The Story So Far…

Today feels like an appropriate time to give you all some background on our story.

We started dating in high school in the small town in Texas where we were both raised. Our families have been in this town since it was first settled in the early 1800s and Jaken is a sixth generation descendant of the towns founder.

We were high school sweethearts off to college with big city dreams in our eyes. We wanted nothing more than to get out of this town and on to what we thought were bigger and better things.

After we got our degrees, Brooklyn got a job working at NASA, Jaken got a job with the Astros, we got married, and we bought a house in the suburbs. For a while, everything felt right.

Then 2020 came along. We saw food shortages, we were locked down in our own home, and we were far enough away from family to feel the distance. In a flash, our “big” house in the suburbs suddenly felt incredibly small and closing in quickly.

Our tenth of an acre was not enough land to grow our own food on and the HOA wouldn’t allow anything past one pet - we were 100% reliant on the systems that were being shut down by mandates.

Then, we had a little glint of Hope. We found out we were going to be having a baby.

Everything felt right again except for one thing - the house. We started asking ourselves “are we really going to live in a home where we can’t do the things we loved to do as kids?”

We wanted our baby girl to grow up somewhere she could play in a big garden, raise some animals, learn to fish and hunt, ride four-wheelers, shoot guns when she gets older, and just be a kid.. Somewhere she could just be free.

We wanted somewhere we could grow our own food, raise livestock, and not have to worry about the food supply chain or the lockdowns or the sounds of sirens. So, we sold the house, got rid of anything that wasn’t a family heirloom or necessity, and left the city.

We moved back to some family land in our hometown. This land was formerly a dairy farm raised by Brooklyn’s great Aunt. After Aunt Dixie passed away Brooklyn’s parents moved in and raised her here, but after her father passed the land eventually got taken over by vines and other vegetation.

When we first started working on the land it was a jungle. It took months of work to get the area to a habitable state, but it was well worth it.

Now, we’re living in a 200 square foot camper trailer building our ranch while we build our house.

It won't be easy, there will be plenty of missteps along the way, but we’re here for it. It’s generational land. It’s our home. And now, it’s Rowan Ranch.