We are settled in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon’s mid-Willamette Valley.
Located in a tiny unincorporated census-designated community called Lacomb (population 278), we are right at the southern back door of Scio (est. 1860), which is a delightful rural town, famous for the historic covered bridges in the area. Scio is also known for the oldest continuously running sheep dog trials, in its 75th year in 2016.
We have been enjoying a small farm here since 1980, having raised a family, all kinds of livestock, herbs, bees, and produce over the years.
We house Ancient Ways, a local charitable non-profit organization offering humanitarian outreach to Zimbabwe, as well as are a center for sharing their Shona music on marimba. Summertime has found us playing music on the deck here each week instead of the city classroom. With the advent of Covid-19 we began gathering year around under a carport, after a few months online when it got to cold.
Recently, we opened a small rock shop and love to share the mineral kingdom with young and old alike. We are profoundly grateful to be able to teach and practice well-being modalities as complementary medicine from this same location.
Currently the farm has a small flock of St. Croix sheep. For many years they were guarded by a Turkish Anatolian from Shepherds Rest. Our interest in English Shepherds came about in our search for a heritage farm dog. Having a history going back to Scotland and England, this breed captures all the best of the original farm dog from hundreds of years ago. The Dog Adviser website contains a very nice article about the breed. The English Shepherd club has more information about the history, as does this interesting article with old photos from the early 1900’s…Breeze surely resembles the dogs in those pictures!
Breeze, born March 2014, was selected from a litter of eight from Trailblazer’s Koda and Snowy River’s Bess to be trained here on the farm, as well as be the dam for generations of purebred English Shepherd puppies.
- Her first litter was with Rio, June 8th, 2016, on the northern border of Washington.
- In August of 2017 and April of 2018, we bred her to Ben from Molalla, Oregon.
- We bred her to Pilgrim from Junction City Oregon in August of 2021, after a short hiatus, for a fourth litter October 1st.
Please read the pedigree page to see her background, as well as see her first litter with Rio, her second litter with Ben, and her third litter with Ben. See her fourth litter with Pilgrim here.
Katie, born February 20, 2020 was selected by Debbie Richardson to be our next breeding female. They live in Montana and it was quite an interesting series of people that helped with the transport to make all of that trip in June. This was the beginning of Covid and so multiple pieces of the puzzle had to be worked out. Please read her Embark report here, more about her first litter with Pilgrim, and the pedigree page.
We love all of you dog-lovers and welcome your feedback and suggestions. Please feel free to use the Contact Us page to tell us what we’re doing right or how we can improve.