Our farming mentor is also referred to as ‘Lady Farmer,’ for reasons we don’t totally remember. We volunteered on her livestock farm in New Jersey before we knew we ever wanted to farm. She patiently put up with our questions, opinions, requests, and attempts to help with a graciousness that we still don’t understand. Eventually we learned enough to be valuable to her (our words, not hers) and function as her farm-sitters so she could occasionally leave her farm. We knew and worked for/with her in different capacities for five years and the amount of information we absorbed about management of pasture-raised animals, nutrition, medicine, farm life, farming with an off-farm spouse, mineral supplementation, relationships with slaughterhouses and butchers, dealing with farm neighbors, the color patterns of Icelandic sheep (ha, okay, we never learned that), fencing, water infrastructure, shelter, barns, and on and on. Reflecting on the experience now, when we finally bought land and established our own farm we were, literally, years ahead of where we would have been in experience if we had not worked with her. She measurably changed our lives for the better. Ironically, she got out of farming shortly after we got in but if she ever reads this and is comfortable being identified by name, let us know. 🙂
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