It’s winter here in Western Massachusetts and it was snowing the day I went to Little Brook Farm to visit Kristen Whittle. She was out in front of her house feeding Christmas trees to her goats and sheep.
As we do here in New England, she invited me in for tea and we chatted about her life as a farmer and a home cheese maker.
This is the off-season in New England, so, right now, Kristen isn’t milking her goats and making cheese. She has promised to send us some pictures this coming summer. (Meanwhile, we assume you like to see where milk comes from as much as we do!)
Her story
Kristen was actually raised on a farm in the Eastern part of the state (Acton). She and her two sisters each had their own goat, chicken and horse to raise. Her parents emphasized the importance of saving money and that lesson served her well.
She came to the University of Massachusetts to get her degree in Animal Science and when she was only 23, she bought the land she lives on now and built the barn where her horses now bunk.
The original barn she built when she was 23.
7 years later, the house next to her land went on the market and she was able to buy it. 30 years later, she’s still there.
That’s a tobacco barn in the distance.
After college, in 1981, Kristen worked at the Putney School dairy barn in Southern Vermont and then she was invited to work as a shepherd at the UMass School of Agriculture.
With the closing of some of the livestock programs and reorganization within the Animal Science program at UMass, Kristen decided to change gears. She enrolled in an accelerated 2nd bachelors degree program at UMass to get her BS in nursing. When she attended her first class, she was a week overdue with her son Travis (who is now 26).
After she graduated, she worked as a visiting nurse before settling into her longstanding position as the Northfield Elementary School nurse and the District Nurse Leader for the Pioneer Valley Regional School District. She retired from there at the end of the 2018 school year.
All that time, she was a single mother, a farmer and a nurse, adding a Masters in Nursing to her resume. 8 years ago, at the age of 54 she married Tom Norwood, the owner and Master Instructor of Western Mass Martial Arts in South Deerfield, MA.
Last Spring.
Her life now
Through the years, Kristen has gradually built up her herd of goats (11) and sheep (32). She also has 2 horses, a donkey, a llama, laying chickens (32), and 3 working Border Collies.
This little mama has given birth to sextuplets several times. She wasn’t pregnant at the time of this picture – her tummy is just permanently extended from carrying so many kids.
These Border Collies do a great job of herding the goats (Gemma, Bett and Tilly).
You can see one of the dogs doing it’s job while the other one was obeying orders to wait.
Her main barn is connected to her house, so, she can check on the animals in her pajamas on a cold winter morning.
Her milking stand (ingeniously) folds into a wall so it doesn’t take up space all the time.
Every year, beginning in the Spring, she raises 200 meat chickens/turkeys and 7 pigs. She sells lamb, pork, chicken, turkey and eggs year round. She also takes orders for whole/half lambs and whole/half pigs.
5 weeks of the year, she has farm camps for kids. They learn how to care for the animals and how to make cheese and butter.
Campers letting the sheep through the gate with the sheep jumping. (Sheep will almost always leap through the air if they have to go through a small opening out into a larger space like a field. They must feel they are “escaping”!)
On a float with her campers at the Sunderland 300th anniversary parade last summer.
She sends her wool to a company in Quebec which makes blankets from it. She sells the blankets on her website.
During the season, Kristen makes chevre, mozzarella, ricotta, butter and yogurt. She freezes the cheese for the off-season and she says it tastes just as good as when it was fresh. (Sorry-no pictures. Did we mention that this is the off-season?)
Kristen came up with this bumper sticker and she had it trademarked. (You see it on cars everywhere in our area, including mine.) It’s available for sale at her website.
Little Brook Farm
334 Russell Street
Sunderland, MA 01375
413-665-3802
kristen@littlebrookfarm.com
littlebrookfarm.com
