Couple Focus on Country Lifestyle & Meat Products
Story and photos by Craig Reed
Joe Haeberle wanted to name a horse Y Knot just because he could. But since the horse he’s owned since he was 7 is named Scooter, there hadn’t been another opportunity to use the unique moniker.
That was until 2021, when Joe and his then-fiancée, Olivia, established Y Knot Farm + Ranch in the John Day area. “Our motto was, ‘Why not, for better or worse!’” Olivia says. The couple gave their 40-acre meat chicken and pig operation the Y Knot name. But they also wanted to raise and sell beef cattle. Their property included only 3 acres of pasture with the rest timber, so they went looking for land that would be more accommodating to their business plan.
They found it in the Lookingglass Valley, reestablishing Y Knot Farm + Ranch on 60 acres that are almost all pasture. The property features what is now their home, a 100-year-old 2-story white farmhouse.
After moving to Douglas County in late 2022, the Haeberles dropped their pig business, continued with the pasture-raised meat chickens, and added grass-fed calves for the beef market.
“We wanted to make a go of it, and we needed more acres, more flat space,” Joe says. Joe and Olivia have a daughter, Mary, who turns 2 in December. “I really love being able to show our daughter how the world actually works in relationship to the land, animals, the weather, and your neighbors,” Olivia says. “City life shields you from those things. To look out at this beautiful valley, to see the food you raised on your table at night, to see my daughter running around in the dirt, it all makes for a great lifestyle. We work as a family, feeding the chickens together and helping to move the irrigation. Mary loves riding in the tractor and loves to be around the animals.”
Joe and Olivia have backgrounds that allow them to make comparisons between city life and country life. Joe was raised in the Laramie, Wyoming, area. He rode horses in his youth and got into endurance riding with Scooter. Their longest endurance ride was 115 miles.
Joe got his first ranch job at age 20. “I fell in love with it,” he says. Olivia grew up in Portland. As a young adult, she was a photographer. On a road trip from Los Angeles to Portland, she took a route through Eastern Oregon and happened to pass Roaring Springs Ranch on a branding day. “It was like a time capsule from the 1800s,” she says. “I pulled over and asked if I could take photos.”
That chance meeting led to Olivia working on and off at the ranch for a couple of years. Her main job was to take photos to document the ranch’s activities.
Joe was also a photographer. Through the internet and their mutual photography interests, the 2 young adults met. Their first date was at Pendleton Round-Up, and they married in 2023. Olivia rode Scooter down the aisle at their outdoor wedding.
Olivia and Joe are still freelance photographers, accepting some assignments and taking photos of their family’s ranch activities. Olivia says most of the business work the couple has done has been learned through do-it-yourself projects. They use rotational grazing in raising their cattle, moving them at least twice a week to fresh grass. The chicken enclosures are also moved frequently.
They’ve established outlets for their chickens and beef at meat markets and grocers in Roseburg, Coos Bay, Bend, and Klamath Falls. They have no markets out of state. They would like to develop more of a customer base in their home area.
“We are grateful for the people here who do support us, for engaging us and for caring about where their food comes from,” Olivia says. “The agricultural life allows you to work toward a goal where all your actions matter in caring for your animals in order to produce food.”