What Hospitality Means to Me

and a new name! Welcome to Farm to Table! 🌾

One of my dear friends is the best host. She loves inviting people into her home—the more, the merrier. She plans and serves delicious food and lots of drink options, all with a theme in mind. She greets each guest with a tight squeeze and “I’m so glad you’re here!” She genuinely means it. The whole party, a big smile is on her face—everyone feels welcome and loved. 

Big parties and groups overwhelm me. I often stick to the edges of the room, a drink in hand, searching for one-on-one conversations. After a while, I head outside, where it's less crowded, returning inside when I’m ready. I’m not usually a hugger, and small talk makes me squirm.

In many ways, my friend and I are complete opposites. 

I rarely host parties at our house. For years, I’ve told myself it’s because of how far we live from town. It feels like an inconvenience to ask anyone to make the drive, bumping over miles and miles of gravel roads. But it’s mostly because I don’t think I’m a good host; I’m not like my friend. I’ve never considered hospitality to be one of my gifts. 

I always assumed that being a host had to look one way—and it didn’t look like me.

But lately, I’ve been thinking of hospitality in different ways. That maybe, I’ve assumed I’m not a good host, because my hospitality looks different than others. 

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hos·pi·tal·i·ty

/ˌhäspəˈtalədē/

noun

noun: hospitality

• the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.

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While I rarely host parties in our home, I do bake chocolate chip cookies, bringing them to our employees and my husband on a random Tuesday, just because. 

Hospitality looks like the meals I make and deliver to the field during harvest and seeding. 

It looks like the last-minute dinners I’ve put together for our employees; when the day’s work ran longer than expected, everyone gathered around my worn kitchen table. 

It’s the extra plate I put out at lunch when a salesman randomly shows up before noon. 

It’s the words I share online, hopefully making others feel seen, welcome, and less alone.

I’ve wanted to rename my Substack for a while. While I definitely overthink a lot of things (including my writing), I don’t write about overthinking—so it never felt right to me. My writing here will stay the same, the new name is just a reflection of what I want this space to feel like—the community I hope we continue to build here. 

“Farm to Table” isn’t just the tomato I grow in my backyard (assuming I don’t kill them all) and serving it on a BLT sandwich. Farm to Table encompasses many aspects of my life. The wheat we grow is milled into flour and is served on your kitchen table. The cattle we raise will become the beef that is served in a restaurant or bought at your local grocery store. Farm to Table is the culture our family strives to create—bringing our employees to the table. It’s a time to connect, breaking bread together—a well-deserved break from the work we all love. 

Food brings us all together. 

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My desire is that my words and stories here serve as an extension of my kitchen table. These are the stories I would share with you if we were sitting next to each other, passing a plate of potatoes. Maybe this life is one you’re living too, and you understand the loneliness and challenges that come with farming and ranching and motherhood. Our stories connect us, even though our kitchen tables are miles and miles apart.

Or maybe you’re living in the city or the suburbs—this life is foreign to you. You might read my stories while sitting at your kitchen table, miles from a farm or a ranch. My goal is to bring a little bit of farm life to you through my words—a little more understanding of where your food comes from.

Ultimately, my hope is that we can all gather here, share our stories, and realize how much we all have in common—despite our locations on a map. 

Whether you’ve been here for a while or you’re new here—pull up a chair. 

I’ll go first. 

Photos by Western Ventures Photography

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