April 1, 2022
Anne’s and my initial motivation for introducing sheep to Hill-Stead was to revitalize the farm complex. Hill-Stead Museum might be world renowned for its Impressionist art collection, but the farm itself was the real passion of its founder, Theodate Pope Riddle. Signage and archival reports are a great way to keep the story of the farm alive, but nothing tells it better than actually having animals visible, and living, at the barns. It quite literally brings the farm back to life.
We first tried to convince the museum to purchase and tend the sheep, but when that clearly wasn’t going to happen, we convinced them to let us do it ourselves. We bought three sheep, read a lot, learned a lot, and invested a lot of time, energy, and infrastructure.
This past Sunday Hill-Stead Museum and Clatter Ridge Farm welcomed 1,600 people to our “The Art of Shearing Festival”. The event was the embodiment of what we envisioned when we started the collaboration 17 years ago. It was educational, celebratory, authentic, and fun. The response from everyone was overwhelming and uplifting.
When I was a kid there were several farms in “Farming town”, including a dairy barn off Main Street. That, in fact, was one of the ways my mom bribed us all to go to church. If we went to church (and were well behaved), she would take us all to see the cows afterwards - and if we were really lucky, one of them would pee while we were there. It was very impressive.
Sunday, in the midst of all the chaos, I saw a family who looked like perhaps they too had just come from church - at least they were dressed the way my mother insisted we dress when we went to church. The kids all lined up against the railing of the sheep pen and, almost as if on cue, one of our ewes relieved herself. The kids were thrilled, the parents distracted, and I just said, “yup, that’s pretty cool”.