2024 Crawford County
June 2024
2024 Farm Family Salute 17
2024 Crawford County
Farm Family
By Steve Wilcox
High Lonesome Farm is a cattle and hay farm in the rugged hills north of Cedarville, near Natural Dam. But the story isn’ t about the animals or the crops, it’ s that the farm exists at all.
“ We have about 400 head, that’ s 300 mama cows and about 100 feeder cattle,” said farmer James Marion of his spread.
High Lonesome Farm Carving out a farm from a forest
“ At the house we have about 600 acres, but we lease another 3,000 acres. We do a lot of hay.”
That’ s a lot of hay – up to 8,000 bales a year – and those bales move as far as north Texas.
The Marion family of six, including James’ wife, Christina, along with three part-time or seasonal workers, run the High Lonesome Farm, a group that
Photos by Blake Sutton
includes two retired farmers.“ Not everyone works full-time, of course,” said Marion.“ You work when the weather lets you to work.”
Farms tend to be predominantly rural, but the Marion farm may take that to an extreme. Three miles down a county road, through forest service property, put the visitor on a western Arkansas mountain.
“ There’ s not a soul around us anywhere. Everyone that comes up there wants to stay, no one wants to leave,” said Marion.“ Everywhere you look there’ s a view.”
Marion was raised on a chicken farm. When he was in high school he traded in his senior trip for a black heifer his dad had.
“ I told him I needed the heifer more