Owned and operated by Mike and Kelsey Pressler, we are a small family-owned first generation farm with a passion for clean produce, well-treated animals, and our home-harvested honey.  Mike having the green thumb, has been gardening since he was about 12 years old. He leased his first property from a neighbor and cattle farmer in Kawkawlin, MI and grew pumpkins, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers among other produce. His fee for leasing the land was to help out on the farm baling hay and helping with the livestock farm chores during the summer.

Kelsey and Mike are both biologists and College Professors. Kelsey has a Master’s Degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Michigan and Mike has a Master’s Degree in Biology (Microbiology) from Central Michigan University. Kelsey worked at Dow as a Microbiology Lab Technician and Food Scientist before staying at home to raise their 5 children. She recently returned to teach biology at the local high school before joining Mike at Delta College as a Microbiology and Environmental Biology professor. Mike is an Associate Professor and has been teaching Microbiology for 13 years plus, he is a textbook author, and co-authored numerous scientific research papers on herbicide degradation and bone tissue regeneration.

We began homesteading in 2009 after purchasing our first home in Pinckney, MI while Kelsey was in Graduate school and Mike was working in the Department of Biologic and Materials Science at U of M.  Gardening and raising hundreds of chickens in our spare time set the foundation for our present-day farmstead. We pride ourselves on the natural quality and variety of our veggies, fruits, and honey.  Upon moving to West Branch, we quickly escalated from hobby homestead to small farm business. Farmsteading and Homesteading are similar but we focus on producing food for others as well as producing 60-70% of our own food for our family.

Our livestock have quickly become the heart of our tiny farm.  All of our animals are raised with love and care, fresh air, and the highest quality feed we can find.  They’re almost as spoiled as our human kids. We do have waitlists for buyers interested in live animal sales including registered dairy goats, and registered Dexter calves. You can see our available animals on our Avialable Livestock page.

Environmental stewardship has always been important to us and we go the extra mile to manage our farm as a balanced ecosystem, rotating crops and grazing livestock, and even using our heritage pigs to till up our crop fields. We’ve been working with our local conservation district to get the farm environmentally verified.  We are proud to showcase our Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program sign in the front yard demonstrating our commitment to ecologically responsible agriculture.

We began producing educational farm vlogs in 2021 sharing our experience as first generation farmers. You can find and Subscribe to our YouTube channel to join in the fun.

What we raise:

Dexter Cattle

Originating in Ireland Dexters are known as one of the smallest standard breeds of cattle in the world. We breed polled (no horns) cattle with largely A2/A2 milk protein genetics. Our goal is to sell quality Dexter calves that are halter and lead broke for the potential use as family milk cows. *We do not sell beef.*

Dairy Goats

Currently our dairy goat herd consists of Nubian and Mini Nubian. We have 8 full Nubians and one Mini Nubian, One of our top producers Fawn (who is a full nubian) will produce 1.5 gallons of milk a day with 2 milkings. These little goats are definently  a farm favorite.

We are not offering Farm Tours at this time.

Our backyard bees had a very good year!  These busy little pollinators boost fruit and veggie production on our farm and produce honey for us as a bonus.  We harvest the honey here; no heat, no chemicals, no mystery.  Just the good stuff.  

*Fresh honey makes a great gift!  We ship our honey nationwide, contact us to place an order.*

Buy fresh for your family! Stop by the stand and see what we have available.

All sales are self-serve and cash only. 

We offer the following:

• Honey
• Fresh Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables

We are not offering Farm Tours at this time.

Mike and I (Kelsey Pressler) met in the biology labs at CMU and would come up to West Branch on the weekends to enjoy nature at his father’s cabin.  We were thrilled when we had the opportunity to move up here ourselves! We work together to manage the homestead with our four junior farmers.  We launched the self-serve farm stand and Sweet Briar Farm Products LLC soon after moving to West Branch in 2014. 

As parents, we want to feed our kids the best, but organic food from the grocery store is just too expensive and not as clean as we’d like.  We plant about 3 acres of produce, collect honey from our apiary, and we’ve added breeding goats and cattle to our little farm in 2020.  Now we have a bounty of healthy, clean, happy food for our family and yours!

Our farmstand is self-serve and open year-round from sunrise to sunset.  We keep it stocked with honey.  Watch our signs and Facebook page to see what’s available each day from early summer through fall. As they come into the season we’ll have vegetables including tomatoes, sweet corn, cucumbers, pickles, dill, kale, green and yellow beans, and a variety of squashes.  

Calves, and goat kids are also available at different times throughout the year.  We will list available animals on our Available Livestock , however we offer animals to those on our call-lists before advertising to the public.  To get on our call-lists please contact us.