I have lived in central Missouri for most of my life. My first introduction to poultry was at five years of age when my parents consented to me getting Muscovy ducks from my Grandpa so I could be just like him. I got my first barnyard bantams around the age of ten and the next year in 1981 I hatched my first blue egg layers from an assortment of hatching eggs from a local exotic poultry keeper in 1982. Also included in the mix were some American Games. Two black bantam pullets hatched from the two blue eggs included in the mix. The enjoyment of blue egg layers led to an order of wheaten blue egg layers from Marti Poultry in Windsor, Missouri in 1984.

As with all poultry people, I was drawn back to keeping chickens in the late 1990s as a newlywed after purchasing a small farm in California, MO. The chicken coop was attended to before the house was fully moved into and the first bantam hatchery Easter Eggers arrived that first spring in 1998. Not long after that I connected with members of what was called the Ameraucana Breeders Club at that time. I served in several positions of the Club leadership in the first decade of the new century. During that time, I had breeding pens for all 8 bantam and large fowl varieties and was a part of the early efforts to breed lavender bantam Ameraucana.

Early fall of 2010 saw the disbursement of my Ameraucana when I moved my family to the Chicago area for a new job/career opportunity. The move was short-lived and lasted only a year. By the spring of 2012 I was working to find Ameraucana only to have those efforts suspended when my father was involved in a terrible car wreck that fall that left him, after a nine-month recovery from the physical injuries from the accident, in need of constant care due to a traumatic brain injury from which there was no recovery. I remained a member of the Club during that time and helped with things as I could but dedicated my time to the care of my family.

Now, after the passing of both my parents and with two daughters almost out of high school, I am back keeping a mostly standard bred Ameraucana bantam chickens in a few varieties along with Swedish Flower Hens for the fun of it and Silver Campine to help preserve and improve the heritage variety. I am also flirting with the idea of adding a variety of American Game Fowl once again.