Welcome to Our Lady’s Ranch
What you see in the photo above is not what Our Lady’s Ranch looked like when the contract was signed on February 22, 2000. What you see is the blood, sweat, and tears of parents, kids, and friends spread out over the past twenty-two years. Together, we took a property that had essentially become an old car graveyard with unexploded mines from WWII and we turned it into the homesteading model that you see now.
It wasn’t easy… let me make that very clear. This website is full of smiling faces and green pastures, but there were definitely days of blood, sweat, and tears where parent and child alike were covered in mud and drenched from head to foot because the sheep got out. Do the days of hard work, hard learning, and hard growth make it all worth it? Definitely — Even then we realized it. I remember there were a couple of times growing up where we all gathered together in the living room as a family and were presented with an option: “Sell the Ranch and move for less work, more time for school, and the money to go on vacations again… OR step up, work harder, and keep the Ranch.” We (the kids) always chose the latter option.
This is supposed to be a “welcome to the website” blog post but I felt compelled to share the above information. Oftentimes, we see people where they’re at instead of where they came from and that can leave a skewed perception: “They seem to be living a perfect life! So why can’t I figure my life out enough to be living that dream too?” Life is far from perfect — it’s just filled with perfect little moments. As a family, the Zeiters at Our Lady’s Ranch discovered that more “perfect moments” could be found in the hardships of farming, the difficulty of homeschooling, and the uncommon decision to live a traditional Catholic faith. Thankfully, more and more people are deciding to leave the stifling life of the city, homeschooling is now a normal way to educate, and religion is finding its roots in a select few again. Perfect moments aren’t hard to find because they just happen, like when the youngest is found reading in an apple tree, when mom cooks the perfect dinner just when the troops trudge in after a long day of work, or when everyone dies laughing because the kids decided to ride one of the pigs that had escaped the herd.
On this website, we hope to share all of the Perfect Moments we discovered together as a family on our Catholic Homesteading journey along with the difficult lessons we learned as well. This is a place for good folks to learn how to find the best homesteading option for themselves. Every situation is going to be different and that’s okay because there is no perfect formula to life. The life that the oldest Zeiter kids lived is very different than the life that the youngest Zeiter kids are living now; Even within the same family, situations change, so what worked best then may not work now. This space is a place of support for those who desire a healthy lifestyle for their families; for those just beginning to think about homesteading and for those who have already been homesteading for a long time. No matter where we are along our journey, we can all learn from each other regardless of age, location, or experience. Everyone has a unique story that can help all of us with our own situation.
This website has been a long time coming as my dad (Phil) and I sorted through all the information that we have learned over the past twenty-five years regarding faith, family, and homesteading. Together we spent over a year asking ourselves, “Will this make sense to others?” and “How can we lay this all out in the simplest way possible?” Twenty-five years of patient discernment, difficult lessons, and priceless experiences are hard to condense and communicate in the context of a website. So we are inviting you to our community Chat Room for a fuller understanding of which aspects of homesteading excite you the most and/or worry you the most. We’d be delighted to get to know you and we’re happy to answer any questions you may have, knowing that thousands of other families are currently asking the same questions.
You’re welcome to share this new website with family and friends by sending them the link www.ourladysranch.com!
We look forward to hearing about your journey.
Until next time, God Bless —
Tyler Straight
Oldest Zeiter Kid
Design & Marketing for Our Lady’s Ranch
