About Us

Welcome to Hallowed Homestead! We are a husband and wife team, Bryce and Melanie, and our two young boys. Our family has been in the farming industry for 4 generations and have lived/farmed our current land, in the Shenandoah Valley, since 1940. Bryce took over the farm in 2014 at the age of 20 years old and has always had a passion to serve our local community. After several years of trying to get away from the commercial cattle industry and focusing most of our attention and efforts toward our local community, finally in 2020 we made the push to expand our local beef offerings. Three years later in 2023, all of the cattle raised on our farm were sold direct to consumer, finally allowing us to no longer be tied to the commercial beef industry. 

During 2020, us like a lot of people, became more and more aware about what healthy living actually looks like. We first started looking at the ingredients in our foods and drinks. It was shocking to see how many chemicals and preservatives we had been eating, even though we ate pretty "healthy" in general. "Big Food" is ripe with additives to make food more addictive, last longer, look fresher, smell sweeter...etc. All of this got us thinking about other chemicals and added ingredients in common household items that we use everyday. What impact is that having, even though we aren't ingesting them? Cleaning supplies/sprays, hand/body soaps, toothpaste, laundry soap, lotions...the list goes on.

While all of this was going on inside our home, we also realized we were being wasteful in our beef business. Because we are a small family farm, we don't have the ability of the large processing plants to use every part of the beef carcass. For example, the hooves and hide, the fat and all of the organs. We started finding other uses for some of the wasted parts but still wanted to do more even though we felt defeated due to our size.

Both of these situations happening at once, discovering clean living the way God intended, and wanting to become better stewards of the farm God has seeded to us, we discovered the benefits of beef tallow. We quickly started experimenting on creams and balms. Making many mistakes when it came to rendering the fat to make tallow, we had to learn the difference between beef trim-fat and beef suet, the different properties they each have, and how that affects the final outcome of the product. The way it smells, the texture, the ability to stay fresh for how long, etc...

We quickly fell in love with the whipped tallow balm and lip balm we were making, letting other families in our neighborhood and church community try it out, we realized this could be a way to help promote clean living and also get more use out of our beef carcasses from the farm. Once we got the method down, we formed "Hallowed Homestead".

Our family has been on a journey, as many others have been during this time too, rediscovering traditions of old, gardening, canning, sewing, raising chickens in the back yard, and we even got a family milk cow that Bryce hand milks every morning. We thought it fitting to name this venture in light of our new found love of "homesteading". 

Hallowed: to be made holy, to render sacred, something greatly revered and honored.

It is our aim as a family to walk in Truth and sanctification all of our days. We strive to make our homestead one that honors God and serves others in all we do. We want our homestead to bless you and your families as much as it has our own! 

Thanks for joining us on this journey, getting back to God and Grandma's way of clean livin'.