention. We take pride in our work, we don’t cut corners, and we’ve learned to keep a sense of humor along the way.

Because out here, resilience isn’t just part of the job - it’s part of the story.