Five Generations, One Farm, and the Machines That Helped Hold It Together

There is a stone house on Mario Jodoin's property in Saint-Charles-sur-Richelieu that has been standing since 1858. Five generations of the Jodoin family have lived and worked within those walls, clearing forest, tending crops, raising families, and passing something forward to the next in line. Mario is the fifth generation. And for most of his life, he has worked as though everything depended on it, because, in many ways, it did.

No Plan, just a Starting Point

When a fire burned the commercial wood company where Mario had been working, it took everything with it. With no job and no plan, he did the only thing that made sense: he put himself to work. He bought a lawnmower, found a handful of clients, and started from there.

Hiring someone to mow your lawn wasn't common practice in rural Quebec nearly 50 years ago. Mario saw the gap and stepped into it. One client became two. Two became a reputation. And a reputation, built entirely on showing up and never cutting corners, became a business.

"I never had to advertise," he says. "The work found me."

As demand grew, so did his thinking. When landscaping contractors needed someone who could place rocks and move earth on residential properties, nobody in the region had a mini excavator, so Mario bought one. Suddenly the phone rang differently. When summer droughts arrived, that meant no grass cutting, but his excavator still worked. The equipment didn't just expand his services; it made him weatherproof.

His first Kubota wasn't a complicated decision. The dealership was seven minutes from the farm. Pierre Picard, the dealer, knew him by name, stood behind what he sold, and made it easy to do business. "Seven minutes away makes all the difference," Mario says. "Other brands, you're looking at 30 or 40 minutes and when you're in the middle of a snow removal job in January and something needs attention, that distance is a very long time."

A Century in the Making, Gone in a Week

At the centre of the Jodoin property was the sugar bush – 90 arpents of maple forest, tended across generations. For 21 years, Mario ran a sugar shack on that land that could seat 300 guests. Families came back year after year, with even international visitors making the trip.

"The whole family worked in that kitchen," Mario says. "People didn't come just for the food. They came to feel something real."

Then came January 1998. The ice storm that swept through Quebec that winter left the sugar bush unrecognizable. Ninety arpents of maple forest – the same trees Mario's great-grandfather had first cleared by hand and the same ones his father had tapped every spring – came down. What had taken a century to grow was gone in mere days.

"I had to make a choice," he says. "Let it go or rebuild it."

Mario decided to rebuild it. Over the next ten years, Kubota mini excavators cleared fallen trees, tonnes of debris, and prepared the land for replanting, arpent by arpent. When something broke down, Pierre was seven minutes away. The relationship that had started as a practical convenience had become the kind of partnership that withstands challenges year after year.

"Without the Kubota machines during that period," Mario says, "I'm not sure the farm would exist today."

A Thank-You 47 Years in the Making

Through it all, Mario never stopped thinking about his father. When Mario was first building his business, when the risks were real and the money wasn't certain, his father had refinanced the family property to back him. When Kubota released the RTV, Mario was among the first in Quebec to reserve one before it was even in stock and he immediately knew what he wanted to do with it.

But the winter leading up to his father's 80th birthday was a hard one. When spring came and the RTV arrived at the dealership, Mario went to Pierre and told him the truth.

"It's been a hard winter. I can barely afford it. I'll have to wait a bit."

Pierre didn't pause. "We know each other. We'll set it up. When you're ready, you let me know. We're part of the celebration."

Two months later, Mario made the first payment and surprised his father with the RTV.

"That machine gave him back the land," Mario says quietly. "He could drive through the maple forest, see the sugar bush he'd helped build, and keep moving."

That summer, his father's five sisters came to visit. They all piled into the RTV together and rode through the maple forest singing, making memories like the good old days.

Thirty-Six Years Without a Vacation, and Then a Full Stop

Tyler doesn't talk about Mossy Rock like a business looking for an edge. He has watched people he loves struggle with their health. He has felt it himself. He draws a straight line from what has happened to the nutrient density of the modern food supply to what has happened to the soil that produces it - and he farms like that line matters.

Mossy Rock sells direct to consumers, runs farm tours, and prices their beef in line with the grocery store - not because the margins work out neatly, but because the point was never to extract a premium.

"The money matters - we need it to keep going," Tyler says. "But that's not the point. The point is that people deserve to eat food that's actually healthy, and someone has to grow it that way."

Their dealership, Lawson Sales, has been part of the growth. Dylan Webber, now general manager, was the sales rep who saw what Mossy Rock was building early and went to Kubota on their behalf to make the 8540T and WR1400 possible. The relationship hasn't changed as the operation has expanded - when they need something, or when something gets wrecked, one of them picks up the phone and it’s ready.

The M7040, the first Kubota Mossy Rock ever bought in 2012, is still on the property. Still running. They can see it out the window.

"Just the fact that we still have that tractor here," Tyler says, "is the whole story right there."

The Fifth Generation Isn't Done Yet

Today, Mario keeps four Kubota machines on his property: a B2650, a B2120, an E17 mini excavator, and the RTV 520. The pace is slower, more deliberate. He tends the garden, maintains the property, and stays connected to the land on his own terms. Every morning, when he starts a Kubota, it runs.

"After everything I've been through," he says, "that's not a small thing."

Five generations built something on this land. Mario has only added to its story.

Mario Jodoin has been a Kubota customer since the early 1990s. He operates a small fleet of four Kubota machines on his family's heritage property in Saint-Charles-sur-Richelieu, Quebec.