In 1993, the Eusi family left their dairy farm in Switzerland, arriving in southwestern Ontario with a vision for building something that could support not just one generation, but many to come.

“He’s probably one of the most successful farmers I know,” says Kyle Rupp of his dad, Gary. “He started from the ground up and made all of this possible.”

Healthy communication can be defined in many ways, but in general, all these ways include three main themes: clarity, respect and promoting understanding. Making sure you are building healthy communication habits, especially surrounding topics like your mental health, doesn’t just happen. It is a skill that is learned by practice and planning.

I remember the day our son said he didn’t want to ride horses. We couldn’t blame him because he is allergic to them, and his allergies weren’t getting any better. Yet it wasn’t just the allergies that made him want to stop.

He calls himself a Rigby town kid, but Dennis Lake was truly his grandfather’s right-hand man on the ranch just north of town. At 88, Lake is still a critical part of the operation. 

When wildfires tore through the Nebraska Sandhills this spring, they moved fast – faster than communication, faster than formal response systems and, at times, faster than families could fully process what was happening.

A move to Wisconsin – and a sorrel pony named Ginger – helped a young girl find her place.

Graeme Finn could have been happy raising cattle anywhere in the world, so long as there was grass to graze and land to improve. He and his family ended up raising cattle, grazing grass and improving land in the foothill country of western Alberta near the town of Madden.

When I was dating my cowboy years ago, he worked for a man named Ray. Ray wore the signs of a hard cowboy life: twisted fingers from multiple broken bones, bowlegged, hunched over, skin as tough as leather.

Robby Kirkland knows cattle, and he knows people. And what he knows most about both people and cattle is that no two are exactly the same.