Rows of jars and boxes of both store-bought and home-canned food items line the pantry shelves of Tabiona Mayor Ronnie Giles and his wife Afton.

The couple's pantry is also filled with shampoo, paper towels, toilet paper and other nonfood items. It is only part of their storage; they use their closets, cupboards and outbuildings to store non-perishables. They also have two deep freezers stocked with meat and vegetables and a refrigerator for everyday-use items in their kitchen.

The couple raises their own vegetables and fruits and has a 40-acre farm a mile from home where they raise hay, cows for beef and milk and chickens for eggs and poultry. They purchase a pig for slaughter, which is processed and even supplies their lard.

“We did raise pigs, once upon a time,” Ronnie Giles said. “But now I can buy a pig for cheaper than I can raise one.”

Because of their lifestyle, the couple only has to grocery shop once a year, with one exception. They use a one-man milking machine they transport to and from the barn each time they use it, but not during the three months a year when they choose not to milk their cow.

“We have to dry her up a little bit before she has her baby so she'll produce the milk to raise her babies,” Afton Giles said. “About March, then she'll have her baby calf and then we'll start milking again. We have powdered milk and we have can milk that we cook with. Then once a week, our daughter goes in and gets us a gallon of milk. That's the only thing she ever picks us up, unless the kids bring us ice-cream.”

The Giles have chosen to live this lifestyle since they are approximately 20 miles away from the nearest grocery store. They shop at Sam's Club — approximately 90 miles away — in August and buy enough bulk items from toilet paper and laundry soap to boxed cake mix and Rice-A-Roni to last the whole year. The couple uses the hay they grow to feed their cows. The money they make by selling the beef cows they raise pays for the groceries.

“I raise 15 young calves,” Ronnie Giles said. “I got five cows. I raise three calves to the cow. I slaughter five or six, but I just slaughter one for myself. I sell the others to my kids.”

Afton Giles added: “We get enough money, generally, to pay our taxes and everything. Ronnie raises a pretty good hay crop too. We'll probably spend, I would say, it seems like every year it gets a little bit less, but with the meat processing and everything, I'm sure it's around $1,000 a year. You have to take it out and have it butchered.”

Currently both of the Giles have not stored any fish because they are both using walkers and they can't get to the riverbank.

Afton, age 66, broke her hip a month ago, but is quickly recovering. Ronnie, age 68, suffers from neuropathy, a condition that affects his nerves and makes him unable to feel his feet.

“Ronnie likes the milk and the doctor told him the calcium would help him a lot,” Afton Giles said. “We're not the only people up here that raise food like this, but we're the only people I know of that milk a cow. People think we're crazy, but I like to bake with it. I make all my bread and everything with it.”

Afton uses a mixer for her bread-making. They never buy store-bought bread because Ronnie won't eat it. She bakes 12 loaves at a time in her double-confection oven.

“I'll make cinnamon rolls and things like that out of the bread dough too,” Afton said. “We also have a noodle-maker. Eggs, salt and flour is all that you make noodles out of. So, we'll make homemade noodles and then we add the chicken and make soup.”

Married at the ages of 15 and 17 after having met while swimming, the Giles have seven children, 24 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and two on the way. They've been together more than 50 years and have passed the knowledge of raising food and their work ethic onto their family. The Giles also share their food with family and have several traditions.

Every Labor Day, Afton will go to Salt Lake with family members and friends and pick 20 bushels of tomatoes. When they're finished, they'll return to the Giles' home and set up a canning operation out in the yard. They typically can 475 jars and divide them among themselves, getting about 80 jars apiece.

“We usually do it right here under these apple trees,” Afton Giles said. “We've got apple trees and we've got apricot trees. We make our apple-pie filling and we make our apple sauce. We've got apricots. We pick cherries in the mountains and make cherry jelly and apricot jelly.

“We've done this all of our married life,” Afton Giles continued. “When we was raising our kids we'd raise all the green beans and everything. We'd bring them in great big round washtubs. One time we was snapping beans and the bishop came. Here was me and all them little kids around that barrel of beans, a snapping them beans, to get them ready to can. He always told that story in church how we was around that barrel and teaching our kids to work.

“One of the things I feel we have really accomplished more than anything is all of our kids work. They're good workers and they're hard workers and every one of them has a job, even today. That's quite an accomplishment. They have a good work ethic, every one of them.”

Despite his health issue, Ronnie Giles chops his own wood by pushing a button on his electric log splitter. The couple has a modern version of an old-fashioned stove that sits in their living room next to the kitchen. The stove not only heats their home, but they cook on it too.

“We cook breakfast on it and we cook meat,” Afton Giles said. “When you cook meat on it, it cooks it even and slow and it just makes your meat really good. I can also cut up a big butternut squash, butter it up, wrap it up, put it in a roaster and put it in that oven. I never have to look at it all day. I'll bake enough for my daughter and my son and us and take it over to their house. They love for us to do that. That squash will bake just beautiful in that oven.”

The Tabiona couple enjoys their little farm, growing hay and living in a place that recently received the title of “Best Drinking Water” in the state of Utah for their mountain spring water. Ronnie Giles — who is in his fifth year as mayor of Tabiona — has entered the town's water for the national title competition in Washington, D.C., next month.

They're grateful for everything they have and use all of their resources responsibly. The Giles have always had a great appreciation for their community and the people in it and they wouldn't have raised their family anywhere else.

“We call this God's country up here,” Ronnie Giles said. “We've got good neighbors and when you guys got fog down that way, we've got sunshine up here.”