WELCOME TO
TWIN OAKS
Twin Oaks is owned and operated by our small family even though many other family members have a helping role in our operation! We are Jason, Jessica and Madalyn Winall and we would like to thank you for being interested in our farms journey.
WHO WE ARE
JASON, JESSICA, AND MADALYN WINALL
Jason and Jessica met in 2005, but didn't begin dating until summer 2006 and were married in fall 2009. Jason grew up in the construction industry and was a part of his family’s framing company for many years that specialized in residential construction and he worked on projects for many of our local builders at the time. Jessica was always interested in houses her whole life and knew she wanted to be an architect when she grew up. After graduating high school she headed down south to Savannah, GA to pursue her education. Over the summers of her last few years of college, she came home to work with a local home builder in the office, helping to develop new plans and work on existing ones. This is where our two paths crossed as Jason was one of their lead framers at the time.
In the spring of 2006, she got her Bachelor of Fine Arts with concentration in Architecture, along with a minor in Interior Design. One year later, in the spring of 2007, she received her Master of Architecture degree and headed back home to Virginia. After working with a large architectural firm and an individual architect in Richmond for many years after college, where she gained valuable experience about the commercial side of the industry, in 2018 Jason and Jessica decided to put their experience to work together.
Currently, they own a local design/build construction company called Grey Ridge Builders that specializes in building custom homes, either as a custom contract build for homeowners on their lot or by developing spec houses of their own. With Grey Ridge, Jessica draws and designs all of the plans for their houses, along with handling all of the office side of things for the company including permits, bills, contracts, and so on. She will either make a majority of the finish selections for the spec houses they put on the market or she will walk the homeowners through the selection process during their build.
And let’s not forget about Jason, he manages the field side of the operation and is the one responsible for making all of the houses come to life. He is often busy coordinating work to be done with all of our subcontractors, walking upcoming lots for house placements and makes sure to keep all of those crazy construction schedules going to ensure they are completed on time (hopefully)!
We welcomed our daughter, Madalyn, into this world in December of 2010 and truly had no idea how this little cowgirl could change our lives forever! She is a smart little girl that can always light up the world around her. She makes sure everyone knows what they need to be doing and will let you know if you are not doing it right. If there is ever any question on this statement, she will tell you to just look at her title on the business card for Grey Ridge where it will say she is “the boss.” Ever since she was little, she has always said she is going to Virginia Tech when she grows up and wants to be a cowgirl but has since added being a teacher to that list. As she gets older her thoughts seem to change some for all of this, so we will see what her future will hold when the time comes. Right now, we will just enjoy her being at home with us all we can. She is currently involved in Girl Scouts and multiple 4H clubs along with being a competitive swimmer at our local YMCA. If you don’t find her poolside practicing for swim team then she is probably baking in the kitchen, being creative by designing something or working on her next painting masterpiece. She is always thinking of things to make or do, either around the house or around the farm. If you check out the farms YouTube page, you will also find some of her video masterpieces that she has made over the years. So that is enough about us...I guess you would like to know more about the farm and how it all began!
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
THE STORY OF TWIN OAKS FARM
In 2009, a few months before we were getting married, Jessica received a text from Jason while at work saying I just bought a farm. Not being surprised by this news with his love of land, she didn't really know what to say other than "WHAT!" With the help of Jessica’s grandfather who was interested in farm land as well, the original piece of land for Twin Oaks was purchased. It was a 144 acre farm that once was operated by the Walker Family. The house, barns, sheds, and pig pens were all still on site even though they had seen their better days. It had also been timbered at one point since the original farming days and the cutover had started growing back. The previous owner had restored some of the fields back to grass and had used it for hay production.
The first few years for us also focused on hay production on the 20 +/- acres of established grass the farm had ... or really learning how to harvest hay to be honest. Jason had spent his whole life around horses growing up, so he knew what needed to be done even though he had never actually cut hay before. We looked around for the pieces and parts we needed to get the job done even if they were old and beat up. He always says...there is nothing a hammer can. He also knew that one day he wanted to have cows like his grandfather use to raise back when he was little.
Not knowing exactly what would be best, he decided that we should have a registered Angus herd. Some called us crazy and others laughed, but Jason figured if he was going to start completely from scratch then let's do the best we can. We started putting posts in the ground, running the fences and updating the structures so that one day the animals could come. In October 2012, Twin Oaks Angus Farm began when we decided to make the trip to Blacksburg, VA to attend the annual Hokie Harvest that is put on every year by Virginia Tech, one of our state's leading agricultural colleges.
Not knowing what we were really getting ourselves into, we loaded up the truck and trailer and headed west to see what we could learn. This is where we got our Shadoe, along with the spring heifer calf she had that year. She, to this day, will always be one of our leading foundation females and that is why you will see that she has a special legacy spot on our cattle page. After going to a few more local sales that year, we ended the year with five cows, or "moo-moo's" as Mady liked to call them back then.
In 2009, a few months before we were getting married, Jessica received a text from Jason while at work saying I just bought a farm. Not being surprised by this news with his love of land, she didn't really know what to say other than "WHAT!" With the help of Jessica’s grandfather who was interested in farm land as well, the original piece of land for Twin Oaks was purchased. It was a 144 acre farm that once was operated by the Walker Family. The house, barns, sheds, and pig pens were all still on site even though they had seen their better days. It had also been timbered at one point since the original farming days and the cutover had started growing back. The previous owner had restored some of the fields back to grass and had used it for hay production.
The first few years for us also focused on hay production on the 20 +/- acres of established grass the farm had ... or really learning how to harvest hay to be honest. Jason had spent his whole life around horses growing up, so he knew what needed to be done even though he had never actually cut hay before. We looked around for the pieces and parts we needed to get the job done even if they were old and beat up. He always says..."there is nothing a hammer can't fix!"
He also knew that one day he wanted to have cows like his grandfather use to raise back when he was little. Not knowing exactly what would be best, he decided that we should have a registered Angus herd. Some called us crazy and others laughed, but Jason figured if he was going to start completely from scratch then let's do the best we can. We started putting posts in the ground, running the fences and updating the structures so that one day the animals could come.
In October 2012, Twin Oaks Angus Farm began when we decided to make the trip to Blacksburg, VA to attend the annual Hokie Harvest that is put on every year by Virginia Tech, one of our state's leading agricultural colleges. Not knowing what we were really getting ourselves into, we loaded up the truck and trailer and headed west to see what we could learn. This is where we got our Shadoe, along with the spring heifer calf she had that year. She, to this day, will always be one of our leading foundation females and that is why you will see that she has a special legacy spot on our cattle page. After going to a few more local sales that year, we ended the year with five cows, or "moo-moo's" as Mady liked to call them back then.
Shortly after having our first calf born, and with no bull in the pasture, we made the decision to artificially breed so that we could get the best genetics possible to align with each female in the hopes that our choices would produce future generations of cattle that are stronger than the generation before. Yet another thing that we knew absolutely nothing about, but were ready to learn what we could. Jason started researching bulls and trying to figure out who would be best. We also began working with one of our local semen reps and we even attended a two day long AI training course one summer so we could do this task ourselves at the farm.
Over the next few years we continued to learn and grow as much as we could in this new world. We began getting involved with our local Extension office(s) to attend various seminars, joining our local Cattlemen's Association and even working with our local Soil & Water District to install the automatic cattle watering system and cross fencing you see at the farm today. In this time, we also gained a small group of registered balancer's and some commercial Angus girls just to add in the pastures. More pastures, more animals and more knowledge was definitely gained by all during this time.
In August 2016, Twin Oaks Wagyu Farm officially began under the umbrella of our existing farm. After processing our first half-blood (F1) steer earlier that year that we had bred and raised, Jason ‘died and went to steak heaven’ as I often say. We started researching this new breed and wanted to learn what we could about them. This time, we headed west again and made a 16 hour trip to Wakashaw, WI for the Primetime International Sale.
Here we gained our "Makena" but unless she was going to make the trip home in the back of our Explorer, she was going to have to stay for a little while longer. With that, we made the decision to leave her in WI for a month so she could be shown at the 2016 World Beef Expo where she placed 3rd overall in the breed. Jessica and Mady made the trip back out, with a truck and trailer this time, to see her show and also finally bring her home to Virginia. She became our first donor cow in the spring of 2017 which expanded our knowledge of the frozen genetics even more. We have been excited to be able to add many more females to this list since then.
In the fall of 2021, our small farm earned a title that most Wagyu breeders would be honored to carry; we were titled the 2021 Grand Champion of the Wagyu Triple Crown Steak Challenge. For those that don’t know anything about this, the Wagyu Triple Crown is a national steak contest for Wagyu breeders around the country to showcase their beef/genetics. The steak entries are extensively judged on five different categories and then ranked and scored individually before the combined score will place them all. Out of the 52 entries that year, our one entry with TNO Kita 34F earned us the top spot, while also placing in the top five in three out of the five categories and with-in the top ten for all of them. We were 1st in the Sensory Taste Panel, 2nd in the Fatty Acid Profile, 5th in the Japanese Carcass Camera, then followed by 7th in the Warner-Bratzler Shear Force Test and 8th in the Visual Appearance. This task is a hard one to achieve on its own breeding wise, but we managed to do it with a steer that was naturally conceived at our farm. Basically meaning we owned the sire and dam at the time as living, breathing animals where mother nature just took its course out in our fields, so the genetics were all here at Twin Oaks!
WOW is the only word that comes to mind to describe this great accomplishment. If you would like to learn more about the Triple Crown contest itself, or read the three-page article highlighting our farm, please click the link below to the digital magazine where it was all published.
Currently, the farm sits at 225 acres and has about 100 +/- animals (including calves) grazing in all the fields. We still focus on the AI with our breeding, but have also expanded our knowledge regarding the frozen genetics by creating and implanting embryos. With this, we are often times involved in the entire process from setting up the donors and recipients, along with breeding while the vet comes out for the flushing and implanting. A world that I honestly never thought we would be involved with if you asked me early on in this adventure.
Not only are we working with developing genetics here locally or within the USA, but we are also acquiring genetics from Australia, New Zealand and Scotland just to name a few along with exporting our genetics overseas as well! We are truly blessed to have grown into what we are so far and are excited to see what our future holds.
We appreciate you taking the time to read our story. If you would like to know more about us or the farming operation at Twin Oaks feel free to contact us anytime.
TAKE CARE!
