Welcome to Hire Creek Acres!
Hello from Syracuse, Indiana! We are the Hochstetler family and if you are reading this, we are guessing you are thinking of adding a Bullmastiff to your family. We think that is a great decision. That is what we did when it all started in 2007 when we made that same decision for our family. We were newly engaged and looking for a family dog. Abby was the perfect fit. She was so sweet and her laid back personality is what we loved the most. We had our first babies in our rental house in the basement (sorry, landlord) and we stayed up insane hours in the night making sure that mama and babies were ok. We fell in love with each one and loved seeing families come together to bring a new puppy home. We remember joking that if we can raise 11 puppies together we might as well go ahead with the wedding. The rest is history!
Now meet the rest of our family...
We are a family of 7 and sometimes we joke that we could charge tickets to come visit our “circus”. It’s chaos at times but also beautiful to see each of our children grow and we have no doubt they will do great things in their life! To think how each one can impact the world is what truly keeps us going.
Our rule-follower, puppy whisperer, and our biggest helper is 14. She loves playing for her volleyball team, softball on a local travel team, anything outdoors and loves to swim any chance she gets! She has recently taken on some babysitting jobs and has really done well. She is always holding a puppy like a baby and always gets them to sleep in her arms. When she is not putting puppies to sleep, she is helping with our youngest 3 children. Also, makes the bombest grilled cheese sandwiches, soft pretzels, chocolate chip cookies and really has a gift of cooking and baking!
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Our 13 year old is our chore guy. He is always scooping poop from the yard. So helpful! He is the one that always picks out the Alpha male from the litter and claims it and is always trying to convince us to keep him. He is always ready with a snuggly blanket and wants all the cuddles from the puppies. He loves any sport and also loves any kid of adventure outside. You can find him driving too fast on the four wheeler or go-carting the twins on the trails in his free time.
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Next comes our 6 year old that is our little cowgirl. Her first love is her beloved cats. She equally loves puppies and loves each one and can barely let them go. She loves when they find her lap to snooze on and it makes her squeal and feel so loved! Her favorite thing is running around with puppies chasing her while she screams proudly “look, mama! They looooove me!”
Our last “just one more baby” is our twin boys. They have been such a blessing. They were born in March 2020 and when the whole world was going through a pandemic, we were snuggling these two. They love being outdoors and love tractors, four wheelers, and their favorite is getting rides on the Ranger or Go-cart. We love that our dogs are being raised with children to prepare them for their new homes.
We moved to our Syracuse property in 2016 and we love it but it wasn’t love at first sight. There was a lot work to do here and slowly we are making it our own. We have almost 2,000 maple trees through our woods and that has been our other adventure that keeps us busy through springtime. When you visit make sure you ask for a sample of our Pure Indiana Maple Syrup. Also a peek inside our sugar-shack to see our wood-fired evaporator. All of the wood we use to boil the sap comes from trees harvested from our farm. Which can give you an idea of what we are doing on off season. Lots of splitting and stacking wood on pallets! I like to think that the syrup is sweeter when our family works hard together to make a finished product.
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Our mission here at Hire Creek Acres is to honor God with everything that He has blessed us with and to treat others the way we would like to be treated. We believe everyone has a story and we never know what someone is going through. We love being together with our families, friends, spending time on the lake, vacationing to the beach, camping, riding our trails with our riding horses, and anything outdoors! But in the end our favorite place to be is at home sitting by the fire (outside or inside), just us.
Enough about us, we are all excited to meet you and please don’t hesitate to ask us any questions. If you think you are ready to add a bullmastiff puppy to your family contact us and we’d love to connect!
We’ll talk soon,
The Hochstetler Family