Our Sheep have Arrived!

 

The day I have waited for, prayed for and hoped for has finally arrived. I have been wanting sheep ever since I was a kid! I remember going to our Pastor's house and just watching his sheep. I honestly never thought this day would arrive. But it has! We wanted a tri-purpose breed so that we could get the most from the sheep. We knew we wanted a heritage breed. I want to milk our ewes and make cheese, yogurt, skin care items. I also wanted to harvest the wool to spin into yarn, insulate, use the droppings as a fertilizer and use as a mulch in our garden. What other type of livestock can do all of this?

We had narrowed it down to the Clun Forest breed of sheep. They are also listed on the Livestock Conservancy threatened list. So we will be adding rams to breed to our girls. Hopefully we can help to increase the knowledge and sustainability of this wonderful breed!

We were having so much trouble locating ewes that could be breeding stock. Which means they needed to be registered with the North American Clun Forest Association. We went through most of the breeders on the eastern seaboard with no luck. We had no way (or the funds) to have them transported here. I just kept praying that if the Lord wanted us to breed these then we knew He would find a way. 

I decided to hit social media to see if anyone knew of a breeder or anyone selling their registered ewes. Let me tell you God came through in an amazing way! A woman reached out to me stating she was getting rid of her Clun Forest ewes. She was offering us an amazing deal! So we all got to work building a temporary shelter. After a week it was complete at very minimal cost to us. We used wood pallets from around town, wood we had here on the farm. 

They all need to be sheared in a bad way, but I have that scheduled for a couple of weeks. They were very frightened at first, but started to warm up to us pretty quickly. The ewes are 2 years old, they had lambs in late February and early March. So the lambs will be up for sale as soon as they are ready. I am completely in love!

Look at that profile!! Since the lambs can be weaned soon I plan on getting them use to the milking stand. They actually let me examine their utters this afternoon. I cannot wait to start getting milk! 

We have not named them just yet. But we are going with a Beatrix Potter theme to name them. We will pick a different theme each year for the names. 

The lambs are a Clun Forest / Finn Sheep mix. We might keep one of the ewe lambs and try breeding her to see what we end up with for milking. 

Look at that sweet boy! This is the ram lamb. Look at those eye lashes! He was enjoying my barn boots..YUCK!

This is one of the ewes. I just love those little faces. One of our Mennonite neighbors stopped over yesterday to see our sheep. They might purchase one from us. 

Another shot of the Ram lamb. He was very photogenic! IT feels so good to just go outside and see and visit with our sheep. We are still in shock that they have been entrusted to us by God. They will not only nourish our bodies, but cloth them as well with the wool that I will spin into yarn. 

I hope you enjoyed this quick look at our new family members. I will be back to share with you all the good things that sheep do for us. Have a great day!

Farm Update!

 

We are in the middle of winter here in Western NY. I am one of those "crazy" people who love winter. I love watching the snow falling all around. The peace and quiet that comes with a good snow is so nice. Although, we pretty much always have quiet out here. We have had a nice amount of snow this year. Right now we are down below zero for temperatures. 

When it is snowing I love just sitting in our breezeway with my coffee in the morning. Sometimes it really reminds me of Narnia. 

Our chickens have just started laying eggs! We have 8 hens and a rooster. We are getting 8 eggs a day now. We have collected 8 of them to place in the incubator. We are excited to see if we have any hatch or not. I am SO grateful that we have these chickens now. Especially with the cost of eggs going up again. We have sold quite a few eggs since advertising them. 

Last week we spent a lot of the week insulating the inside and installing a water heater so the water wouldn't freeze anymore. That has been a huge blessing. We have used old feed bags and cardboard to insulate the inside of the coop. It keeps the wind out and our chickens seem pretty happy with it. I added more protein to their diet to help them keep warm. I've also applied bag balm to their combs to ward off potential frost bite. I check their feet everyday...thats fun let me tell you!!

This is Onyx and Sapphire. They are my 2 that love attention! 

This is Opal. She enjoys her pets every morning and evening. If she is interested. BUT it has to be HER choice. LOL! I love how they each have their own personality. 

This is Moonstone! She is kind of a loner. Just does her own thing. She lays her eggs UNDER the nesting boxes. Then hollers at me when I am trying to get it in the morning. LOL!

Here we have Minnie Pearl. I was sitting in the coop with my camera taking pictures. She could not figure out what I was doing. She kept walking up and just staring at me. I absolutely love this picture. 

This is our handsome rooster Archibald! He is such a protector of his girls. But at the same time so sweet with us. He runs to the door everyday to see what goodies I might have. He is also waiting for his daily chin scratch. He loves to come over while I am collecting eggs and crow right in my ear. In case I didn't hear him the first thousand times he crowed in the morning. I just love him!

This picture of Sapphire and Moonstone just cracks me up! But I love that fluffy butt!!

This is the future spot of one of my herb gardens. This will be the medicinal herbs along with some for dying yarn. 

We will get the sheep barn and pasture finished this spring. We had a lot of unexpected things come up this fall and winter that took up a lot of time. I cannot wait to bring our sheep home. Speaking of bringing something home.

Tomorrow we are picking up another dog. He is a 6 month old Coonhound!! His name is Buddy! I will share more about him when we get him here. 

Welcome to Whispering Hollow Farm!!

Hello! So much has changed around here the past year. As I posted a few months ago, we moved from a village into the country. My husband Matt and I have prayed about this for nearly 20 years! We moved into the village in 2011. It was where God wanted us at the time. Moving there allowed our girls to get the services they needed. But our hearts desire was to have a couple of acres with some farm animals and a large garden. We felt as if God just wanted us to be in the village forever. It was at that moment that we became content with where God had us that God began to work BIG time. 

 Over the years I have sent different possible properties to my husband. EACH time he said nah I don't think it is possible at this time. I just continued to pray. Honestly I was so discouraged! But I knew God had a plan for us. If that meant staying put so be it. Doesn't me I was going to like it (HAHA)! I'm kidding...sorta. :-)

I lived on a farm until the age of 10 years old. It was always in my blood though. The desire to be outside, planting, caring for animals and my family. That is probably why I loved going to my grandparents house in the summers and over vacations. They had horses, a large garden, and lived up on a hill in the woods. I just loved being there, so peaceful, especially first thing in the morning. 

2018-2024 were horrible years for our family. We had so many things happen. We had illnesses, loved ones pass away, sickness, the world shut down, job stress, my son involved in a horrible accident, financial stress and so much more I'm probably forgetting. I would walk outside after a snow storm. The air was so crisp, it seemed like everything just stood still, not a sound could be heard except for the snow crunching under my boots. It was February 2024 I just cried out to God. I spilled everything to Him. I was really missing my mom and dad. They go to FL over the winter. So I asked my husband if we could just take the time off and go to FL to visit? I had also not seen my sister, brother in law, niece or nephew in many years! I was shocked when he said YES! On one condition, we had to drive down. I was fine with that. Just getting away from daily stress is what we needed. It was what our marriage needed. We took that time to really pray like we had never prayed before about finding property. Now if you know anything about the real estate market from 2020-today, it is CRAZY!! People are paying thousands over asking prices. Not only that, but WAY over the full market value of property. 

I saw this above house on the list of properties for sale. It wasn't far from our current home, I thought it was going to be another NO. Shockingly my husband said, OK lets go look at it. I was honestly SO surprised he said yes! This was the first step God gave us to obtain our dream home!

We took our daughter Hannah with us to look at it. She has developmental disabilities and autism. So this decision was just as much hers as ours. We were worried about how she would do moving away from our home. 

We pulled up and were SO surprised at how Hannah became so excited. We met with the realtor outside on the front porch. The view from the porch was breath-taking!!! I was sold then and there without even looking inside. 

This was a sunrise this summer. I often sit here and just take in the beauty of this land. Now back to the story of our journey to Whispering Hollow Farm. 

As I mentioned we stood on the porch looking out over the field. I knew deep down this was where God wanted us. I know odd having not seen the inside yet. My husband, Matt thought the same exact thought, but we did not tell each other. 

We walked in the door and saw such a beautiful kitchen. Now I know most people want marble or stone countertops, new cupboards and so on. This was perfect in our eyes. We love the old and vintage looking homes. 

So as we entered the home we were chatting with the realtor about the property. Next thing I know Hannah is nowhere to be found!! I called out to her, all of a sudden we hear this small distant voice saying UP HERE! She had decided to go exploring on her own. She was already in love with the house! The whole upstairs is huge. There is a bedroom, which is hers, a full bathroom, a smaller room, that she calls her living room and a spare room. 

This is the large room upstairs. If you are familiar with old farmhouses, there are what is called tandem rooms. They are pretty much all just connected in a large circle with doors dividing the room. Hannah's living room would be the only room you have to walk through to get to the hallway. 

The spare room / guest room needs to be gutted and walls and ceiling redone. But that is another blog post. 

We spent about an hour at the house the first time we looked at it. We were jumping for joy inside (but remember neither of us let on how excited we were). Besides we were certain we would never be able to afford it in this current real estate market. Homes were selling for thousands over the full market value. 

We left the house and went home. Watched the listing for a couple of weeks. We both prayed, had family pray and our church pray. Hannah kept calling it our house. I was worried she would be totally crushed when we were not able to get it. 

We asked the realtor if we could go back and look at the house again. She gladly allowed us this second opportunity. Matt and I wanted to walk the property and just cry out to God for His will to be clear to us. We would need to sell our house and have this house's offer accepted. BUT we asked God to move a mountain so we would not have to carry a mortgage. I know BIG request.

We walked the whole perimeter, all 2 acres of it!! I think the realtor was getting a little huffy with us for taking this long. But we wanted to be certain before talking numbers with her. 

We got to the front corner of the property. I looked down and saw this above picture. A Chinese lantern. It was another God Wink! My grandparents had these growing all over the side of their driveway. I had seeds from hers but could never get them to grow. Also along the hollow there was a long row of wild black raspberries. I would walk my grandparents driveway to pick these each summer. Another sign from God. Was this our dream property? Was God whispering in our ears that we needed to trust Him?

Everywhere we looked there were signs and whispers from God. Trust Me, I will not let you fall. So on the way home Matt and I decided to place our home on the market and put in an offer. The realtor said there had not been too many offers. The next day at work I did my research, and spoke to my supervisor. See I am a title searcher for real estate. Everything looked great! 

We put in an offer about $40K less than the asking price. I figured that would give us some wiggle room. Now comes the BEST part of the story. The couple that was selling this property had been praying that they would accept the correct offer. They wanted a family here that would love the home and property as much as they do. This was the wife's home for most of her life. 

She prayed for each person who stepped onto the property. WELL our offer was accepted! I could not believe it! I still cannot believe it!! She said she knew we were the ones God wanted here. She use to work with people with developmental disabilities. Another God wink. Our house sold within days of having it listed. It went for over the asking price. So we broke even and we do not have a mortgage!! 

We officially closed on this property on June 14, 2024!! 

So how did we come up with the name? Remember all the times I said we heard God Whisper? The picture above is the property just south of our home. It is a deep hollow. So that is where we have: Whispering Hollow Farm! 

We already have a flock of 9 Sapphire Gem chickens, with 1 being an unexpected rooster. The first project we did was renovate a shed that was already on the property.

You can see it there in the distance. You know priorities! HA! 

Starting to paint the outside. Next we added a dog kennel we found for pretty cheap. Then it was moving in day for our babies. 

They are the most beautiful chickens!! I am amazed at how they have different personalities! A friend of mine is working on a logo for our farm. We will be adding sheep this spring! AHHH! Another dream come true! More on that later!

So there you have it! The story of how we were given our dream by God. We still wake up and cannot believe we live here.