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Whispering Willows Farm

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United States
Blanchester, OH
Whispering Willows Farm

We're a family run farm in the early stages of raising heritage breeds of livestock as well as offering a variety of quality homemade products.
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We also offer certified equine massage therapy and beginner riding lessons.

08/14/2024

Next step, blend and and pour over pasta and sausage from last year’s Large Black Hogs. 😮‍💨🤌🏻

We grew over 60 tomato plants this year, maybe twenty varieties if I can remember without checking the list. The funny part is that we said it’s because we were trialing varieties so we’d know what we want next year and grow less. Like I’m not going to find even more varieties I want to trial next year. 😬

In this photo are all cherry varieties:

Rosella: dusky beauties that I adore. Prolific, healthy, fairly sweet while still tasting like a tomato.

Blue Cream Berry: won’t grow again. They’re so soft that by the time they’re ripe, when I tried to pull them off the vine they just mushed. I had to pull them still pretty green and firm. That translated to eating experience-way too soft for my preference.

Black Strawberry: GORGEOUS. Took a long time ripening. Bigger than the rest, I’m not sure this is an actual cherry… Great tomato flavor and firm. Paired with the sweeter cherries on the list, the sauce was amazing.

Black Cherry: Really good tomato but with all the varieties that are super winners, could still be on the chopping block. We’ll see.

Sunrise Bumblebee: So, so good. Beautiful yellow and red striping. So sweet. Will definitely be in the garden next year.

Spoon. Monster bushes that are trying to eat the whole garden. Cute little things that are fun. More tomato-y than sweet. I suspect we’ll be growing these forever whether we want to or not with how many tiny tomatoes I see on the ground. Good thing they’re not terrible.

07/04/2024

I’ve never seen a more regal looking sheep.

Social media has been the last thing on my mind lately but we’ve still been busy doing farm things.

Our biggest lesson this year? Border Leicesters are great! We knew they were a great maternal breed going into it but we were pleasantly surprised by the growth rate on our lambs, their muscling, and their sheer determination to live. We had a first time ewe that wasn’t convinced she wanted to take care of the lamb and he didn’t take no for an answer. She’s now raising him. 😂

And because I’ve convinced myself I’ll make time to actually pick up knitting again, their wool is just gorgeous.

01/22/2024

The sheep and dogs coexisting is one of my favorite things🥰
Everyone is staying warm here- plenty of hay is key for the ruminants in this cold weather!

11/06/2023

Loading screaming and thrashing pigs onto the trailer on processing day for an all around stressful experience…Sound familiar?

We all want the same thing, for our animals to be raised in a way we can feel good about. Stress not only negatively impacts the animals quality of life, but also negatively impacts the meat quality.
Let’s talk about how we avoid the stress, and have happy pigs up until the end!

Our pigs are used to being moved around to different areas of our property for rotation by following a feed tub. Moving regularly helps all on its own as they know they are headed to a cool new spot!
A few days to a week before they need to load, we park the trailer right up to their pen. This is the new feeding spot! The pigs will be hesitant, but before long one pig will jump on to eat and convince the others it’s good to go.
Once it’s time to load up and head out, they will happily jump up for their feed and snack on their meal the whole ride! Not a single distress call, no pigs flailing or trying to escape. Just happy pigs snacking away!

We have always wanted our animals to have the highest quality of life. That doesn’t stop until they get off of our trailer one last time.
We cut “one bad day” down to just a couple of hours.❤️

11/01/2023

We are still alive over here!

We are slowing down for the cold season and giving ourselves some needed rest❤️
The animals are still checked on daily and cared for, but the summer projects are getting wrapped up and we are taking it easy.

Sorry for so few updates, who knows when we will start being more consistent 😅
In the meantime, enjoy these photos of some of our commercial girls and our handsome Border Leicester ram.

09/06/2023

We currently have the following soaps available:

•Aloe and Calendula
•Oats and Honey, no added scent 🍯
•Bonfire with activated charcoal and ground oats 🪵🔥
•Tobacco and Bay leaf with activated charcoal and pine tar
•Almond
•Blueberry Muffin 🫐
•Activated Charcoal and Pine Tar, no added scent

All soaps are $6/bar with bundle deals available.
Let us know if you need anything!

08/26/2023

We haven’t been very active here on Facebook, but we sure have been busy!

Come see us today at the Veterans Memorial Park in Blanchester. We will be here from 10am-3pm 😊

933 S. Broadway Street. Blanchester, OH

08/07/2023

I love soap cutting days! It’s always so fun to see how they turn out.

07/08/2023

Pro garden tip for people like me who might neglect their gardens from time to time.

I buy the most heat resistant broccoli/spinach/brussels/etc I can find because I’m sure as heck not going to get to them on time.

These guys were one blink away from flowering, I’m pretty sure.

06/29/2023

Toph is about seven months old and out weighs our old man golden retriever. As impressive as I’ve found her physical growth, I’m more impressed with how much she’s learning.

She’s learning the ewes don’t appreciate a 65lb puppy bouncing at them and is trying hard to moderate herself. I’ll watch her start to get excited and run, catch herself and slow down when the ewes get high headed.

I’ve also watched some lambs and kids go tearing by her and she didn’t give chase. It always seemed to be in play, but still not acceptable. It’s not an extinguished behavior yet, after I thought of making this post, she tried to chase a ram lamb. (I do think that may have been my bad, we were catching up lambs for CDT and I’m sure it looked fun to chase them around). But point being, the trend is going in the right direction.

I’ve even seen our two mama hens walk their chicks right over her front feet and Toph just watched and didn’t react.

Her recall is improving leaps and bounds.

She doesn’t join in when the pet dogs are dumb and bark at squirrels or at nothing. She perks up, watches quietly, and lays back down when she agrees that they’re dumb.

She’s still a puppy. She’s still tethered when we can’t actively observe her or have her working with us. But some of the stuff we’re seeing is pretty encouraging. Toph may just end up being a great LGD!

06/17/2023

We’ve had a good few weeks…but lest we get too warm and fuzzy around here, 90 broiler chickens just disappeared over night without a trace.

Farming. It ebbs and flows.

05/14/2023

Every year, we nervously wait for new mamas. Replacement ewes kept back, a new gilt, the chicken that decided to be broody.

And I can’t thing of a single thing on the farm that makes me as excited as when they knock it out of the park.

Here’s to the mamas!

05/09/2023

Squad goals.

04/25/2023

Welcome, little lady! 🥰

04/07/2023

Lambs and daffodils. Maybe Spring really is here. 🤔

Spring is that magical time where everything just starts appearing. New plant life. New babies. That tool you forgot in the field that the broken down leaves and melted snow finally revealed. 😬

04/05/2023

Healthy, twin ewe lambs! A great way to kick off our lambing 😊

03/18/2023

We made the leap and added a livestock guardian dog to the farm, everyone meet Toph.

Now begins the work of making sure she grows into a good farm employee. Her job will be guarding sheep, goats, poultry, and maybe pigs-though I’m not sure there’s anything in our area brave enough to take on a pig.

Moving further from the barn and house into the back field with our stock, really highlighted the dog shaped hole we had. That probably should have been filled before now.

01/20/2023

What a weird January we’ve had.

The wildly swinging weather has been hard on the animals. Sixty degrees today and in the thirties tomorrow. And let’s not forget the negative thirties a couple weeks ago.

Great weather for all sorts of problems like pneumonia. Lucky (unlucky?) so far we’ve only had one ewe needing some help.

01/10/2023

Just a little about who we are.

12/29/2022

When you swore you wouldn’t put up with punk rams but you really like the only ewe lamb he threw last spring. 😒

12/25/2022

"Mankind is a great, an immense family. This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas."

Merry Christmas, from our family to yours. We hope your day is filled with love and joy. And very tolerant sheep.

12/23/2022

Who wore it better? ➡️➡️😬😂

Just out here fueling these rumen furnaces in -32 wind chill. 😎

As long as we keep them eating, give them a dry place out of the wind, and make sure they’ve got water available, we’re not worried.

12/21/2022

We haven’t posted too much here lately.

Winter is our slow and steady. Frantic summer projects are behind us.

We still get eyes on the animals every day and get them fed and watered.

Aunt Kellee and her sidekick Jack are still running this place.

11/28/2022

Anyone interested in an agrotourism event where you help us wean three litters of pigs and arrange breeding pens after a whole day of rain?

11/24/2022

Happy Thanksgiving!!!
There is no better way to give thanks than with one of our heritage, free range, corn and soy free, turkeys!

What are you thankful for? Let us know in the comments!

11/20/2022

Breeding season is here and Pete has an attitude. 😒

11/05/2022

I’ve got something cool to talk about but have to admit something mildly embarrassing in the process. 😅

I’ve mentioned before how when we bought this farm, we were working with extreme poor drainage on clay soil. We could watch water literally running off the crop field to the front of the property where the driveway and shop would flood.

Fast forward almost three years, we’ve been working hard to improve the soil.

Bale feeding in the low areas to concentrate organic material and manure in those areas.

Cover cropping with deep taproots to break up that compaction.

Running hogs through early on to also help with compaction.

Despite some ridiculous rain this year, our driveway didn’t flood once. So we knew something was working.

Swipe to see what I found doing chores yesterday. That’s the netting from a bale I unrolled two winters ago (embarrassing that it’s still sitting there, I know). But look at that good inch of soil that’s been built on top! Slowly but surely, we’re getting there!

We’re growing soil here to better feed our community.

10/31/2022

Our animals here at Whispering Willows love pumpkins!🎃

If you are local and have any left over pumpkins, we would love to have them. If you shoot us a message we can set up a time to either pick them up from you, or you can even bring them to the farm!

10/26/2022

Fall seems officially here and the ewe lambs are looking good.

10/15/2022

We’ve been all over the place for our livestock, from Tennessee to Vermont and in between. And every time we announce one of our trips, we don’t fail to get some eyebrows.

But when we invest in the animals we’re bringing onto the farm, we try to get as high a chance as possible that they’ll thrive in our operation. That involves stalking other farms to find farmers raising animals closely to how we’d want to raise them, asking questions, researching the breed, etc.

Has every animal we carefully selected been successful? No. But I’ve regretted way more of the convenience purchases.

And who doesn’t love hauling livestock trailers across the country?

Address

4759 Second Creek Road
Blanchester, OH
45107

Website

facebook.com

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Videos

This is just a real vibe. I specifically resonate with the little guy who falls off the pile. #pasturedpork #forestedpork #homestead #familyfarm #babypig #sleepy #babyanimals #pigsofinstagram #localfood #smallfarm

What a difference a year makes! For the first time, I understand the concept of being a grass farmer rather than a livestock farmer as we faced running the sheep over our silvopasture for the first time. I felt like one of those, “Get off my lawn” people. But logically, we know. Plants were made for ruminants and ruminants were made for plants. (And I guess pigs were made for bulldozing.) I think we may have even left it growing too long as a lot of it ended up getting knocked over rather than grazed. But we’re still learning the magic touch. #silvopasture #regenerativeagriculture #clintoncountyohio #blanchesterohio #pasturedpork #sheep #farmlife #ohiofarm

I’m posting this weeds and obnoxious pink shoes and all because it’s so vital to the origin story of this farm. Feeding our family damn good food. Henry snacked on these strawberries while I broadforked in the early evening and that was a vibe. 👌 #farmlife #farmkids #ohiofarm #boymom

Boop😌 #boop #livestock #farm #agriculture #largeblackhogs #largeblackpigs #sheep #smallfarn #farmtotable

The babies learned there’s a whole wide world beyond the farrowing pen today. #pasturedpork #ohiofarm #farmlife #regenerativeagriculture

Great mothering instincts are very important to our program! #largeblackhogs #farrowing #farrowinfseason #smallfarm #familybusiness #regenerativeagriculture #farmtotable #pork #heritagebreed #livestock #farmlife

And we wonder why we run out of time to get to things on the list. 😅 But five minutes with a dollar store bow made us (and hopefully you) laugh so we stand by it.Mipha and Midna both had seven healthy babies on the same night and between them both, only one dead. 14 out of 15 piglets alive and well on day two, I’ll take it. #pasturedpork #babyanimals #maternityphotography

Forgive me for the doubled up Toph posts but look at that face and tell me I’m wrong. 😂 #ohiofarm #livestockguardiandog #dog #pasturedpork #farmlife

Large Black Hogs have really worked in our program!

Lambs soon!☺️ #sheep #lambs #regenerativeagriculture #farm #farmtok #agriculture #farmtotable #landmanagement #rotationalgrazing

We love the breed! #livestockconservancy #agriculture #farmtotable #regenerativeagriculture #smallfarm #rotationalgrazing

Leaving the land in better condition than we found it is very important to us! #regenerativeagriculture #regenerativefarming #landmanagement #smallfarm #agriculture #farmlife

Just a little about who we are.

When you swore you wouldn’t put up with punk rams but you really like the only ewe lamb he threw last spring. 😒

Breeding season is here and Pete has an attitude. 😒

I’ve got something cool to talk about but have to admit something mildly embarrassing in the process. 😅 I’ve mentioned before how when we bought this farm, we were working with extreme poor drainage on clay soil. We could watch water literally running off the crop field to the front of the property where the driveway and shop would flood. Fast forward almost three years, we’ve been working hard to improve the soil. Bale feeding in the low areas to concentrate organic material and manure in those areas. Cover cropping with deep taproots to break up that compaction. Running hogs through early on to also help with compaction. Despite some ridiculous rain this year, our driveway didn’t flood once. So we knew something was working. Swipe to see what I found doing chores yesterday. That’s the netting from a bale I unrolled two winters ago (embarrassing that it’s still sitting there, I know). But look at that good inch of soil that’s been built on top! Slowly but surely, we’re getting there! We’re growing soil here to better feed our community.

Imagining a peaceful morning walk while instead getting shaken down for snacks. #ohiofarm #familyfarm #sheep

Animals doing animal things. Helping us bring this 20 acre block of clay back to life. #regenerativeagriculture #ohiofarm #sheep #freerange #pasturedpoultry #pasturedpork #knowyourfarmer

Moving day is the best day. #forestedpork #pasturedpork #homesteading #ohiofarm #familyfarm

These turkey poults are hilarious. Followed us for trimming the entire goat herd’s feet and planting 100 blueberry bushes. Supervised free ranging until they get a little bit more size. If this looks like farming practices you could get behind, hit us up for your thanksgiving turkey! #cincinnati #wilmingtonohio #thanksgiving #turkey #freerange #ohiofarm #knowyourfarmer