About Us
Our small family farm in Washougal, WA has always been a dream of ours but we didn't always think we were going to be raising beef and pork on the farm. Will grew up on a dairy farm here in Washougal and wanted to become a dairy farmer. Jocelyn is from Tillamook and grew up around dairy farms. We both participated in 4-H/FFA growing up in dairy activities. Jocelyn raised market hogs each year for 4-H also. The dairy industry was always close to our hearts. This industry is even how we met. We both participated in Dairy Judging with Oregon State University and met on a judging trip. While Jocelyn was finishing up college Will had the opportunity to become a full-time aluminum welder and travel the country working on power substations. We both had non-farming jobs and were growing our herd of Jersey animals that were kept at Will's family's farm in Washougal.
Come July of 2012, two weeks before our wedding the family farm experienced a fire where a 100 year old barn and the milk parlor were destroyed. This was a tough time for the family but our wedding was a bright spot in those troubled days. After the fire we were no longer able to milk our herd of Jersey's there with the family's cows. We were able to take them to another local farm while we decided what our plan would be. We thought hard on if it was the right time to find our own place and start to be dairy farmers. It just wasn't in the cards at that time. We instead sold all of our Jersey's and bought our first two beef steers, Hank and Tank. We were living on 5 acres in Camas at the time and this was a perfect start for our beef business while we both worked our full-time non-farming jobs.
When we started the beef venture we knew we wanted to do more aspects of the agricultural industry than just beef, this is why we pivoted the name Windy River Jersey's to the new business name of Windy River Livestock. Windy comes from the 'fun' Columbia River Gorge wind, river from the Columbia River/Washougal River/Little Washougal River where Will grew up, and livestock because we knew we were destined to do numerous things in the livestock area.
Over the years we continued to harvest a few beef a year and ended up getting a few momma cows a few years later. In late 2016, we ended up growing enough to move to a bigger piece of property in Washougal. It needed some work but we knew we wanted to continue growing our business so we jumped in and moved further into the beautiful windy Columbia River Gorge. During this time we continued to sell shares of beef and a few pigs each year.
