Welcome To Fairlight Farm!
From the fullness of His grace we have received one blessing after another. John 1:16
This tiny farm is located in the beautiful rolling hills of the Missouri Ozarks, surrounded by open fields and forest. I have always had a love of animals and from the time I settled on the little farm it has been populated by cats, dogs and chickens. In 2000 after my 27 year old mare, Lady, passed on, I was debating what to do with five acres or so of rampantly growing grass and weeds. My farmer roots were crying out for something to harvest all that abundance.
I briefly considered bottle calves and attended several auctions—at about the time cattle prices shot up. Quickly that idea lost its appeal. I really didn’t have the time to properly enjoy another horse, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want goats or sheep. I’d heard goats were hard to keep in and my neighbor had sheep—I’d been recruited to help with them several times and wasn’t impressed. They were noisy, stinky, and strange to me. I got sheep.
With my neighbor’s encouragement and assistance a flock of Dorsets was located and I ‘ordered’ two ewe lambs. I ended up getting four sheep. They were four sweet Dorset ewe lambs; Gracie, Faith, Mercy and June who were later joined by a runty Merino ram lamb, named Blue. Thus the flock was founded and I was in the sheep business. Raising sheep for the commercial market held little appeal for me, and the Dorsets, while calm and sweet were hard for one person to handle due to their large size. Most likely the clincher for a different direction in the sheep business came at shearing, when those beautiful thick fleeces brought just 30 cents per pound from the shearer. I decided there had to be a better way and began researching other breeds of sheep, and soon happened onto the Shetland Sheep—they seemed to have all the characteristics I was looking for: small size, hardiness, easy lambing, personality, marketable fleeces and variety.
Soon I found a breeder that was fairly close, and eventually purchased two grey ewes—a year and a half old and a weanling. They stayed at their original farm until the older ewe could be bred. Willow and Rain arrived here in February and Willow delivered twin ram lambs in May. The flock had expanded and I had my first “Fairlight” Shetlands. The flock has grown to nine ewes as well as 3 rams. They intregrate well with the ‘big sheep’ and its amusing to see them interact. Each lamb crop brings more variety in color, and its always exciting to see what will be born. My primary goal is producing soft fleeces that spinners will enjoy, in a variety of natural colors. I also strive towards a Shetland that is well balanced with good conformation, calm and friendly personality and good mothering instinct in the ewes.
In addition to the sheep, other critters still populate the farm. There is Meshach, the Siamese mix cat who is endlessly busy keeping up with the farmer and farm business in the house; four female outside cats are on patrol in the barn, yards and fields. Madison, Tibby, Dixie and Echo seldom get along with one another, but seem to have hammered out a truce over the years. Ariel the blue merle collie “watch dogs’ the place from the fenced yard while Boone, a French Mastiff and the newest arrival covers the back of the yard (when he isn’t soundly snoozing). A small flock of assorted chickens follow the sheep around, always busy with their job of eating insect pests and laying fresh eggs.
All this contrives to keep me busy, but living on a farm ‘is the life for me’ and while sometimes difficult its endlessly entertaining, rewarding and never dull!