Francis Farm of Londonderry

A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Amy at Francis Farm of Londonderry.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Amy at Francis Farm of Londonderry. Good morning, Amy. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm great. I'm really excited to chat with you about what you do. So let's just go for it. What do you do? Tell me about yourself.

00:28
So I have an educational and rescue farm here in Chilacothe, well, London dairy, but it's Chilacothe, Ohio. Um, we do events with, um, with children. We have 4-H and FFA kids. We finally got alpacas into the Ross County fair, um, as an approved project. And so we have students that will lease our alpacas and they come here and they learn how to take care of them. And we have.

00:56
students that purchase our goats for their projects. We have FFA kids come, any student that's interested in animal science, they can come on our special herd health days and learn how to take care of animals and learn about things like needle safety, which is a big, big thing for me, how to properly restrain an animal to give vaccinations, the importance of knowing everything about an animal before you bring it home.

01:24
the type of enclosure that it needs, to the type of food that it needs, to the type of grass that it eats, the vaccinations or any emergency medications you need, all of that. Excuse me, we have field trips here on the farm and so students can come and we do special STEM projects with the students. We do things like we use the alpaca fiber and I show them by adding hot and cold.

01:52
how they can make fleece or, I'm sorry, make felt. We do a hatching project, so they'll rent out our incubator and we give them some fertilized eggs to do the project. We have the shell dissolving stem project, and then my favorite one, which is kind of funny, it really only works on the little kids, but eggs can be pink, blue, green.

02:21
several shades of brown, white, and we have all of that. And so I asked the kids which egg they think tastes better. And of course the little girl is always like pink and the boys are like blue. So then while they're on their break, I make the eggs and I label the bottom of the plates and they taste the eggs and they have to guess which one they ate. And the moral of it is they all taste the same. So we do different training for people that would like to get started.

02:49
on with a farm and don't really know where to start. We give that training and education before they bring animals onto their farm. We have a few adult day centers that come once a month for animal therapy or they volunteer. So the program pays them and then they can do things like, you know, whatever their ability is, whether it's sweeping the barn or just sitting with the animals.

03:18
So we do that. We raise chickens and sell them as first year layers for people that don't want to have, go through the thing of having a brooder and warming them and waiting four months to have them. And so those are a couple of the things that we do. Wow, that's a lot. So I have to know, is this nonprofit or do you get paid for what you do? Well, it is nonprofit. We do things. Yeah, we do things that help.

03:48
pay for things that we need. So with a nonprofit, you can make a certain amount per year. But all of the proceeds that we get from events that we do, we do trunk retreats and we do different village events and vacation Bible schools. We do things off the farm and on the farm. But those things go back into the farm to do things like adding fencing or adding another shelter house.

04:18
big thing that we have to do is we added a watering system out back. We are needing to put a couple lean-tos on the side of our barn because we get so many calls between February and maybe March to take babies, you know, bottle babies because the mother is rejecting them or something happened to the mother. And so I get a lot of phone calls at that time to take.

04:46
orphans or babies that are rejected. So we need to place or rescues. And like when something comes in as a rescue, for example, we had four alpacas that we were asked to come and look at. They were in an area that didn't have any grass and they were giving them half cup a grain a day, which was fine, but they weren't really getting the hay that they needed. So they were about 40 to 60 pounds underweight.

05:16
Well, in the summer, that's fine. But in the winter, you know, you either need to have a coat on them or they need to be in the barn. And so we need to add some lean to's on the barn. Um, so the things that we do, it all goes back into trying to help make sure that we have what we need for the animals that come in. Okay. So I have like lots of questions running from everything you've told me so far. So I'm going to try to hit on the ones that are right in the front.

05:45
Okay, first one is are all the animals that you have rescues? Not all of them. No, we we actually when we started it was just for us and they kind of turned into the rescue park because people knew that we had them. And, you know, I went through six months of education before I brought my alpacas home. And we we were going to get when we bought our house, it was actually an Amish built house. And.

06:14
it, I'm not Amish, so we had to have things like HVAC and electric and things like that. There was a pasture area that was fenced in and we didn't want to spend the money to bush hog it every couple months. So we talked about getting sheep and I talked to a wonderful woman who has become one of my very good friends and her husband who is a vet for the sheep, which that helps.

06:43
We got our first herd from them. We got a hair sheep. And I don't know if you know the difference between hair sheep and wool sheep. I do, but go ahead and explain it because not everybody listening will necessarily know the difference. Okay, so wool sheep have lanolin in their fleece, which when people are allergic to wool, they're not necessarily allergic to the fiber itself. They're allergic to the lanolin and it's a very thick waxy feeling on their fleece.

07:10
and that is absorbed into their skin. And so wool sheep tend to taste a little bit more gamey, where hair sheep, their fleece grows and then automatically falls out and we look like we have a cotton field in the spring. Their fleece does not have lanolin and it's a much more mild meat. And so we raise sheep and process them. And then we got our alpacas and kind of just went on from there. But once

07:39
people knew what we had and then they would call us. And when we were offering education, then they're calling us like, do you have room for this? Do you have room for that? I had one, my actual doctor, she was, her and her husband, they were at the point where they were not able to care for their goats anymore. And she knew that I had a farm and she asked me if they could come.

08:04
if I'd pick them up and take care of them and they could come here and live. So I went and got her goats. So it just kind of ends up that way. You know, sometimes animals aren't necessarily rescued because they're in a bad situation. Sometimes it's where the individual that has them loves them and they just aren't physically able to take care of them anymore.

08:33
I have a question about you said finally getting the alpacas into the fair, but before we get to that one, how did you get into this to begin with? Well, I always grew up loving animals. My first job was when I was 15 years old at a pet store. And I reminded my husband when he told me no, that I couldn't have a goat and I couldn't have a baby donkey, that my first job was at a pet store. And I didn't always ask permission when I brought animals home. So

09:03
Don't be surprised if I just come home with it. And so I kind of put him on warning and, and he knows. So, um, we started out with, um, when we bought the house, we know, we knew we had something needed to do something with the pasture. So that's when we had started getting the sheep. We had a barn already ordered and delivered before we even moved in. Um, there was another barn here.

09:30
And so we kind of utilized both of those and kind of just tried to decide what we wanted to do with it. A friend that he works with had mentioned alpacas and he asked me about it and never really thought about them. And so I kind of looked into them and I went to visit an alpaca farm, set up an appointment and the woman that helped me was amazing. She

09:59
kind of took me on to mentor me and help train me and gave me the Ohio State University camelid education and trained me for about six months before we brought our herd home. But at that time we had already had our sheep and we had chickens and ducks and turkeys and all of that and rabbits. And it kind of grew from there. So we got our goats.

10:29
Then, you know, I was trying to think of a way to have a little bit of income to take care of the extra things that we needed to do with maybe sectioning off other parts of the pasture to give them an individual area or adding barn stalls or additional shelter houses or, you know, putting a well out in the pasture area. So that's where these other events kind of came to.

10:56
I'm like, well, we have the animals, let's do something with them. We started the mobile petting zoo. We have events here on the farm. If we have a rescue, someone is able to sponsor that rescue. A lot of people ask me, the rescues that we have come in, for example, the alpacas, we had treated them for meningio worms. I actually got the paperwork from the woman I got them from.

11:27
and tracked back where they originally came from. And we picked them up in August. And when I contacted the alpaca farm they came from, it was actually in Maryland. And they had left her farm in January of that same year. And a woman had purchased them. And then between January and when I got them, someone else had purchased them. And then it was me.

11:52
And so they had traded hands that many times they were down. And I, that's how I knew that they were 40 and 60 pounds underweight. Cause I got her medical records when they left the farm. And so, you know, they asked, well, are you going to read them? One of them. Yeah. So they, I don't read home them. So I, they're here to stay.

12:17
Okay. Wow. That's a lot, ma'am. Oh, sorry. You have a lot going on. Do you ever sleep? No, not really. I mean, I go to bed sometimes at two and I wake up at six. So, uh huh. Yeah. I mean, you are so, I can hear it. I can hear how energetic and energized and excited and, and committed to this. You are just in what you're telling me and through the sound of your voice. Um, so you were saying back,

12:47
10 minutes ago, I think, eight minutes ago, whatever it was, that you finally were able to have the alpacas be at the county fair?

12:59
Right. So Alpaca is a 4-H project that is available in a lot of counties, but it has to be approved through the fair board. And so we had the stipulation was I had to have six students that were willing to actually take the project. And so then it became a, it was a project year, but it was a

13:26
display so they were actually at the Ross County Fair this year, but it was just for display. Next year the students will be able to actually do the projects where they can dress up the there's a there's one where they can choose a theme and dress up the alpaca or the llama and themselves and um so they can get some type of award for that. They do PR. There's um things that they can do with the fiber so.

13:54
this year they'll actually be able to do those fun projects. Okay, I just didn't know why it was a finally kind of thing. And then you said that you rent your alpacas to the kids to take care of for the season? Yeah, so that's that way they don't have to have a farm to do that. Yeah, it's a lease option that 4-H provides for students that they can lease the animal, which means.

14:21
that is their animal, nobody else can use that animal for their project, it's specifically and only for their project. They come to the farm, they take care of it, they learn how to lead and feed and clean up and parasite prevention and control and all of those things. And they get to really know the animal. And then I take them to the fair and then it's their responsibility to clean the pens and make sure they have food and water and.

14:50
and that they're taking care of them during the week of the fair. Cool. So they don't have to have the animal at their house so that they can actually do this. Right. That's fantastic. I didn't even know people did things like that. That's great. It's a good opportunity for them. You are a good soul, lady.

15:17
It's all for the benefit of the animals and the people around you. It's really great. Yeah. And I especially love, you know, we have, like I said, those two adult day centers that come and it hit me when we were at the, we were at an event and I had my Matilda, who was my favorite donkey, she's a Mediterranean miniature. And this, this older woman, she just.

15:45
was just loving all over her and she was almost crying and she was telling me the story of her and her husband had a donkey and the donkey was around 25 years old and her husband had died and so she wasn't able to keep and take care of the animals anymore so she had to get rid of her donkey and that was like her, you know, the second saddest day of her life was getting rid of her donkey. And so I have, I had three benches made and we are.

16:14
The first four years has been kind of getting the pasture where we want it and shelter houses and stalls and all of that. And this year is more like a beautification, so making things pretty. And so I had these benches made and I'm putting them around the barn and the pasture area so that people like her can come and they can just sit with the animals and walk around or just sit and watch them. Just sitting and watching them is therapeutic.

16:42
But the adult day centers, some of them have trouble if they have a wheelchair or a walker, you know, getting through some of the gravel areas. And so I set up a pen in the front and told their leader, like, you know, even if they just come here and sit in this area and we'll bring some animals, even if they're just sitting, they're doing something because they're providing companionship to the animal.

17:08
So when you see people smile and that type of thing makes them happy, that makes me happy. It's such a beautiful thing. Yes, exactly. I love what you're doing. I'm sitting here, I'm all glowy. I'm like, oh, this lady's fantastic. So I can't remember, I was looking at your Facebook page this morning, because that's what I do when I'm going to interview somebody. I go look at their, I Facebook stalk them and look at pictures and see what you're up to. Did I see that you had?

17:36
puppies this year? Yep, we had a litter of Great Pyrenees puppies, which came at a day where we had lost one of our alpacas unexpectedly, which was a very sad day for me. So the puppies kind of helped bring me a little bit of happiness. And then I also have hobby breed Shih Tzu puppies, which are...

18:05
don't shed and they're hypoallergenic. So we kind of do that also. We've done that for, I've done that for 10 years. I took genetics in school. And so that was just kind of a fun thing for me. Cool. So did the puppies find homes? The, the, the great Pyrenees puppies find homes? They did. They all, I made sure that they all went to farms.

18:29
that had livestock and made sure they weren't going to just throw the puppy out with the animals, you know, make sure that they knew that there was an appropriate way to do that. We kept one of them, but they were all named, given Indian names, because my daughter was in the outdoor drama Tecumseh this year, so they all had Indian Indian themed names. But they all are currently on working farms. Very nice.

18:56
Anytime I see puppies on someone's page that I'm going to interview, I'm like, yay, finally another excuse to talk about my dog because I love talking about Maggie, my dog. And the last three or four interviews, I haven't even talked about her because there hasn't been a segue and I haven't even thought about it. When I saw the puppies, the pictures on your page, I was like, oh, puppies. I freaking love puppies. I love kittens. I love baby anything.

19:24
And right now we have barn cats, barn kittens in the pole barn. And I have to find homes for three of them because three of them are girls and two of them are boys, we're keeping the boys because we need mousers. Right. And, and so right, this whole last month and a half has been baby kittens, you know, basically every day, baby cats. And Maggie, the dog is four.

19:51
and she loves the kittens. Like she acts like she's their mama. And so when they come out of the pole barn, she sits and she waits and she wags her nub in. She doesn't have a tail, she has a nub. And she waits and they come up to her and introduce themselves and she has to sniff them and lick them and put her paw on their head and be like, hello, I'm your auntie, how are you? It's very cute. So yeah, puppies and kittens. Oh my goodness. They are amazing.

20:19
Did you see that we had a new baby alpaca? Yes, and you named it Maverick? Yes, Maverick. And he has, well, his dad is Gunner, his Top Gun is his dad's name, so he's Maverick, of course. And we have one, my gender snap, she is due any day now. So we should have another one. And then we started our breeding for next year. This week, they're pregnant for...

20:48
11 and a half to 12 months. So this kind of will put them being due around the National Alpaca weekend, which is the last weekend of September. Oh, fun. Fun. That's awesome. Um, you mentioned the Top Gun theme. Right. I've never told this story before. I'm going to make it quick. One of the very first movies I ever saw was Top Gun. And I think I was 15, 16.

21:18
I can't remember. And my friend who was older than me, she's 10 years older than me, took my sister and my friend and me to see the movie with her. And there was no one in the theater except us. We had a private showing of Top Gun. It was really funny because I had not really been to a movie like that ever.

21:46
You know, that was a fairly grown up movie. And I'd been to drive-in theaters with my parents and saw Benji and I don't know, there was a movie that had a Volkswagen Beetle in it, I can't think of the name of it right now, and saw those, but I was a little kid. And so to walk into an empty movie theater to see my first quote unquote grown up movie being Top Gun with my favorite adult besides my parents.

22:14
and my sister and our friend. It was just this, it was like an event just made for us. It was really cool. That's fun. Yeah, it was. It was really neat. And we, because we were the only ones there, one of the usher people, because movie theaters used to have actual ushers, came up to us and said, do you guys want popcorn? And I was like, I don't have any money, because I didn't, you know, I was a kid.

22:41
And my friend that had brought us, she was like, no, we're good. And he actually went out and got a great big tub of popcorn and just brought it to us and was like, it's on the house. Have a party. Enjoy. Aw. So yeah, it was, it was really fun. And I had forgotten all about it until you mentioned Top Gun. So thank you for that memory. You're welcome. Yeah. Um, okay. So when you take the animals to events, how does that go? Do you have help?

23:09
Do you have a specific vehicle? Does the vehicle have signage on it so that people know who you are and what you're bringing? How does it work? Yeah, we do. I have a, we have a livestock trailer. We have a magnet sticker on our truck that has a QR code. So even if it's in the parking lot somewhere, somebody can scan the QR code and it takes them to our Facebook page. And I try to share as many events as I can.

23:37
on there that we have, you know, like Christmas on the farm. And then we have a crochet making like a education day where I have somebody that's going to be teaching kids or adults that don't know how to and would like to know how to crochet. She'll be teaching that day. And so I try to share those. But yeah, we we have our livestock trailer, we load them up. I have my husband and my son and

24:07
well oiled engine at this point. So, you know, with what we have to grab and what order we put things in. We just did an event this past weekend. That was a pretty big event where we took our products too. So we have to load the truck another specific way if we're taking tables with our products. And then we put the, we load the corrals on top and then harness the animals. And we have

24:35
an area that we kind of run them into to be able to harness them and then load them up and take them. And they're kind of used to it by now. There's a couple of them. My bottle baby, Lam Jovi, she doesn't even need to be harnessed. She just walks and I tell her to get up there and she just gets up in the trailer and she doesn't have to have a lead. We were in an event where there was a dog trainer and they were actually laughing because she just followed me everywhere, did not leave my side, wasn't on a harness.

25:05
wasn't on a lead and they were like, wow, she just does that. They're like dog trainers, you know, where they're trying to get dogs to just stay in one area or follow them. So yeah, we've done it enough that we just kind of all work together and know what to do and know what to grab. And we have a list, a checklist of things that we know we have to have and that's about it. Okay. Well, you just gave me two more questions. You're really good at this interview thing. I'm so impressed.

25:35
Um, are the animals tired at the end of an event? Like, did you bring them home and they just crashed? They're like, I'm going to take a nap now. They're, they're usually pretty excited to get home. Um, when we have events where it's going to be caught outside, we don't want to leave them in the heat, obviously, and have sun beating down on them. So we'll take a pop-up tent and we'll cover a part of the area so that they have some type of shade to go to. Um.

26:03
But I am very careful on which animals I take to which events because I have a few that just in watching them, they get a little bit more overstimulated with a lot of people than if it's a smaller event. And so I'm particular with which animals I take. I do want them all exposed to that, but I don't want to stress them out. And we also try to make it so that

26:31
At least one side of the, I try to make it so that at least one side or two sides of the corral area is not really accessible to people so that they don't feel like they're surrounded, you know. But they are just happy to get snacks and treats and we make it so that they're not overfed during these events with treats. And I mean, they are excited to get home, but they're excited to have the treats. So

27:02
I have a few that are very much treat hogs. Uh huh. Yes. I think every single animal on the planet loves treats. We got in trouble with our vet two weeks ago because we took our dog to the vet. She was like, she's in great health except she's fat. Yeah. We'll have that. I said, how fat? She said, oh, she's 39 pounds and she really should be around 29 or 30 pounds. And I was like, oh, Maggie, you're going on a diet.

27:32
And she's actually down three pounds in the last two weeks. So cutting her back to what she should be eating is working. Well, I actually will cut up green peppers or red bell peppers and I put them in the freezer. And I give my dogs love peppers, they love green beans, berries. So that could also be a treat for her that's not necessarily like a dog treat. Yep.

28:01
Green beans, we have a whole bag of apples that are going soft and she still loves them. So she's been getting pieces of apple. They're very soft, so they're very sweet. They're overly ripe, but she loves them. Okay, that leads me to my probably last question. You mentioned products. You make things too? I do. I make things and I also buy them. So we have our alpacas.

28:30
They are shorn once a year and that's usually the second or third weekend of May. And then we take the, I take the fiber. I have a fiber mill in Dayton, so it's a little bit of a drive, but I take it and it takes a year to process. And so typically I'm picking up last years and dropping off this year's and I let her know what I want done with it. Whether I just want her to wash it.

28:59
and then I just pick up the raw fiber or she will, I have her turn it into yarn or rug yarn and felt sheets, like large felt sheets. And so I am getting ready to attempt to make a rug on my own with the felt backing and the rug yarn. I do make dryer balls. I make felt sheets that you can put in shoes because alpaca is

29:28
hypoallergenic, it doesn't hold odor, and it's naturally water resistant, like water kind of beads off of it, and it's actually naturally flame resistant. So they do make good shoe inserts. And so I do make things like that. I make homemade laundry soap. I make apple pie filling from our trees. And then other things, goat milk soap, things like that. But I also have a few vendors that I,

29:57
purchase things from like alpaca blankets and alpaca made scarves, hats, gloves, things like that, blankets, comforters. And I have one in particular that I really love supporting. They have goat milk type soap. It's called Sassy Alpaca. And they actually, if I'm remembering the story correctly.

30:24
It was a family that they have autistic children and they wanted to help support that. And so it's an autistic supported company. And so I try to purchase things from them for resale as much as I can. They have a lot of great things. I love elderberry. And so they do have this elderberry syrup, I guess.

30:54
Um, it's in the dropper. Uh huh. Tincture? For coughs and whatever. Yeah.

31:04
So, yeah, so we have all of that. Well, I didn't see anything that says you have a website. Do you have a website? My husband is actually in the process of doing that. I'm between the other projects that I have for him. So he's in the process of trying to get one together. I have some pictures of things on our Facebook page, and then I have, you know, open farm days and things like that. But he's, yeah, that's, that's in the works.

31:35
Will you be having a storefront on your website where people can buy the things that you make? We will. Okay, so people, I can't, I don't know how to get the word out to people after this goes out, this episode gets released, but if you're interested in the stuff that Amy is gonna be selling on their future website, go to their Facebook page. Do you have an Instagram page? We do, it's Francis Farms of London Dairy. And I'm sure you'll promote it on there too, so. All right.

32:02
That's it, Amy. We got past 30 minutes. We're at 31 minutes and 58 seconds. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Oh, absolutely. And good luck with everything you're doing. It's fantastic. Thank you. All right. Bye. Bye.