How and why we chose to raise Sheep
When we first moved to the farm Anne was adamant about one thing. We would not get animals. Now, this probably stemmed from some sort of innate wisdom that once you have animals on the land, you are bound to it and it becomes very hard to leave.
Over time we both watched the land, listened to what it was trying to do, observed animals such as deer, bear, turtles, snakes and many other creatures moving across it, all while spending an extraordinary amount of time mowing it. Even mowing just once per year was a huge effort, costly in gas, destructive to habitat and the noise and vibrations produced are those we ultimately don’t resonate with.
At the same time we would talk about potential and Anne’s innate gift for creativity. Everything she touches turns out beautiful, from websites, paintings, graphic designs and other editing it has been a tremendous boon for our branding and business to have such a talent dedicated to the vision and mission. She had learned and cultivated new skills to deploy her creativity but David had seen what she created while studying knitwear in Milan, Florence and New York City and knew that was a missing piece to the blossoming story at The Farm at Catawissa Creek.
During these conversations David was learning too. He picked her brain about wool types, would ask questions about processing the raw product and how difficult each type of fibre was to handle. He asked what her dream fibres were to work with so that when the opportunity came, he knew what to look for and the realities of dealing with them.
We had moved to the farm officially in August of 2020, and got our starter flock of American Merino Sheep in November of 2023. It took 3 years of learning the land, constant dialogue and developing a common vision to finally drop out of the fear, uncertainty and doubt distortions that were holding us back from this amazing relationship. This leap of faith to bring on animal companions to help steward the land and co create our soil based products has been more rewarding than we could ever have imagined.
