There may be life off the ranch, but any Fremont County farmer or rancher will tell you – The #aglife is “the good life!” #Aglife is a County 10 series, brought to you by Wyoming Community Bank, that pulls the curtain back on farm and ranch life in Fremont County.
Ag roots run deep in Jessica and Tim Sullivan. They knew each other since kindergarten. In second grade, they didn’t like each other much, but as freshmen, they started to date, and now they’ve been married for 10 years.
Tim and Jessica farm near Bass Lake in Northern Fremont County on the farm where Jessica grew up.
“We were high school sweethearts, I told him our junior year if he didn’t want to farm, he’d better find someone else,” Jessica said.
Tim was born in Colorado, but his family moved to Shoshoni when he was just starting school.
Jessica and her brother J.J. grew up on their parents Rich and Kay Pingetzer’s farm.
Her future career was set before she hit high school.
Jessica was active in the Shoshoni High School FFA as well as in 4H. She was the 2012-13 state FFA vice president and was successful on livestock judging teams.
“I didn’t love it enough to do it for a college scholarship,” Jessica said. “I was into public speaking. I did AG issues and marketing. Those two teams went to the national FFA twice.
We were 4th in the nation in AG Issues my freshman year, and Marketing finished third when I was a junior.”
Jessica’s years in 4H and FFA combined with growing up on a farm set the spark for her future.
“I really think that some of the stuff you learn in FFA sets you up for success later. Those things I learned in FFA helped in financing and writing my own business plan,” Jessica said. “I showed during fair, beef, it was kind of cool looking back. The rule was when I started showing that I had to show one animal from my parent’s herd. When I was in high school, I was able to buy from somewhere else. I got involved in the “fed and bred” program in Fremont County.
Those years raising and showing cattle remain part of their present operation.
“I kept all my heifers from then and started my own herd. By the time I graduated I had my own small herd. That’s the point of it,” Jessica said. “I still have some of those original cows.”
“A lot of people don’t know what they want to do. It was more of a calling,” she said. “I knew in junior high that I wanted to farm. My parents had some rules. I had to go to college for a little bit, then have at least one real job before I came back.”
She attended Casper College, earning an associate’s degree in Ag Business.
The farming tradition runs deep. Earnest and Bonnie Pingetzer began their farm in Missouri Valley, where George and Velma continued farming and ranching for.
George Pingetzer was a well-known farmer who had his own airplane. He often flew from his place in the Missouri Valley to the Sand Mesa farm to do chores, then flew back. George was friends with fellow farmer and pilot Myron Jarvis.
“Myron and George ran cows together and were friends.” Jessica said.
“We were going through all of grandma’s pictures and we found two pictures one labeled 1940,” Jessica said. “The photos were of a Pingetzer bean field from 1940. One with straight rows with a name who planted it and one crooked with rows a neighbors’ name.”
“Earnest Pingetzer, my great grandfather, started leasing some of the Cottonwood acres in the 1960s and purchased it in 1973,” Jessica said. “He plowed it out of the sagebrush, and we are continuing to farm that piece of land today.”
Tim and Jessica have three children, Tate who is in first grade at Shoshoni Elementary, Tinley who just started pre-school and Audrey who will be two in November.
The Pingetzer operation is a big one, one of the larger ones in Fremont County.
“We’re responsible for quite a few sprinklers,” Jessica said. “We work with my dad every day, but Tim and I own some of our stuff too.”
Rich and Kay are Jessica’s parents. Rich graduated from Shoshoni High School and Kay grew up on her parent’s farm, Audrey and Jim Rubis, near Manderson.
Tim traces his roots to Northern Colorado.
“My dad grew up in Longmont. He helped a neighbor farmer in high school and just out of college,” Tim said. “Not a large operation, but a decent size for the area. When we moved to Shoshoni, there wasn’t much farming background in my family.”
Tim’s family moved to Shoshoni, living in the little town for a short period.
“I worked at Lathrope Equipment for a while, then it was Green Line and finally Stotz,” Tim said. “I worked at Stotz for seven years. I was a mechanic. I started at Lathrope in Casper. I started at small jobs then worked up to lawn and garden and turf in Casper.”
Tim moved to Riverton with Lathrope.
“In Riverton I worked in the shop for a while, “Tim said. “Lance Hamilton talked me into being in the service truck for a few years.”
His experience in working on other people’s equipment comes in handy on the farm.
“I do most of the mechanical work,” Tim said. “It’s a little limited now with the technology in tractors, you have to have computers to work with newer tractors.”
Jessica and Tim have known each other for a long time.
“In first grade I was the only one who could draw a better tractor than he could,” Jessica said.
The couple were married on May 31, 2014.
“We got married on a Saturday,” Jessica said. “That year we planted soybeans on Monday.”
Such is the life of a young ag couple.
“He’s going to take me to the ocean someday,” Jessica said. “But Ocean Lake doesn’t count.”
Much of Jessica and Tim’s operation is growing hard corn.
“If my dad had his way, we’d have hard corn planted from fence to fence,” Jessica said.
They also grow oats for Allied Seed Company and silage corn and experimented with growing alfalfa seed.
“Alfalfa seed was too volatile. Bees were super expensive, and you have to have a three-year contract,” Tim said.
Alfalfa seed requires special hives for cutter bees. You can see them dotting along the boundaries of alfalfa fields, often painted with unique designs.
“We now use them for calf huts,” Jessica said. “It was interesting.”
The farming tradition runs deep on Jessica’s side of the family.
“Going through all of grandma’s pictures we found two pictures one labeled 1940,” Jessica said. “The photos were of a bean field from 1940. One straight row with a name and one crooked with name.”
Beans were once a staple of the operation, but the family took a break from them for a while before returning recently.
“Dad didn’t start growing beans until about 15 years ago,” Jessica said. “Before that he grew malt barley, but it was so sandy he couldn’t get the production.”
Farm romances might be a favorite theme on the Hallmark Channel, but in reality, they can be very different.
“When Tim and I were dating in high school he came out and ended up driving a tractor all day,” Jessica said. “Tim got the John Deere and I got the Case. We didn’t see each other all day.”
They sell their beans to Kelly Beans in Manderson, Rich is the driver.
“He’ll drive up there, spend the night with an aunt and uncle, then come back the next morning,” Jessica said. “Dad is definitely enjoying the grandpa and halfway retired life.”
With never ending work, many outsiders don’t understand the draw that a farming lifestyle has, but the Sullivan’s do.
“We enjoy the ag life very much. It’s a great way to raise kids,” Jessica said. “I didn’t realize that because I was raised in it. The common sense, responsibility that they pick up on, you don’t have to teach it to them. It’s the best way to raise kids.”
The rural, agricultural lifestyle remains a great place for children to experience, but the corporate aspect of modern farming can be a challenge.
“I think that’s one of the hardest parts about agriculture. It used to be if you worked hard, it would pay off and you were profitable,” Jessica said. “Now it’s more like a business. It’s not as fun on the business side as going out and driving a tractor.”
Despite the economic frustrations, you can see the effect farming has on future generations.
“Tate’s been box blading our yard all summer long with a riding lawn mower,” Jessica said. “We’re so diversified, cow calf, however many different crops, whether it’s water or feeding cows someone has to be around here all the time.”
The Sullivans run mostly John Deere equipment but have a New Holland swather and sprayer.
Their largest crop is corn, about half of the farm. They have a quarter in hay, another quarter in beans and a small amount of seed oats.
They’ve tried other crops such as soybeans, sunflowers, alfalfa seed, and spring wheat.
“My dad is a fairly progressive farmer, he likes to adapt to new practices,15 years ago he started no till, he did strip till for a while,” Jessica said.
The Sullivans now practice minimum tillage. It’s a way of getting good production out of the sandy soil on the farm.
“When he first started farming, if you sneezed, the sand blew away, it took hours to get water to run over the furrows with gated pipe,” Jessica said. “We’re now able to get clods of dirt.”
“A couple of fields were pretty sandy, now we see clods,” Tim said. “When you live in sandy soil it’s exciting to see clods.”
Though he wasn’t raised on a farm, Tim is invested today, he has the farming fever.
“When I was younger, I thought being a farmer would be a cool thing to do. I liked tractors from a young age, I liked fixing things. My parents started me off on lawn and garden tractors, I took them apart and put them back together,” Tim said. “They saw the writing on the wall of what was coming in Colorado. They wanted to get us into different schools and away from the front range. We lived on Burma Road for a while then we moved to Shoshoni.”
Their long term plans are tied to the farm.
“Plan number one is to take over the farm. It’s the kids, “Tim said. “I don’t have much hair left on my head and I’m fairly young.”
Jessica agreed with her husband.
“The plan is to take care of what we have. We’re stewards of the land, we’d like to take care of what God has given us,” she said.
“We don’t want it to go to someone else,” Tim said.
The couple had other work experiences besides the farm, but it called them back.
“It’s a lot different than working 9 to 5 and having health insurance,” Jessica said. “I worked at John Deere in the parts department at Stotz. In theory you’re supposed to make more money, but nothing beats putting a seed in the ground and watching it grow. You need to tell your story, so people know where their food comes from.”
“It takes a lot of faith to put a seed in the ground and watch it grow or watch your cows go out on the desert for summer pasture and hope they come back,” Tim said.
The ag community, especially in Fremont County is a close-knit group. Farmers depend on each other, sharing equipment, helping when time is short and watching each other’s property.
“One of our favorite parts is the people,” Jessica said.
Tim had a final comment on his father-in-law.
“Rich is a farmer, not a rancher,” Tim said. “He’ll set you straight.”