Who We Are: Long Lane Farms | Ontario Meat & Long Lane Naturals

Who We Are: Long Lane Farms

Before this was a farm, it was just the two of us trying to figure out what kind of life actually feels meaningful. I was an electrician. Kristen was a biologist. On paper, it looked right — steady work, reliable income, the path people tell you is the responsible one. But it didn’t feel like our life. It felt like we were spending our days doing work we didn’t care about, in places where we were replaceable the moment we walked out the door.

 

We wanted purpose. We wanted to wake up and feel like what we were doing mattered, even if no one else understood it. We didn’t want to be numbers in someone else’s system. We wanted to build something of our own.

In 2014, both of our dads passed away nine days apart. There’s no clean way to talk about something like that, and there’s no neat lesson to pull from it. It happened early in our relationship, and it left us with questions that didn’t have answers. Over time, as we leaned toward the land, toward animals, toward making food and products with our own hands, something clicked.

To us, all things happen for a reason — and this is the reason. Feed people. Build something real. Put something good back into the world. We can’t change what happened, but we can build from it, and this is what we chose to build.

Where We Are Now

 

 

 

Today, Long Lane is a working Ontario farm. Not a concept. Not a “someday.” A real farm with real output. Right now, we process dozens of beef a year, raise and finish over a hundred pigs, and produce thousands of chickens for families, households, and customers who depend on us. These aren’t industrial numbers — they’re the numbers of a farm growing the right way, not the fastest way.

 

We offer local delivery through the Ottawa Valley and the west end of Ottawa, and Ontario-wide shipping for people who can’t get here in person. We’re working toward Canada-wide as we expand. It’s step by step, not rushed. But it’s happening.

How It Started

 

 

 

In 2018, we stopped talking about changing our lives and actually changed them. We started with a 4-acre market garden and three greenhouses, built off JM Fortier’s Market Gardener model. Anyone who has ever done that kind of work knows it isn’t romantic — it’s early mornings, late nights, and an endless list of things that can go sideways. But it worked. The garden paid its way forward. It built the foundation.

We bought our first 13 cows right from the start. Not to experiment — because that’s where we knew we were heading. Year after year, we added what made sense: more pigs, more chickens, more fencing, more rotation, more learning, more systems. We didn’t grow to look successful. We grew because the work demanded it.

We didn’t start a farm to play farmer — we started it because our lives needed to match what we believed.

Long Lane Naturals

As the farm grew, so did the understanding that what we were building could go further. That there was more value in what we were doing than just the livestock itself. In 2024, we started what is now Long Lane Naturals. We began making tallow skincare, soaps, lotions, and lip balms here on the farm. Early batches were basic. Then we adjusted them. Improved them. Rebuilt formulas. Tested. Re-tested. A year and a half of learning.

Now, Long Lane Naturals ships Ontario-wide, and we’re pushing into wholesale across the province. Local delivery in the Ottawa Valley and the west end of Ottawa. Ontario-wide shipping for everyone else. We’re not pretending to be bigger than we are — we’re building into it.

Where We’re Going

 

We’re staying rooted in what we know works: pasture-based livestock here on the farm and a strong push toward expanding Long Lane Naturals. We want to get our products into stores, into households, and into the hands of people who actually want clean, simple ingredients without the fillers and mystery formulas.

This is the chapter we’re in now — real growth, real work, and no shortcuts.

This is who we are.

This is where everything behind us led.

And this is the direction forward.

This is Long Lane.