Page 22 - CFAN_Apr2014

agriliving
FEATURE |

LIVE.

E LOVE.

Livestock.

work very hard
“We all
as a family,
ELIJAH LASSETER was seven years old when together though

he announced to his parents one evening, “I’m going Ron gets the brunt of the heavy
to get a diesel when I turn 16.” Amused, his dad Ron
Welovedoingthis, Family Life
told him he better ind a job. Elijah paused, but only stuff!
it’s our passion for the Lasseters
briely. “If I buy a calf now and lip it, and keep doing because and
that, then buy two, and then three, I will have enough
we get to enjoy it together.”
at Triple L Farms
money for a diesel [truck] and a trailer when I’m 16,”
he said.

by CHERYL ROGERS
Today at age nine, going on 10, he’s part owner So Triple L. Farms was born in 2012, ater Elijah

of Triple L Farms in Lakeland, a family business. sold his irst steer at the Polk County Youth Fair. It
Ron usually does the jobs that require muscle, like operates on 15 acres of land in Lakeland near their

pen-building, catching cows, opening the gates and home. “We focus primarily on breeding show quality

bringing each animal to its stall. His wife Sara does Brangus calves and a touch of commercial Brahman-
paperwork, planning, and researching; she weighs and inluenced calves,” Ron says.

measures the feed for each heifer and cow. Elijah feeds
and bathes the cows, works them, and cleans their “We all work very hard together as a family, though

stalls. He also came up with the company name, to put Ron gets the brunt of the heavy stuf! We love doing
on a farm hat.
this, because it’s our passion and we get to enjoy

it together,” Sara adds. here is always work to be
Ron and Sara own Maid in the USA, a Lakeland done, from repairing fences, to mowing or fertilizing

residential cleaning company opened in 2005. Sara pastures, to building or repairing stalls. “Once chores
have the appearance of being completed, we move to
also works with her family’s company, Corporate
Cleaning Resolutions of Lakeland. Although they the cattle. I give most of our vaccinations and vitamin

hadn’t contemplated farming, they always had horses. supplements—and pull blood samples ater a heifer
Sara was raised on a farm and Ron spent lots of time on has been AI’ed (Artiicially Inseminated),” Ron says.

his grandparents’ farm in Plant City. “We did not plan “Fortunately this is seasonal because I have never been
to become a farm. Although Sara and I have always a fan of needles.”
THE FARM
WAS BORN had a love and passion for agriculture, we never saw
ourselves actually doing it,” Ron says.
In general, the family loves the outdoors—
in 2012, after
Elijah sold his everything from hunting to ishing and gardening.
heir lifestyle is distinctive. “Our dinner conversations
irst steer at the “I would not have guessed ive years ago that
Polk County ranching was in my future, but I consider it a git from consist of topics on bull semen, 17-21 day heifer cycles,

Youth Fair.
God that we get to do it,” Sara says. “I hope it will be cow anatomy, and . . . poop (Elijah’s favorite topic),”
a little nest egg for Elijah’s future and our retirement.”
Ron says.

22 | CFAN
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