meet your neighbors
Living the Dream By Taylor Short
The Shortt family jumps at the opportunity to own their own farm in Douglas County, Mo.
When more people began searching for beef, the Shortt family began offering split quarters, quarters, halves and wholes to customers from their Pansy Creek Cattle Company. Pictured, from left, are Noah, Farron, Nacole and Yahira Shortt.
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Nestled along the winding back ily purchased the farm in 2018. Pansy Creek Cattle Company is a 100-yearroads of Douglas County, Mo., lies a local farm-to-fork operation known old farm sitting on 80 acres of Ozarks hill country and continues to be a work in progas Pansy Creek Cattle Company. Nacole and Farron Shortt, and their chil- ress. They run mostly Limousin-cross females, dren Noah (14) and Yahira (15) run the which are bred by a Red Angus bull. “Farron has been the one putting in the day-to-day aspects of this local family- ran work to make the land and herd as healthy operation. With both kids involved in the local FFA and productive as it can be,” Nacole said. Nacole took a grazing class through the Unichapter at Ava High School, Nacole and Farron hope their children will continue versity of Missouri Extension. Her enthusiasm to be involved in agriculture for the rest for newer practices combined with Farron’s of their lives. Nacole hopes one day Noah grandfather Ebb Shortt’s old-school ways, the farm is shaping up. and Yahira will have an inter“Slow and steady is our plan,” Naest in showing cattle. cole said. “It was always Farron’s When the COVID-19 pandream to have a cattle farm demic hit, consumers seemed to here in Goodhope (Mo.), where become concerned with their he grew up. When we got word food supply, especially meat. of a farm coming up for sale, we Goodhope, Mo. With limited supplies of beef knew we had to jump on the opin stores, Nacole and Farron portunity,” Nacole said. The famMARCH 8, 2021
decided since they had beef, why not start selling beef directly to those consumers. “We had steers that couldn’t go to the sale barns due to everything going on, so why not sell direct to the public?” recalled Nacole. Pansy Creek Cattle Company strives to make the farm-to-fork experience easy. Not only do customers purchase beef at a comparable price, but they also have the knowledge of knowing where their beef comes from and what the cattle are fed. All cattle are pasture raised, with the Shotts offering a mineral mix, and range cubes in the winter months. Steers remain on pasture until their processing dates and are offered a custom finishing mix from H&S Feeds in Ava, Mo. Pansy Creek Cattle has plans to market their meat to the public virtually and will continue to rely on word-of-mouth sales. — Continued on Next Page
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