Friday, February 26, 2010

In Sheepy Hollow





We're asked, from time to time, about Sheepy Hollow at Native Oaks Farm!
by Charlie Leck

Our recent visit to the the farmers market at Traditional Foods of MN brought lots of visitors by our booth. Many of them wanted to know about Sheepy Hollow and whether they could visit. We do allow visits by appointment in the summertime and autumn. There's too much snow and ice right now and humans have the wrong kind of hooves for navigating the ground cover. In spring there can be too much mud and visitors with nice shoes get angry at us (though it is an integral part of being a farmer).

Many of the visitors also asked about the name -- perhaps we should say, "the silly name" -- and how it came about. The story is not a long one.

Anne, who Brett Laidlaw recently called "the woman behind Sheepy Hollow lamb," came up with the name over 30 years ago. I thought it was a cute business name and sought to legally trademark it, only to find out there was already a trademark on Sheepy Hollow down under in Australia. It was a company that manufactured motorcycle seat-covers from sheep's wool. Darn! The company down there agreed, however, that we could use the name if we always combined it and connected it to Native Oaks Farm (our original farm name, which has its own story). Thus, Sheepy Hollow at Native Oaks Farm.

In addition to the lambs and the sheep, there are some other dwellers at Native Oaks Farm that might interest you, including a couple of llamas, a stout and friendly mule named Reba, a very loud donkey called Kelly, and a number of happy horses.

To find out more, you can visit Native Oaks Farm and Sheepy Hollow at Native Oaks Farm at our web site.

No comments:

Post a Comment