“Small circumstances produce great events.”

Yankee Rock Farm was not born of decidedly deliberate goals. Our farm is the result of a couple wide-eyed appetites falling into unison at just the right place and exactly the best time. This story is crowded with selfless mentors, humble 4-H clubs long ago dissasembled, big-hearted parents, a quick and keen love story, and enough bumps along the way to build a mountain. We’ve condensed the gobs of daring technicalities for a simple take of only enough to share. So, here goes.

Growing up along the suburban southern coast of Massachusetts, Siri had narrow exposure to agriculture. Before all else came regular visits to her uncle’s farm in a bucolic valley stuck on the map as small-town Vermont. In his barns were where Siri’s captivation with livestock began and gained ground. By the cunning age of ten or so she had her heart set on life in the shadow of the Green Mountains, with a hunger for everything to do with farming. To this day we can’t determine what reasoning Siri managed to spit out to her parents that convinced them a move north was the right idea. Merely weeks before beginning sixth grade, Siri and her family left behind the normalcy of suburban life to replant in Addison County, Vermont. Our thanks can never be rightfully expressed for Siri’s folk’s willingness from that point forward to support her in the journey which was to come.

Meanwhile, Colin was maneuvering his first flock of Border Leicesters between several properties without a farm of his own. From the start, Colin was a child who would nearly never remove his nose from any book about farm animals. First, it was the “gateway livestock” of rabbits that filled the basement of his parent’s home in central Massachusetts. When his 4-H club took a turn of interest towards sheep, Colin was introduced to a shepherd from Rhode Island who sold him his first lamb. That shepherd, Polly Hopkins, would become a teacher, guide, and friend to Colin as his flock blossomed. The first sheep captivated him with all the wonders or lambing, shearing, showing, and every part of being a shepherd and quickly grew into a thriving flock. Just before he entered high school, Colin’s parents came around to accepting that the sheep stuff was not a phase. Thanks to their ample foresight, they began the search for a new home with enough land for Colin’s sheep which eventually brought them to a couple of acres in northern Connecticut. 

Plenty of years growing up with sheep shows, shearing, and lambing seasons plus some college and separate flickering careers found the two of us bumping into each other, by odd chance, at a show in Ohio. Both of us had seasoned our young statures in the tight network of New England sheep farmers and so we most certainly knew of each other at the time. But it took an eagerness for a familiar face all the way in a midwest fair barn for us to actually carry out a conversation. After that day it only took a few more dates before the sparks were lit.

Between each of our family’s moves and this incidental day in the Midwest were the developments of Dancing Moon Farm and Siegmund Family Farm. Siri had spent a dedicated portion of her adolescence investing in the Finn breed and learning the craft of meat cutting. A couple hundred miles south, Colin had built his flock’s reputation for producing quality Border Leicesters while working diligently to become a shearer. We’ve slowly reworked each step of the shepherd’s course to find new direction for our combined flock at Yankee Rock Farm.

This farm is the beginning of a green bit of growth charged by two lifelong passions for this old corner of the country and its potential for sustainable sheep farming. There was never a proper doubt in either our minds that this endeavor could escape us. We have been doubtlessly forging careers and lives as shepherds since before we realized it. Today, it’s with the doubled down gumption of two single-minded New England shepherds that this farm is sustained.

Cheers,

Siri & Colin