Our Story

           We (Kit and Bridgett Law) were married in Salmon, Idaho, March of 2002, and one year later settled north of Roundup, Montana on the prairie. We owned and operated a small cow/calf beef ranch, plus mobile farrier, and blacksmith shop there for 10 years. Our time was spent on horseback calving, branding, and working with and alongside exceptional people from neighboring cattle ranches, which was a learning experience of incalculable value and recollection.

     We enjoyed running our horses side by side over the vast expanse of sagebrush plains and poking around old homesteads imagining, by the clues left behind, how the pioneer families before us had carved out a life. We saw evidence of their existence from the crumbling structures they'd left behind, monuments of their struggles. We were drawn to their "vanished occupations" and the hard work economics which led to their success, or failure. 

      We grew up around an older generation who drove teams of horses to pull buckboard wagons, rake hay, or skid logs. They rode broncs, roped bears, and fought blizzards on the plains living without electricity or running water into the 1950s. The stories came to us directly from the children of the pioneers who lived in conditions similar to their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. 

      Some of these tales came from our own ancestors who were pioneers in America, descendents of the Anglo-Saxons, Celts, and Germanic tribes of the north. They had battled with Roman Legions, Indians, Redcoats, Blue Bellies, and scrapped with whomever threatened their livelihoods and homes.

      Kit's first lesson in horseshoeing started in 1993 as an old timer showed him how to shape a cold shoe on a piece of railroad iron. He completed two years of farrier school by the end of 2000 and an aprenticeship taught by certified journeyman farriers Scott Simpson, Jeff Engler, and Brian Nelson. He successfully completed his last exam in 2001 and became an AFA certified farrier.

      I (Bridgett) began helping with the business about this time, pulling and cleaning shoes, helping hold and train young colts to be trimmed or shod, and literally watching Kit’s back as I gained a sense of when to administer training and discipline to unruly horses which was critical for the safety of my 21-year-old farrier husband. The time he spent in front of the gas forge and anvil building piles of horseshoes, and learning tool making skills, gave him the ability to start forging knives, spurs, hinges, door latches, and just about anything else you can imagine. 

     As we looked toward the future growth of a family, I wanted to provide from the land a healthy whole food diet. Closer scrutiny of the past solutions led me to gardening, canning, raising chickens, and the purchase of our first milk cow in 2007. Over the next three years our first three sons were born.

      We left the remote area of prairie, wind, and big sky sunrises, along with friendships and treasured memories, in 2013, to build a new "Law Family Homestead".  Over the next 10 years, we built a new blacksmith shop, cellar, and hand-hewn log dairy barn. During this time, three more sons and one daughter were born into the family. 

      In between homestead construction projects, Kit completed training in timber cruising and worked away from home seasonally while he started a new farrier and blacksmithing business on the side. I perfected my butter, cheese, and ice cream making skills as the raw milk dairy grew. All this along with being a stay-at-home mother of seven and home schooling said seven at the same time. Our family's experiences from 2016 onward are chronicled in the archive section of this website.

      This site was constructed as an outlet for our handmade products to support what has now become a unique way of life in America. We also designed it to serve as a free educational resource based on a successful historical model blending an agrarian lifestyle with a small business trade. This model may be adopted by future families who are searching to live a happy and fulfilled life.

      After 30-plus years researching early American history by reading through stacks of biographical accounts, studying primary resources written in the 17th through 19th centuries, perusing history books, listening to oral history, visiting numerous historical sights, and participating in living history demonstrations, our interpretation of American history has settled between two opposing historical perspectives. 

      The first and older "trumphalist" view, glossed over the mistakes of their ancestors and nearly deified some historical figures. The second interpretation is a "revisionist" view which blended the difference between ethics and morals and vilified their actions. The result has been to either use an “end justifies the means” mental exercise to exonerate wrong actions or to eliminate from view and denigrate any historical figure who lived differently than the ever changing figurative yardstick the paradigm judges use to measure the historical figures of the past. 

      We have choosen to look at all the facts as they are uncovered and use timeless principles found in the Bible to seek out and uphold the heroic deeds of the past as well as to reject the mistakes of the past. We do not worship our ancestors but wish to honor them. This is the historical view which we choose to share on our website.

      And last, our site promotes the principles of liberty our ancestors discovered in common law, i.e. freedom of conscience, free speech, right to remain silent, right to contract between individuals, protection of property rights, and jury trial with its ability to nullify unjust legislated civil laws which seek to narrow these rights. The vertical relationship of the corporate servant to its master, the corporation, will continue to promote a centralized global governance through protectionist policies which is detrimental to traditional family, and small business relationships.

     Horizontal relationships between individuals are best protected by adhering to the principles of common law rather than the runaway code created by legislatures which is becoming more the tool of large corporate interests to restrict the peoples’ interests.

      We are excited to share our products and experiences with you to further promote the principles stated above. We are jealous of our time together and have chosen to live without the internet and smart phones at this time. In this way time has been leveraged for other tasks such as supplying pictures and text for the creation of this website.

Shiela, Bridgett’s mom, edits and manages this site as well as the online store. E-mail correspondence is directed to her as well as a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the Law Family's products. Thank you for your interest and support.

  Take care, and God bless.

The Law Family