All their hard work has paid off for one family who farms land near Blackie.

The Hansen family was recognized as the 2015 Farm Family of the Year for the M.D. of Foothills.

Doug Hansen and his brother, Rick Hansen, have kept the tradition alive by farming the family land, after it was passed down to them from their father, Harold Hansen, who had it passed down from his parents, Jacob and Ida Hansen.

The farm started out quite small, but has grown and thrived over the years, seeing everything from hundreds of hens to a herd of purebred Angus to milk cows, and even a hog operation.

Doug says farming in general is definitely a family business, and he says it would be hard to get into the industry without those family ties.

"With the price of land now and the price of machinery, I don't know if someone could get into it if they didn't have some of it handed down to them," he says.

Doug now has 10 horses and two donkeys (named Brooks and Dunn), as well as several acres of land that he farms; however, he used to also be highly involved in the cattle industry.

"I was involved with the Southern Alberta Angus Club for 15 years with a purebred herd, and I was president of the club, and on the board for many years,"  he says.

Having lived on the farm his whole life, Doug says it's incredible how much farming has changed since he was a kid.

"Equipment's changed a lot. (Now we have) GPS, auto steering, and mapping—It's a very electronic world out there now," he says. "Sometimes it seems like it's for the best, but when the electronics go down, it's a pain to fix."

He says with auto steering, it can sometimes get a little boring, but he has a trick to make the days go by faster during harvest.

"Well with the GPS, you usually have to pack two lunches because there's not much to do," he laughs.

But despite the long days, he says harvest time is the part he loves the most about being a farmer.

"It starts to cool down and we get a few frosts and the mosquitoes and flies go away—harvest is usually the best time."

When asked what his least favourite part was, he took a while to answer, trying to rack his brain for something he doesn't love.

"Some days in the spring when you're trying to seed with the wind blowing—that's my least favourite," he says.