Since creating McGuire Hay Sales LLC two years ago, Colleen Thompson said that one of her biggest obstacles had been reliable internet access. Only one year removed from switching to Spectrum, the 2002 Windham graduate’s family business has been on an upward trajectory, becoming a reliable hay provider.
“It has just made it easier,” Thompson told The Weekly Villager on March 12. “It has made the office life easier as far as handling books and keeping inventory of the date because it is instant. I don’t have to use a pen and a paper; I can go out in the barn and use my phone to do things.”
Thompson initially returned to her family farm several years ago to be closer to her parents. Although she had moved to Braceville, she still enjoyed farm living as part of her lifestyle with her family, originally owning a five-acre farm. When she returned home, she took the reins of her father’s hay business, which was just one of many ventures he had while operating the McGuire Farm since the 1980s, and officially named it McGuire Hay Sales LLC.
“We grow, raise and sell hay to local farmers and livestock owners, the agricultural customers in Northeast Ohio,” she noted. “We do delivery, and our goal is to produce and sell quality hay to local and regional customers. We focus on a reliable supply and consistent product for livestock owners and agricultural operations.”
According to Thompson, being in the hay business was an easy decision because of how important it is to a farm’s everyday operation to feed animals, including animals in the Amish community, as those animals not just are essential to farm life but also play a big role in transportation.
Thomspon said that being a hay provider has been a rewarding experience because she has always enjoyed the process of making hay, especially when the ground begins to green at this time of year.
She acknowledged that having consistent internet access had been a recurring issue on the farm even before she returned home, frequently needing to come over and assist her parents with technical issues.
Upon returning home, Thompson noted that she had been searching for other internet options as there were too many issues with her current internet provider but conceded that her options were quite limited.
When it came to finding a consistent internet provider, Thompson said that finding one in a rural community was quite difficult but added that farms having internet access was an overlooked gap.
“It was hard at the time to get companies to come out to a rural community because they want to provide it to the masses,” she added. “Rurally, we are not the masses. If you don’t have agriculture or you don’t have farms, you are not going to have these farmers markets or you are not going to have food on your table.”
Thompson discovered Spectrum when the internet company was installing a fiber optic line on their road, which extended into Trumbull County, and was offered the same internet access that her neighbors in Trumbull County were receiving,
“A guy drove in the driveway and started talking to me about it.,” Thompson added. “They were starting to install that fiber line on the road in Trumbull County and we were right on the Portage County line, so I think they needed to be able to show there was a need.”
Since Spectrum installed the fiber optic line on the McGuire Family Farm, McGuire Hay Sales LLC has been on the rise by having a much more consistent internet provider that has allowed Thompson to update inventory much more quickly, take pictures to download and upload for social media and not worry about data logs disappearing from the computers as the internet outages are far less frequent.
In addition to having a stable source of broadband access, Thompson also spoke of how important it has been to her to not only return to the family farm but also raise her two children in the same lifestyle which she was brought up in.
“We made that decision to come back and raise our kids on the farm and teach them that life and what it means to take care of something that is bigger than you,” she said. “I think today, these kids want to sit in front of a computer or cell phone or whatever, but this is not the way God intended us to live.”
