My name is Jessica Rumbaugh.
I am a Texas real estate
broker and a full time rancher
with my husband Ben.
My name is Ben Rumbaugh. We
farm and ranch grass-fed cattle,
and I'm a real estate appraiser.
We lived in Houston.
We've been married about 5
years. We were ready to start
a family, and we knew
that it was different
from what we grew up with,
and it felt like something was missing.
We sold our house on a whim and decided
that we were going to come
back here to where I grew up.
We brought a set of about 50 bred cows,
and that was sort of the start
of the operation we have now.
The vast majority of our business
is still direct-to-consumer.
We're just trying to find the right fit
for our size of operation.
By selling direct to consumer,
you get to see your product
from the ground all the way to the table,
so it's really exciting
to meet your customer,
who's actually enjoying your beef.
Customers call you and
say this is the best steak
I've ever had in my life
or the best hamburger,
or whatever it is, you know,
you say that's something I did.
Grass-fed took a while.
We had a lot of friends that
lived in the city, in Houston
and it was really friends asking me
because they wanted to
buy beef from somebody
that they knew.
If we're going to do the grass-fed beef,
then we have a responsibility
to educate at the same time.
We raise our cattle humanely.
The time and the money and
the dedication that we put in,
no one is doing it and not
taking good care of their cattle.
We knew that coming
back and just investing
in that initial set of cows
was not going to be enough
to fully sustain us, and
so Ben and I actually
at the same time decided
we were going to both
get our real estate licenses.
We are strong in the
farm and ranch market.
You know if you come to
us, whether you're looking
to buy a house on some
acreage or you're only wanting
a place to run cattle on,
we're going to help you with
all the right resources.
People don't realize without agriculture,
what are we going to do?
It's the clothes that we wear.
It's the food that we eat.
It's how we live here.
I took agriculture for
granted for a while.
We took the easy way out, but
I think when it's in your blood
it's just in your blood.
It was a little scary, you
know, to make that jump
and to do that, but I wouldn't
have it any other way.
For us to be where our kids can really see
the fruit of our labor every day.
I wanted to come back here
because it was what I knew
and I missed it, but then
to hear people from all over
the country that were so
passionate, that are working
so hard to educate the people that
are attacking us every day.
This year it's just really
started a fire in me
to realize that it's easy to step back
and just assume somebody else will fix it.
Somebody else will take
care of it, it's okay.
I realize that I have to
be the one that steps up
and pushes other people to do more.
