![]() ![]() Although the sheep are a stone's throw from the front porch, he notes, there is no smell. Jack says he gets satisfaction from showing off a farm operation that is free-range and ecologically sound. "We can't leave the farm long enough to see the world, so we like to bring the world to us," she says. ![]() But Kathy says guests serve an even bigger need. The guesthouses, the couple says, help subsidize the family farm's income from selling wool and lambs. We soon see how they came up with the name for their guest-house: In the dying light, the sheep are silhouetted on the surrounding vistas. For the kids, it's a trip highlight.Īs night falls, the Monsours sit on the porch with us and pass the time. ![]() Jack and Kathy welcome help with bottle-feeding. During our visit, on Mother's Day, there are two lambs that have been abandoned and need a bottle four times a day. No ewes have died birthing this year, but as always, some either aren't good mothers or have twins and can't cope. They offer the kids another kind of treat: bottle-feeding the orphans. The Monsours drive up for evening chores, which at this time of year primarily means checking the pastures for newborn lambs. There's a swing, volleyball net, horseshoe pit and fire pit in the back yard, so they want hot dogs and marshmallows for dinner, and can we make s'mores? They keep reappearing to report their findings: There's Ping-Pong and a pool table in the basement, and a hot tub on the back porch. The kids, my 10-year-old and her 9-year-old cousin, rush off to investigate the well-kept property. The adults in our party this weekend, including my mother and sister, immediately settle in on a porch swing and bentwood chairs to watch the sheep show. The couple is also in the midst of building a fourth rental property on the ranch, within sight of the Silhouette. The purchase adds another 120 acres to the Monsours' 400-acre spread, plus a farmhouse that sleeps 16 and a primitive cabin on the mountainside. The couple recently bought the property adjoining theirs from a Mennonite family who decided there was more money in building decks and gazebos than farming. Grandmother, after all, has moved into an apartment, and this is most definitely an over-the-river-and-through-the-woods kind of place.īy then - in fact, by Labor Day - the Monsours will have a second farmhouse for rent. My first thought: I have to gather my relatives and host Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner here. I later learn that Kathy Monsour bakes something for every couple or group that books the farmhouse, which has a big yard surrounded by fenced sheep pastures. I walk inside to find a big country kitchen, and in the middle of a long table with a checkered tablecloth, a homemade apple pie that is still warm and smelling of cinnamon. There is a note on the door of the four-bedroom farmhouse that will be our private dwelling for the weekend: The door is unlocked we should come in and make ourselves comfortable. We arrive there one recent spring evening to find the gamboling well underway. Or you could simply drive about two hours up I-270 to I-70, take a turn just past Breezewood, Pa., and follow winding country roads until you reach the Silhouette guesthouse on the Monsours' sheep farm. You could fly there to see a similar scene of pastoral beauty. This particular gamboling incident takes place on rolling green hills that look like what you'd expect to see in the Irish countryside. Sheep farmer Jack Monsour says no one has any idea why lambs join little gangs to race and frolic for an hour or so each evening, but they do it all over the world, he says. They know that the lambs are simply gamboling. I'm assuming those are the experienced mothers. Other ewes simply continue grazing, without a care. About half of the 700 ewes frantically bleat and amble over the hills in a frenzy, trying to retrieve their babies. Suddenly the lambs dart from their mothers' sides and run with abandon in small groups of three to 10 each. The lambs are silent and calmly nurse or lie by their mothers until about an hour before sunset, when havoc breaks out in the pasture. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |