| “I
love your beef jerky. That is the best beef jerky I have ever
tasted. I also love your cubed steak. It is my favorite.” Mike Nilson Pullman, WA |
Our
family has been ranching in Wawawai for over sixty years.
We (Nikki & Joe Eaton) enjoy the ranch life with our children
and extended family, who all help out on the ranch. It takes
an entire family to make the ranch work!
Our Children are Molly (6), Samantha (3), and Clayton (1.5) and they have chores on the ranch. Molly feeds the calves and Samantha feeds the dogs and cats. Molly and Samantha also help to pitch hay into the mangers (when they’re not crawling around on the hay bales!), fill the feed buckets, and work the cows (“come on girl, get going, hey hey”). Clayton sits in Nikki’s backpack and supervises the whole operation!
Joe’s brothers Mike, John, and Brad help out on the ranch on the weekends and Mike will soon be joining us full-time. Our nieces and nephew help out as well. We have always raised our beef without antibiotics, hormones, or steroids, and as natural as possible. As we educated ourselves about local and organic foods, it became clear to us that we must make our product available to the local market. We are committed to providing our community with the best beef available and enjoy showing our customers around the ranch. We are members of Rural Roots and the Washington Sustainable Food and Farming Network.
|
Joe
started his herd at age 1, when his father gave him his
first cow. He immediately knew that he wanted to raise cows
for his life’s work and passion. He bought out his
brother’s cows by taking a loan when he was 12 years
old. When Joe and Nikki met in 1992, he had 32 cows. Joe
now has 250 cows in his herd and takes great pride in his
work, his herd, and providing quality beef for our customers.
Joe does the majority of the work on the ranch: feeding,
watering, and taking care of the herd. He also rotates the
herd on various pastures, makes sure that the barns are
clean, and makes and hauls hay to the sheds.
Nikki
graduated from Washington State University with a B.S. in
Crop Science and worked for Weed Extension at WSU. She is
now on the Weed Board for Whitman County. Nikki is responsible
for keeping the books and marketing Eaton Natural Beef,
in addition to helping on the ranch with manual weed control,
reseeding the pastures and looking after the cows. 
Joe’s
dad helps manage the ranch when Joe is working the cows
in the mountains. Uncle Les manages the Emida Ranch. Joe’s
dad and uncle tell us stories about what farming and ranching
was like before chemicals and how they did it “the
old fashion way”. Dad and Uncle Les play a key role
in our business because they help educate us on the natural
ways of ranching and believe in eating healthy natural food
without chemicals and preservatives.