Years later, that plain colt became one of her best breeding animals.
She did not always get it right.
One promising young horse developed chronic lameness.
Another mare failed to conceive two seasons in a row.
Della recorded losses as carefully as successes.
That mattered.
The ledger was not a storybook.
It did not protect pride.
By 1975, she had seven horses.
By 1977, twelve.
By 1979, eighteen.
A waiting list for foals stretched fourteen months.
Buyers came from Wisconsin.
Minnesota.
Iowa.
Some from Illinois.
Word spread quietly.
No newspaper advertisement made the reputation.
People saw Della-trained horses.
They liked how they moved.
How they handled.
How they held up.
Then they asked where they came from.
That was enough.
Meanwhile, the carrot idea became a sourcing network.
The Holmgren crop was a one-time opportunity.
Della understood that immediately.
So she built relationships with produce growers.
Then cannery managers.
Then sorting facilities.
The question was always the same:
"What do you reject that is still feed-safe?"
Carrots.
Beets.
Turnips.
Occasionally apples.
Not rotten.
Not moldy.
Not chemically contaminated.
Cosmetic rejects.
Oversized produce.
Odd shapes.
Loads unsuitable for processing equipment.
Della refused anything questionable.
Cheap feed was useful only if it did not create veterinary bills.
She learned which cannery managers called early.
Which waited too long.
Which growers stored correctly.
Which mixed spoiled produce into good loads.
Those she stopped buying from.
Within four years, two regional processors called Della before discarding cosmetically rejected produce.
She paid more than disposal value.
Less than food-market value.
Both sides benefited.
The system reduced feed cost dramatically.
Not all feed.
Della still fed hay.
Good forage remained essential.
But root vegetables replaced part of the expensive supplemental ration.
Across eighteen horses and Wisconsin winters, small daily differences compounded.
Twenty cents.
Thirty cents.
A dollar.
People ignored numbers that small.
Della did not.
In 1974, she bought the Holmgren back six acres outright.
Price:
$4,200 cash.
The Holmgrens had decided to sell the field separately.
Della knew the soil.
She knew drainage.
She knew what it had produced.
She wrote the check.
Three years after spending sixty dollars for temporary crop rights, she owned the ground permanently.
Gene stood beside the truck on closing day.
"Need a bigger truck now?"
Della said:
"Probably."
He laughed.
The cattle operation slowly disappeared.
That decision was harder emotionally than financially.
Cattle had been Raymond's work.
Then Carl's.