Last year the journey started on March 18th. Our shearer came to shear the sheep and we opened the farm to the public so they could see what we do. Then in February some of the wool went to a fiber mill in Vermont. Junction Fiber Mill in White River Junction, Vermont is a woman owned mill. I dropped off 15 pounds of raw fleece from our sheep and in the course of a month(Which is a crazy fast turn around time) these ladies turned 15 lbs of fiber into roughly 10 lbs of gorgeous soft 3 ply yarn. Each skein of yarn was 297 yards and bouncy, soft and naturally a creamy white color. I was so excited to get it back and posted on our Facebook page immediately with a picture of Genevieve holding the yarn in the parking lot of the fiber mill. Shortly after, a woman that had come to shearing day reached out to me asking to purchase some skeins - my first yarn customer. Maryly is an artist [...]

I love cooking and baking, and one of my favorite oils to cook in are animal fats. Previously I've only rendered pork fat into lard. But this year, after processing the chicken carcasses into broth I had a lot of beautiful fat that had to be skimmed off before canning the broth. I didn't want that to go to waste so I scooped it off and set it aside in the freezer. When I had 4 lambs processed this fall, I asked the butcher to save any fat trimmings for me to render down as well. Rendering fat is super easy, and although its a little time consuming, it's easy to do while you're already preoccupied in the kitchen. Over the last week I took pictures of the process I use when rendering sheep fat - this process can easily be used for pork and beef fat as well. Step one - break out the crock pot or a large stock pot. I love using the crock pot for big batches of pork fat, [...]

6 years farming > one wednesday morning   Farming in New England has many hardships, some are unique to New England and some are the same ones found across the world. We’ve been very lucky in the past six years of having livestock. We’ve lost chickens here and there to the occasional fox or hawk, due to our own negligence, but we have never lost a sheep to a predator. Something I was very proud of. To me it showed that we could live side by side coyotes and bears without having to fear for our sheep. In late summer and early fall I’d still get nervous when the local pack would wander through and we’d hear their yips and howls. I knew that if they were hunting they’d be silent, so the noises they made were welcome, even if it did keep me up with my spot light scanning the pasture for coyotes. The coyotes had plenty of food available to them in the woods that surrounded our house and they respected our [...]

This year at the beginning of 2022 my New Year's Resolution for the farm was to have a year of “yes”. To me this meant that if an opportunity came my way I would do it, ready or not I’d say yes. The first “yes” came in the beginning of March. While scrolling through facebook someone on a sheep page mentioned the YCP with the application form for shepherds. Curious, I read through it and learned that the YCP, Youth Conservation Program, connects kids 9-18 with farmers of heritage sheep. In April the farmers are given a list of essays written by the kids and they get to choose which child will be the recipient of a year old ewe. In May the farmers and the kids all meet at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, where the ewes are given over to their new farm. Throughout the year the kids must show the ewe at two fairs, breed her in the fall, and use her wool in the spring, whether they sell it [...]