Farming for fun

That’s a wrap folks!

This past year was a good one. How can it not be when you’re surrounded by adorable animals, yummy foods, and our friends and customers?

2025 saw the farm raise more beef, downsize the sheep flock, improve the pastures we graze near Sand Bay, and a lot of other milestones too.

Our beef and Lamb products were sold to, or donated to the Washburn grocery store, Juneberry in Bayfield, the Duluth Co-op, and Wisconsin Food Hub. We raised hundreds of pounds of local meat in a way that we are proud of, to fill the tables and plates and bellies of friends and customers. Afterall, that is the goal. To raise good food, from happy animals, that enrich the soils, farmland and community at Turner Road Farm.

My favorite farm critters, on most days, are the miniature cows, Lucy and June Bug. They will turn two this coming Spring and brighten our days with their silly cow antics. We also have two bottle baby calves, Nettie, a spring twin, and Chaos, our fall orphan. The four little ones are mixed in with the horses for the time being, causing some pretty hilarious antics between the two types of animals.

May of 2026 we hope to see our normal British White calves born on green pastures, but we also have a fun twist coming to the herd. Last July we bred our smaller framed cows to our mini highland bull, Mocha. The smaller cows aren’t ideal for producing beef steers due to their more petite frames, and the risk of calving issues if bred to a larger framed bull is higher, so we combined their genetics, (hopefully) with that of a smaller, fluffier, black highland to make what we call a “highpark”. These cattle are more for hobby farm sized properties and would be sold as adorable calves and not necessarily turned into beef. This way we hope to have two markets, one for beef cattle and one for calves. Mostly, this should allow me to have smaller, fluffier, calves to halter break and train to be friendly pasture pets. Nori could show them at the fair, because we need more hobbies..

Most of the calves born in 2026 will be that of our purebred British white cattle herd. These gorgeous calves are practically unicorns. Their pristine colors and clean white coats at birth make them our favorite fresh babies to spot on pasture.

Our sheep flock was at around 100 this past summer, which meant we had outgrown our pastures here and needed to send them to the farther pastures to graze with the cattle. Louise went too, and I’m happy to report that nobody got loose in the process. Many of the flock were lambs that grew to be processed that fall, but we also created some really nice breeding ewes. It was hard to part with such nice healthy animals, but in the end we decided to sell some of our younger ladies. We were able to reduce our numbers down to about a third of what we had this past summer, and now most of our flock is made up of our more experienced mothers. We still have plenty of sheep, about 30, and plenty of animals to keep us busy year-round.

The farm also currently has four horses, four dogs and a pile of useless chickens, who give us the odd egg now and then when they feel like it. We’ve enjoyed lots of trail riding this year, and Nori started taking lessons at a friends’ ranch, making me extra proud and excited for our horsey adventures ahead. We’ve started to find a balance between work and play at the farm and while in the beginning I thought cows were a bit overrated, I am now happiest when I’m spending time with the cattle in our horse barn, or walking amongst our herd, checking on their health and the growth of the calves.

Lucy and June Bug are the two little highlands we bought from a farm in Hayward, and while I usually write about the animals we are raising for food, these two are clearly the stars of the show here at the farm these days. Their short legs, wide set of horns and baby faces could melt even the coldest heart, and to top it off, they love to be brushed and given attention. June Bug is the calmer one, while Lucy has attitude for days. Because they don’t fit into our normal cattle equipment for hoof trimming and vaccinations, they’ve had to learn to halter, tie up and pick up their feet, just like our horses. The farrier who trims our horses’ feet is a saint, and has gotten on board with trimming their little stompers when she comes to trim the normal horse hooves. It’s pretty ridiculous to have cows who stand for trimming better than some of our horses and having trained cows is making me extremely happy. Who knows what we will have them doing next!

If you visit the farm this year, you’ll see both Lucy, June Bug the four horses, and likely our two little bottle babies, Nettie and Chaos. All of them love people and are quick to line up at the fence for photos. Just don’t stick any fingers near them. They don’t know the difference between carrots and fingers and our insurance provider would hate that call. Can you imagine? “ uh, yeah, hello? Our mini cow bit the finger off of a customer today..”

Coming up in 2026? We need a new sign- the wind took it down this past Fall. We also need to renovate the front part of the barn sooner rather than later, and my goal is to have a separate space for the mini cows to better manage their needs and keep their horns a bit farther from the horses. In the meantime, we are loving the slow down, spending time with the sheep and cows on warmer days, and looking forward to the longer days ahead.

The farm store is open with beef and lamb, and more books are coming soon! Farming In the Dark can be found at Apostle Islands Booksellers, Honest Dog Books, and our farm store…just as soon as they are back in stock January 10th..

In a hurry? You can always order it online too.

https://a.co/d/7jeFbQa