Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com

Northwest of Woodstock, you will find the farm of Brian and Liz Winsel, a local family with a history of agricultural roots. Brian grew up just two and a half miles from the site he purchased in 2004, helping his parents, Ken and Barb Winsel, who had a farrow-to-finish operation for sows. Across the road, his grandfather had stock cows, and Brian spent a lot of time working and learning from his grandfather and father.

After graduating from high school, he went to South Dakota State University in Brookings and received a two-year degree in general agriculture education. During his time at SDSU he was able to come home and continue to farm, and he always knew that’s what he would end up doing after finishing his college education, Brian said.

“I grew up a farm boy. I was always helping on the farm growing up,” he said. “I guess I kind of knew when I went to college that I was going to be back on the farm. My grandpa lived right across the road from my dad, he kind of helped me get into farming and he wanted to see me come back and farm because I was the last Winsel boy there to take over.”

Today, Brian still works alongside his father, farming around 1,000 acres of corn, soybeans, or alfalfa. Although the pair has their own fields, they still team up to get the job done, Brian said.
“We always work together and have certain fields that are mine and certain fields that are his, but we just work together and get them planted and harvested,” Brian said.

Brian’s main operation is sheep, and his 900 head of ewes keep him busy, in addition to the spring and fall hustle of planting and harvesting. He also has 80 head of stock cows that he is in the process of calving out at the moment.

His business partner, Bryan Kruse, who has a percentage of the sheep and cattle, helps with the sheep and cattle in the lambing season when it is “all hands on deck,” Brian said.

“He’s there for the morning shift and I’ve got the night shift and we just make it all work,” he said.
Reflecting on where he started and where he is now in his operation, Brian acknowledged that success and growth take time, hard work, and patience.
“You know, we have 900 ewes, but that was kind of a growing phase,” he said. “I’ve had sheep for about 20 years now, and the first year you get 100, the second year you get 200, and the next year you have 400. It was a growing phase. We have been up to 1,000 ewes before. It is a lot of work, and as my kids are getting older and into more activities, it is kind of nice to not have to lamb as many so that I can still take a little bit of time and go to some of their activities.”

Liz works at the courthouse in Pipestone in the assessor’s office, and Brian also serves on the Rock Township Board.

Brian and Liz’s three children, Aurora, 17, Harper, 14, and Monte, 12, are active in sports, band, 4-H, FFA, and other activities. Despite their full schedules, during the busy seasons when they are not involved in those activities, they are helping Brian around the farm.

“The kids help out in the lambing season,” he said. “I enjoy when they are out there, when they are helping, if they are able to. I am able to show them new things with the animals and even with equipment. We have different equipment now that runs itself, and I get to show Monte how to do that, and he’s happy to do it. It’s a good feeling that they are learning a little bit about the farm life.”

While he hopes the farm will stay in the family, Brian wants his children to do what makes them happy. However, if they do want to stay in the family business, there will be room for them when they are ready, Brian said.

“I guess time will tell, I’m not going to push anybody into farming,” he said. “If they want to come back and farm, they’re more than welcome to.”
Recognizing that having the opportunity to grow up on the farm, he feels blessed to have had the chance to experience the lifestyle and to also bring his children up in such an environment.

“I was really fortunate that I had my grandparents and my mom and dad were behind me in getting back into the farm and creating an opportunity for me,” he said. “My grandpa got out of the stock cows, which allowed me to get in. He helped me in using some of his equipment, and my dad too. I am very thankful that I was able to do so.”

Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com

If you head southeast of Lake Benton you’ll come upon the farm of Dale and Cheryl Johnson. If you’re not sure if you are at the right house, just look for two faces with a warm smile offering welcoming words.

Dale was born on the farm and grew up helping his father there who moved to the site in 1947. He graduated from South Dakota State University with an animal science degree and began farming in 1974, taking over the farm when he and Cheryl married in 1982.

A Pipestone native, Cheryl who earned a degree in elementary education from the University of Minnesota Moorhead, chose to stay home for 10-years to raise children and help Dale out around the farm. She then went back to teaching at the school in Lake Benton, where she substituted for elementary classes for around 15 years.

The couple had three children: Matt, Leslie, and Nathan. Leslie (Burns) lives in White, S.D., with her husband Rob and their two children, and Matt lives in Tea, S.D., with his wife, Tory and their two children. Sadly, Nathan lost his life in a car accident in 2003 before his high school graduation.

Despite their loss, Nathan, who intended to take over the farm from his parents, has a legacy that lives on with his family and the farm.

Like his father, Dale started out farrowed pigs and had a farrow-to-finish operation.

“I had a farrow-to-finish for a while, and then I farrowed isoweans,” he said. “I built a farrowing barn in 1991, I think, and then in 1993, I built the gestation barn. I was farrowing close to 200 sows.” The Johnsons continued to raise pigs up until 2003.

They also have around 658 tillable acres that they plant. In addition to raising swine, the Johnsons have raised cattle from the start of the operation, and they had a few other animals on the site, including horses.

“My dad grew up with horses, and so we had horses,” he said. “But now we are pretty much concentrating on the cow-calf operation.”
In 2011, the Johnsons decided to bring Heath Houselog, a neighbor and friend, into their operation to take over when they are ready to retire eventually. At this time, there is no set date for their retirement.

“I enjoy what I’m doing, I enjoy working,” he said, “I’ve always said you need to have something to get up for in the morning.”

The Johnsons feel good about passing on the family farm to another family rather than a larger operation.

“I like the legacy of passing it on to somebody who I know rather than somebody that I don’t know,” he said. “I still have a connection with it with all the work that I’ve accomplished throughout the years. The simplest would have been to sell it off to somebody on a farm sale and quit. This is a way to carry on the legacy through Heath. This way I can always come back and visit and feel good about what he has done.”

These days, Cheryl is still taking care of things around the house and Dale is indulging in his creative side with woodworking projects while still helping Heath with the transition. He has completed various projects including restoring an old buggy, and currently, he is working on a spring bench.

“I will sometimes wake up thinking of ways to make things,” he said.

The couple also has season tickets to Jackrabbits football and basketball, a team they diligently support. They also spend as much time as they can with their grandchildren.

The best thing about being on the farm, Dale said, is the variety of experiences.

“No day is the same; some days can be more challenging than others.”

“It’s a good place to raise kids,” Cheryl said. “It teaches them responsibility and gives them something to do.”

“You can also go out and get the mail in your underwear if you wanted to,” Dale chuckled.
“We don’t get much traffic out here,” Cheryl said with a big smile.

When they are finally ready to transition from the farm, Dale and Cheryl are leaving their options open, with definite plans to spend more time with their children and grandchildren. Brookings may be an option for relocation because of how much closer it is to their children and, of course, to Jackrabbit games. Travel will be a part of their plans, with Alaska being a bucket list item.

Wherever the Johnsons go, their warm and friendly personalities will forever be remembered by the community of Lake Benton.

Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com

Southeast of Lake Benton in Lincoln County sits the farm of Heath and Brittany Houselog. In 2011, the couple bought their first farm site, which they currently use as a homestead. Another farm site was bought by the Houselogs in 2020 from Dale Johnson, whom Houselog is currently partnered with and working toward taking over the operation. On that site were a couple of pig barns that the family converted for sheep, Houselog said.

Heath, who grew up by Ward, S.D., got into the farming game in 2011 while he was working part-time for Johnson. Prior to really delving into farming, Houselog worked at Pipestone Systems for around seven years and at New Horizons for around five years. Now, he and his family are continuing to integrate into Johnson’s operation.
“We decided to go into full-time farming and Dale Johnson has been working us into his operation,” he said.

The Houselogs are currently raising about 325 ewes, which they lamb out and finish all the lambs, and the family farms row crops on around 700 acres. Dale and Heath have around 120 head of stock cows.

Brittany has her hands full, too, Houselog said. She cares for their six children: Jacob, 14, Adam, 12, Benjamin, 11, Abby, 9, Teddy, 5, and Grace, 3. She also helps to keep things going around the farm.
“She is a stay-at-home mom who organizes traffic and still finds time to help me in the lambing barn all the time,” he said. “We’re very blessed with our children and her to be able to do that and be home and keep everything going.”

Having grown up on a farm, Houselog decided to try to find a way to start working full-time in the industry despite the challenges of doing so without inheriting an operation or being a corporate farm.

“I grew up on a farm; mom and dad sold the farm, then we moved to town, and I helped Tom Gunnick throughout high school milking cows,” he said. “I always wanted to farm, but it was trying to find a way in to farm. We bought our first Ewes in 2009 because that was the cheapest way to get into it.”
The Houselogs rented a farm northwest of Lake Benton for their ewes until they bought their acreage in 2011.

Farming for him is about seeing the hard work pay off, Houselog said.

“Not every day is the same,” he said. “For me, I really enjoy the livestock side of it. There’s something about seeing the new babies born, the new life. It’s something to see and to see your hard work from the last year pay off and you get to see the babies hit the ground.”

The family feels blessed to be brought into farming by Johnson, and another individual who is looking to work them into their operation.  Having the opportunity to raise their children on the farm is a blessing, Houselog said.

“It’s definitely a family affair out there,” he said. “The kids help do chores. Last year, our second son, Adam, purchased some goats. He is trying his hand at goats. Everybody has kind of got their own thing. Jacob and Ben buy feeder pigs to fatten out and sell to friends and family. Everybody is finding out what they want to do or how they like to spend their time. I don’t know if there’s a feeling like it (raising children on the farm). It’s pretty awesome to get to work together as a family every day and have the freedom to be outside, run around and play and not have to worry too much about crossing a street or anything like that.”

As far as the future of his operation, Houselog hopes to see something built up that can be taken over by one of their children in the future, he said.
“Our hope is to keep small family farms still a thing and not let them go to the wayside,” he said.

Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com

On a farm just south of Lake Benton sits the home of Jim and Linda Johansen. When you stop to visit the farm, you can expect to be greeted with a warm smile, and a classic farm life offer of coffee or tea with a plate of cookies.

The Johansen family has long been established in the area and on the farm site, which is one of two currently owned by the family, with another site near Lake Benton having been in the family for many years. Johansen has lived on all three sites at one point and has many memories of moving from place to place over the years, he said. The homestead where he currently lives is where his life started.

“My grandfather said he always kept my uncles and my dad in a little bit of transition moving between farms,” he said. “So my grandfather started by Tyler, and that was a place called Four House Farms. That was where my grandfather and the Johansen family lived in that area.”

His grandfather, John B. Johansen, the son of immigrants from Denmark, and his wife Birgitti, eventually ended up finding and buying some land in the Lake Benton area sometime in the 1940s. In 1954, before Johansen was born, the family farm site he lives on currently was a part of Plowville, a Minnesota Soil Conservation program that featured local farms in the area and provided farming demonstrations.

Born in 1955 Johansen to Gunnar and Deloris Johansen, he grew up on the site south of Lake Benton on U.S. Highway 75 until 1964 when the family moved to another of their farm sites north of town on the same road. In 1978 he moved to a neighboring farm that his sister had near Verdi. In 1987 he relocated back to the farm south of town and has been there ever since. Eventually, the farm near Verdi was sold. Over the years the family raised a variety of crops and livestock,such as cattle, sheep, hogs, and chickens.  However, like all farmers, the Johansens eventually began to shift with the times to raising emerging crops such as soybeans.

After graduating from high school, Johansen attended the University of Minnesota to study Animal Science. When some life changes occurred, he decided to move back home to the farm. He worked at Marty’s Hardware in Lake Benton, and a few winters he worked at Selberg Equipment Company in Hendricks. In 1979 the family incorporated the farm and he became fully involved in the day-to-day business of the farm. However, growing up, he was involved in the family operation. Some of Johansen’s first memories revolve around getting sheep to raise from his grandfather.

“My first sheep I had, I think I was about six years old,” he said. “My grandfather brought two sick sheep home from the sale barn that they were throwing out so to speak. I nursed them back to health and they were pets that would be on the front steps of this house here. That was some of those first childhood memories.”

The farm housed a variety of other animals such as cats, dogs, chickens, ducks, pigeons and more.
In about 1987, Johansen started his own cow and calf operation. In 1989 he took over his father’s seed dealership and named the business J.B. Seeds.
In 1999 Johansen met Linda at a singles dance in Sioux Falls, and the pair were married in 2002. The pair share Linda’s three sons, and three grandchildren.

Revisiting the past, Johansen recalls experiencing many changes in farming over the years, ranging from changes in cattle breeds, types of grain and methods of protecting crops from various diseases, and of course, many changes in technology.
“I always thought technology was progressing fast,” he said. “And now I watch how much faster it’s going and I always thought it was fun to be in on the early stuff and watch that.”

Still, Johansen believes it is important to be able to do things the ‘paper and pencil’ way, in the event that technology fails you.

Today, Jim continues to run his seed business, sell skid loader attachments to his customers and run his farm operation. Recently, Linda retired after 30 years from Lyon Lincoln Rural Electric. Prior to that she worked at the clinic in Tyler for 16 years.
Having the ability to stay on the family farm has been a pleasure for him, Johansen said.

“I do take a lot of pride in the fact that I am still here after all these years,” he said. “You know you think back to the forefathers when they came across the ocean and we are still here and think about the pride and legacy they left to us, and that we have a chance to make a living and to enjoy the lifestyle on the farm.”

Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com

Just a few miles west of Pipestone sits the farm of Brooke and Brady Bobendrier. Brady, who is a native to the area, works at his family owned feed, seed and fertilizer company, Pipestone Grain Company, with his parents Tom and Shelly, and his brother, Mitch. Brooke is originally from northeast Wisconsin, just south of Green Bay.

“My family raises Hereford cattle and club lambs and as we grew up, my sisters and I were involved in showing livestock at all levels and competing on livestock and dairy judging teams through 4-H,” Brooke said, “Those activities led me to the University of Minnesota’s College of Agriculture, and that’s where I met Brady and the two of us competed on the same livestock judging team and the rest is history!”

After the pair were married in 2021, they lived in Wisconsin for a year and a half before moving to Pipestone so that Brady could be a part of the family business. The move also made sense for Brooke’s business, Background Creative, as she was frequently traveling west of Wisconsin to work with clients in Minnesota, Iowa and the Dakotas.

Brooke officially started her business in 2019 after graduating college and starting her first full-time job in Madison, she said.

“In college, I was doing a fair amount of graphic design and photography work for friends, and I continued to fill my weekends and evening hours after my 9 to 5 communications job with projects,” Brooke said. “Once I felt that I had a solid portfolio of work and enough experience, I officially launched Backroad Creative in September of 2019. I’ve been so blessed to have my business grow quickly and now be able to work full-time serving my incredible clients.”

Background Creative offers a variety of services to farms, ranches, agricultural companies and rural Midwesterners including photography, videography and graphic design. Brooke works with livestock breeders to capture professional photos and videos of their cattle or sheep for sales, designs print ads, logos, sale catalogs, banners and more. She also partners with vendors for print projects and apparel orders, she said. Additionally, Brooke spends a lot of time traveling for portrait sessions, and covering events.

“When we have nicer weather in the summer and fall, I spend a good amount of time on the road traveling for family and senior portrait sessions,” she said. “I also work with agricultural companies to capture promotional photos and videos of their events, customers, employees and products.”
While her graphic design and photography skills are largely self taught, her skills have been refined through mentorship, Brooke said.

“I was fortunate to work with some incredibly talented folks during internships in college with the American Hereford Association, Minnesota Beef Council, Arizona National Livestock Show, and several livestock photography companies,” she said. “They helped expand my knowledge of the Adobe Creative Suite, answered my questions about camera gear and settings, and gave me the feedback and advice I craved and needed in my early years.”

Outside of her work, Brooke enjoys spending time with her husband, golfing, taking the family dog, Macy, for a walk or a run, going to concerts or taking road trips to visit friends and family. There are few things she loves more than spending time at the lake  in the summer, and she enjoys just hanging out on the farm working on projects around the house and in the barns, she said.
While Pipestone is over seven hours from where she grew up in Wisconsin and she has only lived in the area for a year,  she is already starting to feel like a local, she said.

“It’s starting to feel like home and I’m truly excited for my business and our family to  be rooted here for years to come,” she said.

Anyone interested in learning more about Brooke’s business can visit her website, back-road-creative.com, find her on Facebook or follow her on Instagram at @backroad_creative, or reach out to her via email at brooke.brcreative@gmail.com, or by phone at 920-901-5165.