Welcome to Greywether Farm

Winnowing down to the final grazing days of this somber and achingly beautiful fall. #sheep #icelandicsheep #sheepofinstagram #grazing #sunset #mountains #rotationalgrazing #vermont #vermontbyvermonters #vermontliving #newengland

The first batch of our 2025 lamb is in! We're fully restocked with all cuts of our 100% grassfed, antibiotic-free lamb for the final string of October markets. Boneless legs, ground, stew, shanks, loin chops, offal, soup bones, shoulder roasts, and more. Come see us this weekend in Montpelier, and you may even be able to intercept some fleeces that are on their way to @vtsheepandwoolfest 😏. Final market dates are: Tomorrow (Saturday)- Montpelier 10/11 and 10/18- Waitsfield 10/25- Montpelier And as always, if you can't make it to market, you can always place an order through the website for pickup or local delivery! 🍂 #grassfed #grassfedlamb #100percentgrassfed #grassfedandfinished #antibioticfree #lamb #locallamb #vermontraised #vermontraisedheritagemeats #localmeat #smallfarm #farmstead

Of the six color patterns that are found in Icelandic sheep- earnest solid, sophisticated mouflon, convivial badgerface, orthodox white and avant garde SGGM- its the morally corrupt grey pattern that you need to watch out for. All sheep are born carrying two of these pattern genes, one from each parent. Technically its a 50/50 draw as to which of the two they’ll pass on to their lambs, however the grey pattern always seems to slip the genetic code keeper a crumpled $20 and skew those odds in their favor (this year, our grey ram Marcus- who's second pattern is solid- passed his grey gene on to 10 out of the 11 lambs that he sired). Every year, despite being aware of grey's unsavory tendencies, the shepherd finds themself making exceptions and keeping a few extra grey patterned lambs who fool them into overlooking that nefarious smokey exterior in exchange for such traits as “superior conformation” and “massively improved health”. Don’t be fooled, friends; before you know it, you’ll walk out to the barn to find yourself looking out over a sea of muted pewter that would make any minimalist cackle with glee at the severity of tonal moderation it flaunts. Every year I tell myself this, but then every fall, something shifts as I begin to pick through fleeces after shearing. Looking over the bags of wool, I’m instinctively drawn to those that hold the same pattern that provoked an audible groan earlier in the spring when their lamb of origin emerged. In the dim light of the barn, I tenderly unfurl curls that fade from pearly silver to coppery brown to black and pathalogically wonder if maybe I do need a few more grey sheep in the flock after all. #sheep #icelandicsheep #wool #fiberflock #shearing #wool #yarn #grey #smallfarm #smallfarmyarn #naturalfibers #smallbusiness #farmtofiber #fiber #vermont #farmstead

During the summer I mercilessly rank each grazing cell, running a shifting hierarchy in my mind of which sections are the best, and which leave me with a vague sense of unease for the duration of the flock’s occupancy therein. Often, a grazing cell comes with some demerit: there’s not quite enough shade, not quite the right forage is growing, I can’t quite get a good ground for the charger. Last week, I rotated the flock down to a section of pasture that I hadn’t used before and unknowingly landed in a grazing utopia. While the majority of pasture we graze is fairly rocky and shallow, this cell holds a dense block of multi species biomass. Coppiced willows, red raspberries, goldenrod, wild strawberries, purslane, vetch, and clovers grow alongside a dozen different varieties of grasses. A row of mature yellow birch and maple line an old stone wall that cuts through the center of the paddock, and a muddy stream bed runs along the eastern edge. The fence charger has doubled its output with the electrical grounds sunk deep in the stream's mud, contentedly humming along at over 7,000 volts. Next week, the flock will rotate back down to the main field with their standard buffet of orchard grass and bedstraw and borderline sufficient fence charge, but for now we are all enjoying a blissful taste of pastoral aristocracy.  #sheep #icelandicsheep #grazing #grassfed #grassfedlamb #rotationalgrazing #wool #fiberflock #grassfedmeat #pasture #heritagebreed #smallfarm #smallfarms #farmstead #vermont #vermontsummer #newengland #vermontfarm #newenglandfarm #summer #grass

The golden resolution to a day punctuated by strawberries and deerflies. #sheep #icelandicsheep #sheepoftheday #sheepofinstagram #june #sunset #grazing #grassfed #smallfarms #grassfedlamb #pasture #farmstead #farminglife #meadow #pastoral #lambs

There are still a few spots left in our Full Flock Health Clinics this summer, the first of which is happening next Tuesday, June 24 from 10-2! Join us for a hands-on day on the farm as we run through the ins and outs of a full flock health check. We’ll start the day discussing different management approaches, breeding goals, and selecting the right animals for your farm. Then we’ll head up the hill to pasture and go through a nose-to-tail health check of the whole flock, covering topics like hoof trimming, lamb growth, FAMACHA, natural husbandry, herbal supplementation and support, grazing systems, and more! Come ready to handle some sheep (or just watch and listen). Pay-what-you-like ($5-$20). Sign up at link in bio.

Last week, somewhere in between getting the sheep back out on grass and bottle feeding Beatrix’s ewe lamb and ear tagging and painting signs for market season, Ilka unceremoniously plopped down the final two lambs on the year in the northern corner of the barn. These Mayborn lambs receive an unfairly meager dose of the shepherd’s vigilance compared to the March crop; where the first lambs of the season enjoy fresh straw in the lambing jug and daily weigh-ins and meticulous note taking, the last ones get little more than a quick naval dip and a curt welcoming nod as they are swept up in the ephemeral tidal wave of spring. This lambing season was one of my favorites in that it was predictably capricious. There were a couple tricky pulls (but nothing harrowing) and a couple losses (but nothing tragic). For the most part, however, the 31 live lambs got themselves into the correct presentation and were born unassisted (or with the slightest relief tug right at the end). What started off as a gloriously ewe-heavy lambing season quickly pulled an about face that yielded a final count of 19 rams and 12 ewes (this is the 5th year in a row where there have been significantly more rams born… It’s fine. I’m totally fine). Sometime in early April, we sailed past the landmark of the 100th lamb born on the farm, and also welcomed four lambs sired by three different rams via artificial insemination. One of my goals this year was to curb last year’s unwelcome trend of massive lambs born with monster hornbuds. This year, a set third-trimester diet of three daily bales of first cut hay yielded 80% of the lamb crop born between 7#-9.5#.  Despite the lack of fanfare, the final lambs’ arrival is always a relief. Now that everyone is here, the contours of the summer flock start to loosely take shape; these lambs are being eyed for possible replacements, these ones for a potential starter flock. After six months of waiting, the roster for this little summer family is finally set. #icelandicsheep #sheep #lambs #lambing #lambingseason #spring #ephemeral #smallfarm #smallfarms #grassfed #grassfedlamb #heritagebreed #farmstead #wool #fiberflock #farmanimals

I woke up to my alarm at 3 this morning. Through bleary eyes, I opened the barn camera app on my phone to see Drifa standing munching hay, her waterbag gently swaying between her back legs as she chewed. I watched her for a few minutes but there she stood, happily snacking as if that hay was the evening's the only noteworthy development. The time between the appearance of a ewe’s waterbag to her lamb dropping to the gound varies from minutes to hours. The exact count doesn’t really matter as long as the ewe spends the time chipping away at the task at hand. Pushing out a waterbag and then mindlessly chewing hay for awhile is usually not a great sign, and so I hopped out of bed, suited up, and headed out into the frigid night to investigate. Once in the barn, I picked my way through a sea of recumbent bodies and made my way over to Drifa’s area. She gave me a look of, “Um, hi?” before I grabbed her, settled her down, and reached in to feel around. I slowly snaked my hand past waterbags and placental mass, blindly feeling for anything hard. Thats the thing about the inside of a body- there is no mistaking the giving softness of the utetus for the stark hardness of the tiny beings it holds. I reached in as far as I could, desperate for my fingers to land on something finite in that pillowy sea. Finally, with my outstretched finger, I grazed the tip of a hoof. This is what Michaelangelo must have been imagining when he painted the Sistene Chapel, this delicate bridge between worlds. I couldn’t reach any deeper to grab the foot, and so I hammocked my free arm under Drifa’s belly and lifted up. It was enough to push the lambs single hoof into my outstretched fingers, and with all my strength I pinched and held on against the magnetic pull of the ether. Slowly, slowly, I began to pull the lamb up from the depths of her belly. Forward some, then back, then forward again, I teased and persuaded the lamb up up towards the surface. We finally arrived at the birth canal, and after a few failed attempts, I was able to hook my pinky under the rams chin, cup his head and a leg in my palm, and slither him- and then his sister- out into the cold fluorescent light of the barn.

Last spring, I was chatting with a friend in Oregon about sheep genetics when she casually mentioned, “you should give AI a try.” I brushed her comment aside; although I’ve long swooned over the rams from Iceland that are used for artificial insemination, I’d always considered AI to be out of my league. But the seed had been sown, and I couldn’t shake the thought. After hearing about a late summer cross-country transport from the pacific northwest that coincided with my trip to pickup sheep in South Dakota, I quickly (with the blessing of all involved) ordered a tank and had it sent out to Oregon to be filled with straws of ram semen. The tank arrived hours before the transport was set to depart, and with deft skill and breakneck speed it was filled with liquid nitrogen, loaded with straws, and tucked it in the back of a trailer bound for the midwest.  After a few days days of driving, I picked up my sheep in Souix Falls and then made my way to another friend’s farm in Wisconsin where the tank had been dropped. We buckled it into the backseat of my truck, and at dusk I set out for the long drive back to Vermont. I spent the fall scheming which ewes would pair well with which AI rams up until the moment those ewes came in heat. Then, with shakey hands, I pulled straws from the vaporous belly of the tank, thawed them, loaded them into the slender applicator gun and depressed the plunger.  And so, after a year of multi-party coordination and cross-country transport and maintaining a -321 degree storage facility and blindly stumbling through a procedure that requires precision timing, this morning our first lambs were born via artificial insemination. Clara gave birth to two moorit rams- one solid and one mouflon- sired by Kurdo, who currently resides in Southern Iceland.  #sheep #icelandicsheep #sheepoftheday #lambs #lambing #artificialinsemination #theonlyaithatscool #ittakesavillage #smallfarms #farming #spring

The most perfect 7.5# black solid ewelamb to kick off lambing proper! Out of Elio and Idra. Born just before lunch, at the tail end of a spring snowstorm. #sheep #icelandicsheep #lambs #lambing #sheepoftheday #farmanimals #babyanimals #vermont #smallfarm #spring #lifespringseternal

In early January, the snow took over, moving in with conviction and endless inches to back it up. We've all been relegated to dooryards and narrow pathways for months; to dip into the untouched snowscape was to be swallowed whole. The sheep have been barnlocked, marooned on their finite island up until a few days ago when the snow disappeared and the possibilities for ambulatory travel suddenly felt infinite. Yesterday evening, I set up a paddock a ways out from the barn. Heavy with lambs, the sheep waddled out, bellies swinging with varying degrees amplitude and happy I think to be out in the world again. I'll feed them out here while the weather holds to encourage movement and help the lambs shimmy around into position ahead of their arrival in a few weeks. #sheep #icelandicsheep #grazing #lambing #flock #fiberflock #wool #grassfed #grassfedlamb #sheepoftheday #spring #smallfarms #farmanimals #farmstead #smallbusiness #elmore #elmoremountain #farm #heritagebreed #heritagebreeds

Yesterday I ran through pre lambing health checks for the ewes, trimming hooves before their growing pregnant bellies make it too uncomfortable to do so, and dosing everyone with a selenium-forward cocktail of herbs and vitamins to give them a boost as they head into their final month of gestation. Despite offering plenty of free choice selenium, I was suspicious of a slight deficiency in the flock this fall, marked by 2 ewes who developed a dry cough (a sign of deficiency) that resolved after a selenium injection (double sign). In these weeks ahead of lambing, selenium is crucial, and I'm trying to boost the ewes as much as I can. This time, I made a slurry of SelPlex, warm water, and molasses, and mixed in in with the garlic, vitamin b & e, and ACV drench that I give monthly. Equally as important to hooves and drenching was checking on everyone's body condition. The skinnier ewes, those who scanned with triplets, and the older gals got seperated into their own pen for the next month where they'll get free choice access to food without needing to jockey with the rest of the flock for a spot at the feeder. All the first time lambers and chubbier ewes are in the main pen, with a set number of calories available every day. I like to see a BCS of 3.5 at this point of gestation; it shows that the ewes are eating well, and are active and healthy. Most of my flock is at a 4 right now. I don't want to put the ewes on a diet at this point of their pregnancy, but making sure that they stay active and don't over eat for the next 5 weeks will hopefully make for a smooth lambing season. #sheep #icelandicsheep #lambingseason #lambing #lambingprep #smallfarm #naturalhusbandry #heritagebreed #vermont #vermontlife #farmstead

Here now, six years a parent. Here having never really understood just how demanding this role would be. How my sense of self would be sacrificed, laid down in its entirety at the feet of these beings with tears and exhaustion and incalculable love. How profoundly I would be needed and how that need, exacting, would displace the passage of time until it was met. These past years have felt at once deeply familiar and deeply foreign. I feel like I've known my kids my whole life; I am bewildered by how unfamiliar life is. From time to time, I step back and behold how strange it is to spend my days in chaotic service to these three little people, brimming and depleted, a familiar stranger. But the sheep don't know any of this. They don't care if I'm exhausted or hungry or teetering on the edge of something I'm too scared to name. Twice a day, morning and evening, I step outside. I fill water buckets from the shoveled out spigot by the back door, and walk out to the barn in the silent cold as they slosh against my legs. I throw bales of hay down from the loft and chip ice from yesterdays water and knee stubborn bodies out of the way as I fill the feeder. For a moment, I stand as they eat, alone in their presence. The smell of hay and wool and musk like time, like the deepest earth. In that smell, in their rhythmic chewing, I am familiar again. #sheep #icelandicsheep #shepherding #parenting #parenthood #farming #smallfarm #vermont #farmlife #fiberflock #wool #grassfed #grassfedlamb #farmstead #queerfarmers #womenwhofarm #sheepofinstagram #sheepoftheday #newengland #farmanimals #farm #flock #womanrunbusiness

I’ve always admired farms that adhere to an organized naming system, methodically choosing lamb names beginning with matching letters year to year. Or choosing a different letter for each dam line, or a theme (tree names, flower names) for each years lamb crop. I’ve tried a few different naming rubrics, but the resulting names never seemed to stick and I instead always found myself pulling an otherwise insignificant name from the swirling recesses of memory and bestowing it upon one of the thirty-odd lambs born every year. There's no tidy system, but I like how naming a lamb after something feels like building a tiny altar honoring the original bearer of the name. And so out in the barn, there’s Beth, named for a long lost elementary school friend who lived in a sunny apartment filled with hundreds of parakeets in antique birdcages. There’s Hemming, named for a character in the book that kept me company as I drove through the endless sea of midwestern corn on my way home from picking him up last fall. Josey, Isolde, and Fern, for our hypothetical daughters who all showed up as sons. Merry, for for the vet who pulled him out through a hole in his mom’s torso last spring and Fen, for the feral swamp creature that she is.  Willow for the massive old tree guarding the corner of vernal marsh that borders the north side of the barn. Billie for Holiday; Beatrix for Potter. And Amal, who was born too small and too weak, but who set her jaw and plowed through the summer as a tour de force to end up as one of the strongest and hardiest lambs I’ve ever seen, named after the Arabic word for hope 🇵🇸 #sheep #icelandicsheep #sheepoftheday #sheepofinstagram #smallfarm #vermont #vermontlife #fiberflock #grassfed #grassfedlamb #wool #winter #newengland #farming #farmanimals #snow #farmstead

Ikla and Arwen 🩶 #icelandicsheep #sheep #sheepoftheday #sheepofinstagram #smallfarm #livestock #farmanimals #barnyard #wool #fiberflock #grassfed #grassfedlamb #friends

This morning, after days of unyeilding arctic skies and knifing snow and the rousing of every last draft in this old house, the wind reconciled its rage and the sky softened, and on tepid hoof, the sheep ventured outside for the first time since Sunday. #sheep #icelandicsheep #winter #vermont #vermontfarm #vermontfarms #newenglandwinter #writing #newengland #smallfarms #farmanimals #farmlife #farmphotography #photography #wool #grassfed #fiberflock

Sheepskins are here! This batch came out so beautifully, especially since I was convinced they were doomed after a series of laughably unfortunate events befell them this September; there was rain-felted wool, a run-in with a burdock patch, a miscommunication with the butcher about their pickup, and an uncomfortably close call with some rodents. But @driftlesstannery was able to take this pile of salted calamity and turn it into one of the nicest batches of skins yet. Silky, soft and lush, naturally tanned and catastrophe-free. Some fun options available this year include a black and white shearling hide (slide 7) and a matching pair of plush bench runners (slide 8). All priced between $300-$400. Send me a message if one is for you, or come check them out in person at one of our fill-in dates at the Burlington Farmer's Market this winter! (Cozy mug garnish rounding out the the vibe thanks to @dirtfloorstudios and @emmapodolinredware 💛) #icelandicsheep #sheep #sheepskin #skeepskins #sheepskinrug #natural #naturallytanned #traditional #traditionallytanned #naturaltanning #hygge #cozy #winter #flock #wool #fiber #cozywinter #wintervibes #hyggehome #hyggelife

As the mid afternoon shadows begin to leak out from the corners of the dimming barn, I bustle around as one would on the eve of a dinner party, or a trip, or any of those times when a restless fiddling about hints at some larger force at play. Crouching over the water buckets with an old screwdriver, I chip chip away at the blocks of ice at the bottom before topping them off from buckets of steaming water filled in the downstairs bathtub and then gingerly sloshed through the kitchen and mudroom and on out to the barn. The mass of hot water will hold its heat a fairly well against the sub zero temps, I remind myself, and the sheep will be able to drink for most of the night before the warmth finally looses its edge and the buckets ice over. I fill the mineral feeders and then climb up to the hay loft and excavate a few of the bales that are stacked under a tangle of bikes and lawn chairs and other hastily retired relics of summer. I toss down a few bales from this pile- old stuff from a few years ago that the sheep never took to- and then a few more from the sagging monolith of first cut on the other side of the barn. I flake the old stuff out on the floor of the barn to give the sheep a dry, deep surface to bed down in tonight, and then load the hay feeders with the first cut. First cut, with its bounty of early spring energy all stored up and ready for the overnight shift in the belly of the sheep’s boiler room. Around and around like this, shuffling and rearranging but also sitting too. Ilka walks over and I scratch her nose before checking to see how long her wool is as though there’s anything I can do about it. She stands indifferently for a few minutes as I run some arbitrary calculations on wool density and insulation capacity before she loses interest and walks over to bed down with the rest of the flock. I watch as the sheep lay chewing, clouds of breath hanging in the air as though they were smokers on the sidewalk outside a bar and then suddenly I realize that my fingers are numb. I stand and walk through the gate and out into the blue night and for the first time I notice how my breath hangs in the air too.

I've never really been a fiber person. Every year at shearing time, I would set some of the best fleeces aside to give away, but for the most part I’d consider the piles of clipped wool from my background of veggie farming and gardening. Wool is an incredible garden amendment; when spread on veggie beds or around perennial fruits, it acts as a mulch to suppress weed growth and control temperature, and also absorbs and holds water. It aerates the soil, and slowly releases a steady supply of nitrogen and other trace minerals as it breaks down. The value of wool as a soil amendment felt so practical that there never seemed like a reason to consider any other application. But as it turns out, wool has a second use. This fall, after shearing, I sidled up alongside millennias’ worth of humanity and reversed my course. Rather than orienting toward breakdown, I lifted the fresh clip up off the ground and onto a table to pick out the debris that I would have otherwise considered added value to the garden. I drove the bags of wool down the road to another shepherd’s farm, where she washed it and carded it and alchemized it into this yarn. So here it is, at long last, our very own Lopi. I’m abandoning my online shop for the time being; to hell with PayPal and credit card companies and their thieving processing fees. So send a message here if you want some! There are three colors; oatmeal, grey, and charcoal. Local delivery and shipping available. Grown from grass alone and infused with beauty and limitless potential by @auroraspinnery. And remember that you can always choose to put on a cape and wander through your garden beds by moonlight, unravelling your yarn as you go. We’d honestly respect it if you did. 🌔🧶🔮