About the farm
As idealistic, first-generation farmers, we strive to make the world a better place by showing that if animals are raised in certain ways, meat and eggs can be an ethical, humane, and sustainable (not to mention truly delicious) part of our diets. Our foundational commitment as a burgeoning farm and business was to prioritize full-circle sustainability over profit and build accordingly. We have developed a pasture-based, intensively-managed rotational grazing farm where we raise
- Animal Welfare Approved and Grass Fed certified goats
- Animal Welfare Approved and Grass Fed certified sheep
- Animal Welfare Approved, corn-free, soy-free, non-GMO, and organically-fed pigs
- Animal Welfare Approved, corn-free, soy-free, non-GMO, and organically-fed laying hens
- bees!
Our animals (okay, not the bees) live on pasture all year long and are never confined (not that we confine bees). They graze and forage as long as each season permits then move to pasture winter paddocks. The animals move between 43 paddocks inside of our perimeter fence that encloses 20 acres of pasture and transitional silvopasture.
Groups of animals move to new paddocks, along with their supporting waterers, feed bowls, mineral feeders, and shelters. The groups spend 1 - 10 days in a paddock depending on paddock size, season, pasture quality, group size, weather (past, current, and anticipated), and time.
Groups of animals move to new paddocks, along with their supporting waterers, feed bowls, mineral feeders, and shelters. The groups spend 1 - 10 days in a paddock depending on paddock size, season, pasture quality, group size, weather (past, current, and anticipated), and time.
- The sheep tend to graze (eat low-growing grass and keep their heads down),
- while the goats prefer to browse (eat medium-height shrubby and woodier things with their heads held at the height of their bodies),
- a pod of pigs will rampage through, foraging and rooting (using their powerful snouts to unearth roots, grubs, nuts, and seeds),
- chickens follow to scratch and peck around, including disrupting the manure left by the previous groups and feasting on all the bugs, worms, ticks, parasites, and mice they can locate (chickens are so not vegetarians).
- Meanwhile, the bees are busy pollinating plants, trees, grasses, and the neighbors’ plants (although honestly we’re not sure they pollinate our fruit trees [but the natural population of carpenter bees takes care of it] but they make the whole chestnut tree buzz beautifully at the height of summer).
We raise heritage breed animals who have the genetics and instincts to thrive on our pasture-based farm, plus have the hardiness and flexibility to adjust to our New England climate of hot summers and cold winters. Our animals breed according to their natural cycles and birth unassisted on pasture and, mostly adorably, they have the room to explore and interact with their surroundings (the best is each spring when the nanny goats teach the kids to climb). Raising animals in this way makes our farm sustainable compared to conventional farming practices -- the animals are improving the quality and fertility of the land.
About the farmers
Danielle Larese
Danielle is a science dork from way back: after getting degrees in chemical physics and mathematics from Michigan State University, she went on to graduate school in theoretical molecular physics at Yale University. After finishing her PhD in 2013 she traveled the world, visiting farms in India, Ecuador, Costa Rica, England, Wales, Hawaii, and other places. After 1.5 years of that delightful lifestyle, it became necessary to be employed, so she began a post-graduate fellowship doing computational modeling on food safety in the event of a nuclear accident. In 2018 she transitioned to a career civil servant position in the federal government working as a scientific coordinator and overseeing research coordination. Her education and scientific training make her an astounding resource on the farm, where she can sift through scientific literature and make science-based decisions for animal and farm management. However, since she works full-time off the farm she is referred to as the 'Secondary Farmer.'
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Nick Weinstock
Nick and his family have a productive history as small business owners, investors, and planners. After getting his construction management degree from Michigan State University in 2009, Nick returned to join the family construction company fulltime as a general contractor and supervisor. This work involved overseeing construction projects from their inception to the last sweeping up after construction is complete. It required highly developed contracting, scheduling, and negotiating skills as the general contractor is responsible for coordinating workflow between tenants, land owners, building engineers, governmental inspectors, and anyone else with a stake in the project. This work also provided Nick with a keen eye for how to go about repairs, upgrades, and improvements along with a good sense of how much these things cost. Coupled with a working knowledge of most construction trades, this provides a valuable asset on a working farm. Starting in 2013 Nick interned on a sustainable livestock farm in New Jersey gaining invaluable knowledge. Nick is not only handy in the sense of being able to fix things, but in being young while already having over 12 years of experience in running a business, building and maintaining customer relationships, and long-term financial planning. Nick is pleased to be a full-time farmer at BOTL Farm, referred to as the 'Primary Farmer.'
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Pup - the farm dog
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Pup joined the farm in 2017. She is a mix of Lab, Australian Shepherd, and American Staffordshire Terrier. As a rescue dog who was caught as a young stray, we don't believe she had any previous farm-dog experience, so she's learned on the job. Although we had looked forward to her growing up enough (and maybe graduating to the name "Dog") to stop fighting bees, it didn’t work out. She rarely wins. See the picture of her fat lip. Despite her tumultuous relationship with bees, Pup has basically the best dog life ever. Her days are spent on the farm with Primary Farmer, where she does extremely important work like barking at hawks, eating all the mice in the barn, cleaning pig snouts using her tongue, and generally keeping all the animals in line. The farm wouldn’t be the same without her!
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The farm's backstory
We are both first-generation farmers, and the decision to start farming snuck up on us, as big decisions sometimes do. Nick was taking over the family business of construction project management while Danielle was finishing grad school and establishing herself as a career government scientist when we met the farmer who would change our lives. She accepted our clumsy offers of free labor on her farm and in return, taught us invaluable lessons about the reality and the infrastructure of raising animals on pasture. We worked with her for four years and then decided to take the plunge ourselves and start farming. The day Nick officially quit his day job in order to begin farming full-time was terrifying, but we suspected it’d be easier to build a farm while we’re in our 30s instead of waiting until our 50s or 60s.
In 2015 we committed, to ourselves and to our rather dubious families, that we would start a farm. Land searches and land acquisition, especially for farm land, are long, tortuous processes but we were alight with enthusiasm. The obvious answer was to get our feet wet by acquiring a few livestock and keeping them in Nick’s backyard on his 0.49 acre lot in a small town in New Jersey. Backyard chickens weren’t quite the thing way back then so we instead chose rabbits. Unlike chickens, rabbits are scrupulously clean and quiet, so they were a much better choice since Nick’s house was 6’ away from the neighbors’ houses. During this phase we did other foolish things like install two beehives on a second floor balcony where Danielle lived in downtown New Haven, Connecticut.
The focus of our land search was Connecticut. We’d fallen in love with the quirky community of farmers, farmers market managers, chefs, bartenders, mixologists, and other foodies in and around New Haven, so we had three main requirements for our future farm: we had to be able to “afford” it, it had to be as close to New Haven as possible, and it had to be at least 40 acres in size.
In late 2016 our land search was over and we had 'bought the farm' aka purchased 41 acres of overgrown, fallow land with a house built in 1820 located in Ashford, Connecticut, affectionately known as the 'quiet corner' of Connecticut. Ashford is nowhere near New Haven, but whatever, it was closest we could afford. In separate but equally frightening trips, we moved our rabbits and beehives up to the new farm, along with our personal possessions and an absurdly large number of other things, some of which we definitely don’t still fight about. That said, bootstrapping a 41-acre farm requires lots and lots of equipment.
In late 2016 our land search was over and we had 'bought the farm' aka purchased 41 acres of overgrown, fallow land with a house built in 1820 located in Ashford, Connecticut, affectionately known as the 'quiet corner' of Connecticut. Ashford is nowhere near New Haven, but whatever, it was closest we could afford. In separate but equally frightening trips, we moved our rabbits and beehives up to the new farm, along with our personal possessions and an absurdly large number of other things, some of which we definitely don’t still fight about. That said, bootstrapping a 41-acre farm requires lots and lots of equipment.
2017 and 2018 marked the beginning of establishing our permanent farm. This involved two large infrastructure projects, installing a mile of physical/electric perimeter fence and building a barn. We also welcomed our first flock of chickens to the farm, followed by our first goats, then our first flock of sheep, and finally our first pod of pigs.
To learn more about our latest bad ideas, see our blog, and to learn what we’re selling now, visit our online store.
pasture-raised soy-free, corn-free, non-GMO pork --- pastured-raised soy-free, corn-free, non-GMO eggs
certified Grass Fed lamb and goat
certified Grass Fed lamb and goat
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Westford Village, Ashford CT