We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Heidi Kovacs. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Heidi below.
Hi Heidi, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I found my true purpose in life after my children were born. For as long as I can remember I’ve always had a passion for animals. Once I was blessed with two beautiful daughters, they became a part of the equation. My purpose was to raise my children and to be their role model.
After surviving a divorce and facing a new kind of life as a single mom, I knew my focus had to shift. As a “stay at home” working mom, my new focus was primarily on raising my daughters and I knew all of my choices had to fall in line with that. Wanting to raise your children is one of the most extraordinary gifts that a woman could be blessed with, but making a living in addition to that is tricky.
Back to always having a passion for animals, mine always went deeper and my heart was always drawn to the “Jersey” cow. Loving the farm life and the elegant brown cow, I found myself managing other farms prior to venturing out on my own. So with a 3&5 year old in tow I struck out on my own to secure a small loan with big dreams of starting my own business as a dairy farmer.
The road was rougher than I had anticipated but the rewards have been greater than any I have ever known. I was able to secure a small mediocre farm to rent and a perfect little Jersey cow herd to purchase. Renovations were made and the cows arrived and that’s when my life truly began.
Within the first year, I knew that simply being a dairy producer was not going to be enough to support the herd, pay the rent, pay the bills and provide for my children. I was working weekends as a server while my daughters were with their father. I was working two jobs just to try to survive. That’s when I got the idea to find a Cheese Maker and turn our Jersey milk into something greater than the commodity prices we were receiving.
With my daughters by my side, we had our first blocks of cheese made and started participating in local farmers markets with a few basic variety of our products. We eventually branched out in two other areas such as pasture raised pork, and veal and beef. I suppose the whole idea began to grow and turned into a central location of a Farm Store. We started with an on farm location that was mediocre at best.
It was in the winter of 2022 that we moved to our commercial location in town and started The Farmers Table. We have since branched out to making our own raw milk soaps, producing our own chicken and beef broth along with rendering our own grass fed beef for tallow.
My daughters are now almost 15 and 16 years old and still works side-by-side with her mom helping me to continue to grow the family business and continue to enrich our lives together. Through the course of our journey, I have also managed to find the love of my life and marry a farmer. I was also blessed to be able to write and have publish our own children’s book that was dedicated to my daughters. I would love to grow our farm store into a location that would be on the farm and bring more education and awareness to our customer base with my daughter’s future in mind. They are my purpose, my drive, my motivation, my future, & my world. Being their mom and providing them with a future and an empire to build on has been my purpose and me to my core.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The 3 most important qualities for my journey were hard work, dedication, and vision. When starting any journey, I believe it’s important to have a vision for what you’d like to see for your future. Then you apply your hard work and your dedication to that vision and you don’t give up and continue to be your biggest fan and always believe in yourself.
