Category: Farm

Goat Lady CSA

Agriculture, Farm, Garden
Goat Lady Dairy in Grays Chapel, North Carolina started a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) garden in 2010 and it was a great success. They are beginning to get ready for the 2011 season, but in the meantime Daniel Woodham (farm manager) has been harvesting winter carry over vegetables which the dairy sells at the local farmer’s market. He is assisted regularly by Chram Rode and his wife Broih Fnu, a Montagnard couple originally from Viet Nam who are training to help run the day to day gardening operations.

(Photographs copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)

You’re Kidding

Animals, Farm, Goat
For my friends at Goat Lady Dairy here in Grays Chapel, North Carolina, March is a very busy month. The goat moms are starting to have their kids, and because they were all bred at about the same time, they are all delivering at about the same time. Lee Tate of Goat Lady handles most of the kidding supervision, so that means she is going to have to watch about 27 does deliver around 50 or more kids in the next month at any time day or night, and then take over the young goats’ feeding. Fortunately she does have some volunteer help such as Alice Jenkins, who was at the dairy today helping with the feeding chores.
Alice feeds the new kids born today.
(Photographs copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)

Livestock

Animals, Farm

Most of the farms on Grays Chapel, North Carolina raise what you would consider traditional livestock, but some of my neighbors keep some more exotic animals. For those of you who followed my buffalo post last fall, below is the fellow we wrangled, content in his home pasture.

(Photographs copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)

Kevin Ford, Master Blade Shearer

Farm, Portraits, Sheep
Thursday and Friday of last week I spent several hours at Rising Meadow Farm in Grays Chapel, North Carolina, watching sheep being sheared during the farm’s annual shearing weekend. It was a new experience for me, for while I was raised on a cattle farm and I am familiar with pigs and goats as well, I have never been around sheep and had never actually witnessed one being sheared. What made the experience even more fascinating was the folks doing the shearing were doing it with hand powered shears or “blade shearing”. To top it off, the lead shearer was Kevin Ford, from Charlemont, Massachusetts, arguably the most experienced blade shearer in the United States and one of the top shearers in the world. Kevin has written “the” book on blade shearing, he gives workshops, and he competes in shearing contests in this country and internationally. He also shears commercially, traveling from Massachusetts south to North Carolina every year shearing flocks along the way.
Blade shearing is slower than shearing with electrical clippers, but it easier on the sheep and leaves a little more wool on the sheep for protection. There seems to be more control and finesse involved with hand blades, and it was fascinating watching Kevin work with a sheep. The control he had over the blade and the sheep was amazing. I felt very lucky to be able to watch a master at his profession work the first time I was witness to it and I am appreciative of Kevin and the folks at Rising Meadow Farm for letting me get close to the action and to answer all my questions.

(Photographs copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)

Shearing

Farm, Sheep

This weekend was the annual shearing time at Rising Meadow Farm in Grays Chapel, North Carolina. I spent several hours on Thursday and Friday watching the sheep being sheared, a unfamilar but fascinating experience for me. I grew up around southern livestock, cows, pigs, horses and the occasional goat. Sheep are new to me, so I enjoyed watching the master blade shearers work, and, I must have asked a thousand questions. I hope to post several images this week, so please check back.

(Photographs copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)