Appletree Farm: Finding Contentment, Part 3
WORDS AND IMAGES BY JO ARLOW
THIS FARM IS MY HEALER: SHEPHERDESS STEPHANIE SCHIFFGENS RAISES GOTLAND SHEEP, BUILDS A LIFE OF PURPOSE ON APPLETREE FARM.
We head to the pasture, and a garter snake slides sideways through the grass at my feet. “I did some mowing yesterday,” she says, “I wonder if I disturbed them.” She details her care for the pastures, the timing of seeding and lyme application done by hand. “Right now I could raise 100 sheep on here but within a month and a half there won’t be any nutrition, it will all be dry… so I have to import feed from eastern Oregon…and I have it drilled down so there is no waste and the manure goes into the garden.”
I prompt her with a query on climate change as she moves to adjust fencing. While this year has been as wet as “normal” years in the past, there have been some observable shifts over the past three years in the longer length of the dry season. “Basically I can graze many sheep over shorter period of time……. end of June there’s nothing. If I’m lucky I get a second growth and a couple more months in the fall… Last year at this time we had 100 degrees!” She looks out at her fields and expresses concerns that, especially later in the year, they can become the perfect fuel for wild fires. There has been a notable increase in wildfires across the West—all one has to do is turn on the news or scroll online. Even western Oregon the past few years has not been immune and so they’ve been careful to build a defensible space around the property as a buffer from potential fires although there have not been any wild fires in their immediate area as yet.
“Losing a husband or a child is pretty high up on the hardship list, most people are eventually touched by grief or some hardship but we marvel for a moment at the thought of those who seem to be free of it. ”
The day has turned warm and we rotate to a fenced area nearer the house to meet the remaining flock, including a handsome Romeny ram. I sit in the grass to get an intimate vantage point as a few of the ewes approach to be pet, giving gentle head nudging in return. I am grateful for their lack of horns. One of the ewes, Ada, comes over for some affection and noses right into my camera lens. “Ada is my beauty,” she says.
She gives me a quick tutorial in what is prized amongst Gotlands: A nice three-dimensional curl over the body and shiny grey-silver fleece throughout the body. Often there is a dark band on the top of the back that is naturally occurring from minerals such as copper, like on her ewe Ada born from the ET process. Typically she evaluates each new lamb at four months old. “Their color can be quite good even at that young age and so their genetic potential is assessed early on.” I meet 3 males: a white Gotland wether (companion sheep), a 3-year-old Gotland ram and an older bluefaced leister, who is the teaser ram. (A teaser ram has had a vasectomy and can signal when the ewes are in heat)
Our talk turns to the vagaries of American culture, French culture, politics, homelessness, mental health, baseball, the pandemic, dogs, the health insurance system, community, and work-life balance. America has now been her home longer than her native France to which she remains intimately connected through family and month-long sojourns home. “As an adult immigrant, it has always been important to me to be a part of the community here, especially working to be a steward of the landscape in a sustainable way. “ She recounts helping neighbors when their house was on fire, the emergency personnel using water from the pond to douse the fire; muses about having children at home and in school and keeping up with the needs of her aging parents; on being the first in her family to go to college; on how she learned the discipline and pleasure of working constructively with hands and body. We discover we are almost birthday twins, just a day apart in the coming fall season, just as we are fraternal twins in grief.
“Losing a husband or a child is pretty high up on the hardship list,” she says with the lightness she often uses when revealing a difficult truth. “Most people are eventually touched by grief or some hardship,” she says, but we marvel for a moment at the thought of those who seem to be free of it. She elaborates along this train of thought… “I always tell people that I have three children but I don’t explain,” she says. There is the core reality that those we have loved deeply who are no longer here physically still shape our daily lives. “Elari and her love for the animals continue to shape the family and the farm,” she says, “It was very hard when the last animal she knew passed as well.” We agree that keeping our loves present so that those that never met them (like her son Peter, and my many friends) can say they feel like they know them.
With the farm chores done for the afternoon and some time before her son is home from school, Stephanie leads me up to the house to showcase the wool products that come from her flock. I handle a surprisingly soft to the touch pelt expertly processed in Sweden. There are bags of shining wool and skeins of yarn that she thinks she might use for a shawl with her newly acquired knitting skills. One of Stephanie’s great joys is being a part of a community of women who are also engaged in arts and sells their creations such as pottery and hats made from her own Romney wool. She explains the “wet felt” process for turning fleece into felt which can be combined with soap or made into dryer balls, hats and containers using friction, wool, soap and water. “It’s a laborious and traditional process to clean, knit, weave the wool,” she says and there is pride in these slow arts that most of us no longer value. A sheepherder’s answer to fast-fashion and its environmental impact that she laments more of us don’t think about.
“The pelts make the house warm and happy,” she says. “It’s part of our efforts to make the entire farm closer to zero waste.”
Later in the evening after dinner, drinking tea and sitting on benches upholstered with supple pelts from her own Gotlands I think about Stephanie’s ethos of treading lightly. “The pelts make the house warm and happy,” she says. “It’s part of our efforts to make the entire farm closer to zero waste.” We watch the last of the sunset over the farm as Stephanie sits close with her son Peter. This life on Appletree Farm takes a tremendous amount of hard physical work and dedication to adhere to the high standards of quality for all she produces. It began as a way to feed their family, but ultimately nourishes a deep and spiritual healing, a grounding in the land, their values, and community. Stephanie looks out and says quietly, “Yes, I am content.”