Our life with sheep started quite innocently.  Actually, sheep were the catalysts which propelled our lives into the world of farming.  At a museum, I spied a pair of the most beautiful curtains I had ever seen.  They were white on white with the faintest, most intricate pattern. They were woven over 100 years earlier when modern "conveniences" were unknown, beauty was memorized from nature and knowledgeable hands lovingly recreated that beauty to defy the seasons.  I longed for a simpler, quieter time.  I longed for that knowledge, for that vision for beauty.  Within a week I had determined to learn to make timeless pieces of cloth for my family.  Of course, that meant learning to raise sheep, much to Mark's chagrin.

This course began with Dot Stoddard.  A wonderful, knowledgeable woman who loved to teach.  Who loved to watch others learn.  She poured out her knowledge and her 4H literature like there would be no tomorrow.  For Dotty, there would not be many more tomorrows, she developed breast cancer and died 1 year after our first meeting. 

Dotty left me all her sheep and all her paperwork - years of Shepherd magazines, Sheep Producer and boxes of 4H papers dating all the way back to her first year as a leader, some 20 years before.

The flock I inherited from Dotty was a mix of Romney, Border Leister and Coopworth.  Today we still have some remnant of those breeds mixed in with our Cotswolds but each year our flock becomes more and more uniform.

I first came across Cotswold sheep while visiting our good friends,  Kim and Jane Caulfield.  The fact that they know more about Cotswold sheep than I know about any single topic definitely helped me to learn about this wonderful breed.  When we decided to choose one breed we kept coming back to the Cotswold.  I could spin and sell the fleeces and would also have a lamb that would yield a sweet tasting meat.  After coming across some research indicating that women who consumed 100% grass finished animal products were 74% less likely to develop breast cancer(1) we made the commitment to stop feeding grain to all ruminants under our care.  We needed a breed that "remembered" how to sustain itself on grass alone and that meant looking to the older breeds.  Conversations with the American Livestock Conservancy informed us that Cotswold sheep were quite rare and had been placed on their Conservation Priority List.  They explained that "Rare" meant that there were fewer than 1000 annual North American registrations and that the global population was estimated at fewer than 5000.  That clinched it!  Kim headed us in the right direction and now 20 pure bred Cotswolds and 30 crosses call Apple Family Farm HOME.

Our farming practices have changed quite a bit since Dotty showed me which end of the sheep was "up".  We think of ourselves as grass farmers more than sheep farmers.  We raise great grass and the sheep are our harvesting equipment.  The nice thing about this arrangement is that we don't have to paint and wax the sheep in the winter and we get more sheep every spring.  Not even the most expensive baler does that!

 We sell our lamb by the piece, sell the fleeces, spin the wool, make soap from the tallow and broth from the bones. 

WE LOVE SHEEP!!

Our Cotswold lambs are raised and finished on natural pastures.  They are 100% grass fed and finished and are never given antibiotics, growth hormones, synthetic or chemical parasiticides, or animal by products.  Lamb is rich in Omega 3 which has been found to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and contains more natural CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid).  For more information on grass fed animal products please visit www.eatwild.com