Last one to the house has to shovel the sheep barn!

We care for a flock of baby doll sheep. One of the dirtiest, smelliest jobs on the farm is cleaning out the sheep barn, hence the joke, "last one to the house has to shovel the sheep barn!". When we were thinking about what types of animals to have on the farm, we had in mind the idea that "everyone on the farm has a job". Everyone and everything on the farm, including its humans, have a purpose, reason and job on the farm. We knew we wanted grazing animals, not only for their manure which could be used, once composted, as a natural fertilizer, but also for their help with mowing the grass on our grassy knoll.

For the first few years of the farm, we had piglets for this use- we moved their pens around as they cleared the property- not only would they graze on the greenery, but they would also start rooting around with their snouts into the ground, effectively bull dozing an entire area in a couple of weeks. Some of you will remember our first escapade with a baby piglet being lost in the woods, and me tackling it to the ground. We have many more stories about our piglets, but for now though, we are talking about our sheepies. 

Once the land was cleared by the piglets, and we passed through a season to composte their droppings into beautiful dark rich soil, we planted wine grapes. Once we trelissed the vines, we realized that we needed a short stature grazer that would be able to graze beneath the grape vines or else we would be doing a lot of mowing! Their grazing would help in a number of ways- we would not have to mow, we really wanted to be less reliant on fossil fuels (nor pollute with them!) and we would have a grazer who would mow between  the vines, but not eat the vines (or eventual wine grapes!) and their poop would fertilize the grapes! 

We did a lot of research about sheep. Most sheep are somewhat tall in stature, and may focus on eating the tender shoots of the new grape vines instead of the grass between them. Baby doll sheep are short and small, and by the way, cute!!!!!! Check out this smile!

Once we knew what kind of sheep we wanted, we set out to find some! That proved to be more difficult, until a farm in the southern part of the state was looking to downsize and had three adult females and one young male baby doll sheep for sale. Our flock was started! The excitement that we felt when we were going to meet them was palbable. This was the first big step for our farm and we were excited to meet them! 

Jason and I headed out to the farm in southern CT one Saturday in early spring. We were thrilled to be possibly bringing new friends home with us to the farm. The owner met us and led us out to a far pasture where the baby dolls were grazing. We started walking through the barn area and near by pasture. A friendly llama started walking with us. As we walked, the llama became very interested in Jason. She was walking very close to him, and nuzzling his neck with her nose every chance she got. She was enchanted by Jason. Jason and I were caught off guard- we had never been around a llama so closely before- the owner assured us that "this was just how she was" and spoke to the llama telling her to back off a bit. That llama would not budge from Jason's neck. The entire walk to the far pasture, Jason had a llama breathing down his neck. It was hysterically funny! As we walked closer to the baby doll sheep, they of course moved father away, so we had ample time to spend with the llama lover and her hot breath on Jason's neck!

 Eventually, we met the baby dolls and fell in love with them and decided to take them home with us. Taking them home was a whole other story, perhaps one that will grace this blog soon! (there is also a pretty funny story of how we got our first piglet, Penelope home, but I will hold on to that one for a  bit too- can't wait to share that one with you!).

Our flock has upsized and downsized over the years. We have been through three lambing seasons, and now for the health of the flock, we have moved our adult male baby dolls to another farm to give the females a break with pregnancy and lambing. Sadly though, we lost two baby doll lambs our first spring of lambing.

We had had a successful lambing that first spring, two of the females had a pair of twins, and one new mom had a singelton. One night, a few months after they were born, the sheep pushed their way out of the barn door and were wandering around the yard in a non fenced in area. A wild animal came silently and stole away two lambs, one of each of the twins. It was a sad morning when we realized what had happened. The mothers were bahhing for their babies and looking around for them. We searched the woods for the babies, but couldn't find any signs of them, no blood, guts, nothing. We determined that it was probably a bear that came and took the lambs for eating near their den. We know that bears live in the woods all around our farm. We realized that despite our fencing being pretty secure, the baby dolls needed an animal for protection. The obvious choices that came to mind were llamas and Great Pyrennes. Fortunately, we were able to find the best sheep protector and the cuddiliest Great Pyreenes to ever live on a farm. Hugh has delighted us with his bearlike snuggles and his ferocious bear bark. He has treed a number of bears and frightened coyotes away from the baby doll sheep, and he is such a love, especially with Ella.

The baby doll sheep have continued to do their job on the farm through all these seasons. They are a joy to have on the farm, and have even contributed to the Farm Store, by allowing us to shear them and have their wool made into yarn and roving which we use for my countless crocheting projects and our Felted Friend Christmas ornaments. 

The baby doll sheep and new lambs feasting on grass in one of the vineyards.

Goat antics- this year,  a new feeder has inspired the goats to jump into the hay feeder for a snack. We thought that was hysterical and snapped many pictures.

Hugh, ready for action guarding a new lamb. Our fenced in area includes electric fencing, and keeps the sheep inside the pen, and predators out. Hughy, as he is affectionately known is extra protection for the sheep and because he grew up wtih them since a pup, they are his friends, and they tolerate him! 

Greetings! Welcome to our new farm blog!

So... I would like to welcome you to our new farm blog at The Grassy Knoll Farm! My name is Teresa, and before I became a part time farmer, baker, mother and now blogger, I was an ICU nurse in a Manhattan hospital. I worked hard and played hard as well. Then, I fell in love with my husband Jason and moved to the country of Northwestern CT giving up my NYC apartment. One day, out for a run in my new neighborhood I realized that I wasn't dodging taxis and sidewalks full of people I didn't know and I was comfortably breathing in clean crisp air. It was a revelation to me- I was an embodiment of "Green Acres"! 

The feeling of trading in my heels for muck boots became more real to me when we had secured our first baby piglet in its new home on the farm. My husband went back to doing some work in the garden, and I went out to a store. When I returned to go check on the baby piglet, it was not in its pen. It was so tiny, it had slipped out of the wire hog fencing and was nowhere in sight. My husband and his friend and I split up and all went running through the farm and woods to try to find the lost piglet. I was in a skirt, with my muck boots of course, and I was the first to come across the frightened piglet in the woods. It was atop a large rock, staring at me, and shivering despite the summer heat. I approached slowly and then jumped on top of the piglet and started screaming for help. It may surprise some of you that I jumped on top of the piglet. They are surprisingly strong, all muscle, I knew from trying to hold on to her when we put her in her new home. I knew it would take my whole body weight to hold down the piglet until helped arrived.

My husband and his friend found me laying on top of a screaming piglet, on top of a rock and they started laughing. I was most concerned about the fact that we were NOT going to lose our first piglet, it cost 75 dollars and it was not going to become bear food in the forest. They reluctantly grabbed the piglet out from underneath me and carried it screaming back to the pen. We secured the pen with more wood and fencing so that it would not escape again. I worried for weeks about the piglet until it was big enough to scare our Australian Shepherd, and then I relaxed and learned that despite my tackling it in the woods, and despite the fact that eventually this piglet would be our dinner, we had a deep affection for each other. A friendship that I won't ever forget. Our first piglet, Penelope was a love, and I often tell stories about her.

But why am I writing to you? Now after 6 years of owning and running a farm, and 4 years of running a bakery, I want to share our stories and adventures with you! I have a lot to say about the type of food we put in our mouths (the reason we started an organic produce and fruit producing farm) and the type of products we spread on our bodies (the reason why we started making our own bath and body products and selling them in our farm store), but it is even more than that. I want to share with you how we do what we do, why we do what we do, and how it often turns out. There are many blogs that talk about seasonal eating, cooking and baking, but what about all the time that you WAIT for things to grow and ripen and be ready for harvest? What about all of the TIME that it takes to actually harvest and process and then actually be able to eat the food?

I would love to share with you my family's experiences in growing organic food in northwestern CT, waiting for it to ripen and be ready for harvest and then cooking or baking with the ingredient in our small commercial bakery to bring it full circle. I would love to share with you our experiences in farming and raising animals, including baby doll sheep, goats and occasionally chickens. I would love to share with you how I actually do what I do- spreading my time between a full time job as a nurse executive, raising a 5 year old, farming, baking, being a "stuffed animal maker" (my daughters exact words for my ferocious amigurumi crocheting habit that always envelopes me over the winter) and running a small farm bakery business with my husband, Jason. I would love to share all of that with you and more. Will you join me? I hope so. It has been quite a ride so far, and there are bound to be more stories that give you a sense of farming, running a bakery and the business and busyness of life.

Speaking of waiting, check out this pic of one of our Montmorency Cherry trees! Despite being transplanted last fall, the cherries are growing fast and furious and we are looking forward to a bumper harvest this year from only three trees! Now, we have to wait for them to ripen, and with bated breath we hang tight awaiting the day when we have to quickly cover the trees with bird netting to prevent the songbirds who are also, yes, you guessed it, waiting for the cherries to ripen, from eating all of the cherries, so that we can pit them all by hand (takes an agonizingly long time, but all the while you get to smell cherries, be enveloped by so much cherry juice that you can practically taste the cherry jam) and then throw them in a pot with some sugar to create masterful small batch jam that is so well known by our community! I am honored to share our farm and our trial and error, our success and failure and some pretty cool tasty treat recipes along the way. I hope you will join us!

Waiting patiently for cherry ripening, picking under the bird netting on a beautiful sunny bright morning and a big garden bowl of cherries ready for pitting!