Cart
0
I love Highland cattle, but I am disgusted with how commercialized they’ve become. They are not a fad. They are an incredible breed with a rich heritage, a purpose, and centuries of history behind them. Somewhere along the way, though, they became a novelty. Now they’re on everything from Hobby Lobby signs to coffee mugs, pillows, shirts, and wall art, usually reduced to a cute fluffy cow with bangs.
The funny part is I was selling Highland cow stuff before Highland cow stuff was cool. When I started, you really couldn’t find much of it in the U.S., which was exactly why I started selling it. I sold prints of my own photography, imported my first Highland plushes from the UK because I couldn’t find them here, and eventually had my own custom ones made. I even contacted Hobby Lobby and other stores years ago trying to license my photography. They weren’t interested, but apparently everybody eventually decided they needed a fluffy cow. But I digress.
For me, the difference was that the picture was never separate from the animal. My prints weren’t just pretty pictures of Highland cows. Every photograph had a story because I had lived it. I knew the cow, the breeder who produced her, where I bought her, and what it took to get her home. I knew her calves, what she produced, and where she eventually ended up.
Even the land behind them told part of the story. Was that picture taken at one of the properties I leased over the years? Was it in Bakersville, Burnsville or Spruce Pine, at the farm that is now gone, or eventually on a farm that was actually mine? When I look through those old pictures, I can almost trace my life through the cattle and the places behind them.
This is Desire. I bought her during COVID, and getting her from Canada into the United States was an ordeal. The little calf beside her was her daughter at the time, and her sire was a Balmoral bull from the Queen’s fold. Desire went on to be the mother of some of my favorite calves I’ve ever raised, including Kindness, Optimism, and Mercy. If you remember the story I recently shared about losing Mercy, this was her mom.
Desire now lives in North Dakota with my friend Jennie and her family at Bluestone Ranch. They are working hard to improve the breed, and their kids have some serious talent too. They’re already becoming cattle breeders, photographers, and caretakers in their own right, and I love watching the next generation grow up loving these cattle just as much as we do. Optimism is now in Tennessee with my friend Melanie and is going to go on to make some amazing cattle of her own. Their stories didn’t end when they left my farm. They just became part of someone else’s.
The land in this picture has a story too. I took it at the most beautiful farm I ever had the privilege of farming. It was pure perfection. Fog hung in the air that day; the light was incredible, and I never edited the original photograph because it didn’t need it. That farm is concrete now. When I took this picture, I had no idea I was preserving a moment in Desire’s life and a place that would eventually disappear.
Maybe that’s why the commercialization bothers me so bad. I understand why people think Highland cattle are pretty. Obviously I did too when I got my first ones. But somewhere along the way, appreciating them for their beauty turned into reducing the entire breed to a novelty. There is so much more to them than a fluffy cow with bangs, and I hate seeing all of that history and purpose get lost behind the cute factor.
These cattle tell stories. Their registration papers can tell you generations of history and the breeders behind them. My photographs tell another part of it. I can look at a picture and remember where that cow came from, where she was standing, what she produced, where she went, and sometimes an entire chapter of my own life that happened around her. A photograph might capture one moment, but generations of history can lie behind what you’re looking at.
All of that eventually led me to build Hoofnhorn. I’ve spent years raising cattle, buying and selling them, studying pedigrees, getting to know breeders, getting scammed, trying to stop others from getting scammed, and learning plenty of things the hard way. I wanted to take those experiences and build something that could make this easier for others.
But I also want it to succeed for personal reasons. I’m building a business that I hope helps me pay off my own farm. I want to protect this land, keep raising cattle here and know that what I’ve worked so hard for is actually mine to keep. So much of what I’m building comes back to the same things that have mattered to me for years: helping people in agriculture, protecting land, and caring for the cattle that made me fall in love with all of this in the first place.
There's something really cool about pulling this old picture of Desire back out and using it in an ad for my new business. I didn’t go looking for a pretty Highland picture because fluffy cows get attention. I already knew this picture. I know the cow standing in it, where she came from, what she produced, where she is today, and the farm underneath her feet that isn’t there anymore.
This photograph had a whole story before HoofnHorn was ever an idea. Now I’m using it to help build something that I hope will help other breeders and buyers, while also helping me protect a little piece of land of my own. I guess in a way it all comes full circle. The cattle and farms in these old photographs helped get me here, and now I’m repurposing those photographs to help me build what comes next.
