Humble Beginnings
I was raised on a dairy farm in Allegany County, NY. The cows were my friends, as were the goslings, barn cats, and trusty canine companions.
I feel so fortunate to have grown up with room to roam, in a place where I developed a reverence for life and death, a place where we whistled and sang while we worked and where the noise of the modern world was distant and muffled.
"You can take the girl off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the girl."
As an adult, I studied agriculture, started a farmers market, worked for my parents and other farmers, and had a flock of sheep that I grazed around the neighborhood and on my parents' land. I sold my sheep in 2016 but remained active in the agriculture community. I provided respite to farmers, looking after their farms and their families while they took a break from the farm.
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Knowing firsthand and secondhand about the joys and challenges of farming, I returned to college and studied intergenerational farm transitions and aging in rural areas. I came to better understand the complex dynamics that impact rural communities. Upon graduating with a B.S. in Aging Studies, I worked for two and a half years in a rural community, serving as a care manager for older adults aging-in-place, deepening my fondness for rural folks and our incredibly resourceful and adaptive way of life.
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It's been eight years since I've had livestock of my own, and I feel like, in their absence, a part of me is missing. I plan to start a flock of sheep in 2024 or 2025 and offer custom grazing to nearby landowners. The number of sheep I keep will depend on how much land we are managing for the year, how much land and water we have access to in the coming years, what other things I am juggling in my life at the time, what income streams I have, as I know it's best for the animals, land, water, and me when we can achieve a healthy balance, refresh each other rather than deplete each other.
"You can take the girl off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the girl."
Knowing firsthand and secondhand about the joys and challenges of farming, I returned to college and studied intergenerational farm transitions and aging in rural areas. I came to better understand the complex dynamics that impact rural communities. Upon graduating with a B.S. in Aging Studies, I worked for two and a half years in a rural community, serving as a care manager for older adults aging-in-place, deepening my fondness for rural folks and our incredibly resourceful and adaptive way of life.
​
It's been eight years since I've had livestock of my own, and I feel like, in their absence, a part of me is missing. I plan to start a flock of sheep in 2024 or 2025 and offer custom grazing to nearby landowners. The number of sheep I keep will depend on how much land we are managing for the year, how much land and water we have access to in the coming years, what other things I am juggling in my life at the time, what income streams I have, as I know it's best for the animals, land, water, and me when we can achieve a healthy balance, refresh each other rather than deplete each other.
Paying it Forward
What do sheep and other small ruminants have to offer for our future? When sheep graze and browse, they reduce or eliminate the need for mowing, helping to reclaim or maintain open spaces and fallow ground. Where machinery cannot safely traverse, sheep can often thrive. Their cloven hooves gently penetrate the ground beneath them, aerate the soil, and gradually soften the rough places.
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Education is an integral part of preserving agricultural knowledge and healing the food system. In honor of those who have taught me or continue to teach me, I want my work to blaze a trail that makes land and animal stewardship opportunities more accessible to people, blaze a trail that inspires and educates generations to come to produce food, fuel, and fiber in a way that can be sustained beyond one person's lifetime. Afterall, our future depends on it.