In 1931 Jake's grandfather John Fairbairn bought the farm and started milking 15 Holstein cows. He quickly realized that with milk prices being what they were that he needed a cash crop, which at the time was cauliflower. He turned out to be one of the better cauliflower growers in the area and not long after marrying Mildred in 1934 had the farm paid off. He then went on to become an accomplished Holstein breeder, growing a fine herd of black and white cows.

In 1937 Jake's father John, Jr. was born and two girls would follow him in the next 10 years or so. John, Sr, or "Poppy" as he came to be called by his grandchildren, increased his herd to a maximum of 23 cows to provide the income necessary for his growing family. By the late 1960's Poppy started losing his vision to glaucoma, which would eventually cause him to prematurely retire from active dairy farming in 1977. He kept one cow named Challenge to provide milk for himself and Mildred, and the hay fields were rented out to neighbors, but otherwise the farm sat
relatively idle for almost 30 years.  

Jake was born in 1975 to John, Jr. and Sally Fairbairn. Sally had been raised on her family's dairy farm just outside Margaretville. This was the Scudder's River By Farm where they milked a different breed of cow, called Ayrshires. John and Sally started a dairy farm of their own in Halcott Center, outside of Fleischmanns, milking registered Holsteins. In 1986 they sold the cows. John continued to work as a small and large animal veterinarian and continued to practice at his clinic in Arkville which he ran for many years.

Jake went off to college with no plans of becoming a dairy farmer. He had worked on a few farms during summers in high school and college, but just for pocket money. Then that fateful day came when Jake had to choose a major. None of the potential careers he looked at seemed interesting. He was a dirt under the fingernails kind of guy and these careers all seemed to have a desk job in common.

He realized that he missed the smell of grease and diesel exhaust. He missed the smell of a dairy barn and working with the cows. He was a farmer at heart. He was also very aware of how hard it is to carve out a life as a small dairy farmer. He had seen his parents, and so many others, work themselves to the bone and eventually sell off their herds.

However, there was a new concept being talked about that Jake and his family thought just might be the answer to their dilemmas. In the early 1990's John and Sally had traveled to New Zealand where they learned about a widely used dairy farming practice used in the country. The practice was known as "grazing".

Shortly after the return from their trip to New Zealand, John and Sally spoke with Chris and Judy DiBenedetto, who had bought their old Halcott farm, about the idea and practices used in a grazing dairy farm. The DiBenedetto's had taken the advice about grazing to heart and were making it work. Jake had spent the last several summers working on Chris and Judy's farm and had noticed that they were milking more cows and seemed to be making more money, and not only that, things weren't quite so hectic.   

Jake then made up his mind to resurrect his grandfathers farm... only the farm would now be a grazing farm. He found the University of Wisconsin's School for Beginning Dairy Farmers and soon found himself back in school.  Following a winter of classes about dairy farming, he spent several months interning on two dairy farms. The first, owned by Bert and Trish Paris, was a "conventional" grazing farm where he learned much about labor efficiency and many of the nuts and bolts of running a dairy farm. After that tremendous experience, Jake move an hour to the east to Altfrid and Sue Krusenbaum's biodynamic organic dairy. His eyes were opened to a very different way of running a farm. No commercial fertilizer and no antibiotics had seemed like an impossibility before, but he soon learned that it certainly can work.  

August 13, 2004, was the first milking for Lazy Crazy Acres.