On a three-hundred-acre dairy farm in Oshkosh, Matt and Megan Potratz are living out their dreams.
He’s continuing a legacy his grandfather started on this land seventy years ago. She’s leading the country life she’s envisioned ever since she was a child. And together they’re instilling in their kids values that are best learned on the farm.
Running the farm is a family affair for Matt, his parents and most of his four siblings. He arrives every morning at 4:30 for chores, which includes milking the 150 cows, and then returns home to have breakfast with Megan, two-year-old Oliver and ten-month-old Addaline. Then it’s back to the farm, sometimes with a break for lunch at home, and occasionally with work days that extend until 10 p.m. Megan, a former teacher who now stays home with the kids, also pitches in with chores.
“It’s hard work,” Matt says. “The seasons are very busy.”
But those seasons create a rhythm for the family, and the foundation for the kind of life Megan dreamed of growing up in Oshkosh.
“I always wanted to get out of town,” she says. “I’m a country girl.”
She loves spending time on the farm, among the fields and barns, and with the cows, chickens and cats who call it home. And she’s excited about the latest addition to the family — Bella, a black and white quarterhorse that Matt surprised her with for her birthday.
“She sort of looks like a cow,” she says with a laugh.
One day soon, Bella will live on the farm, and the family, too, has plans to relocate closer. They currently live about three miles away, but have a spot picked out where they’ll build a new house.
This land, just beyond the farm’s fields, holds special significance to the couple. It’s where Matt carved a heart and their initials in a tree before proposing to Megan, and where they got married. They’re eager to create more memories there with their kids.
But Oliver and Addaline already feel at home at the farm, and they’re picking up valuable lessons they’ll carry with them as they grow. “They learn a lot about respect and hard work,” Megan says.
By watching all that his parents do on the farm day in and day out, little Oliver is understanding routines, starting to use numbers and learning about animals in a way a book could never teach. And he can’t get enough of the farm equipment, Megan says.
“He doesn’t know his colors, but he knows his tractors.”
Photos by Gena Larson.