On Kids & Kids
A Discussion With
Mrs. Jamie Spiering
Hearth & Field recently had the chance to catch up with Mrs. Jamie Spiering, a homesteading mother of ten who, with her family, raises crops and livestock on a small farm in the mountains of northern Virginia. While her goat cheese and sourdough are locally beloved, getting to the point of producing them predictably has not been easy. How, we wondered, does one integrate the work of running a small farm with the vocation of rearing a large, lively family?
Hearth & Field: Let’s begin by asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself, your family, and your farm, Dorothea Dell. What are your main goals and aspirations right now as a homesteader and as the mother of a busy family?
Mrs. Jamie Spiering: Thank you so much for this opportunity to talk about our little farm, whose story probably begins many years ago. My husband Craig and I both went to Christendom College here in Virginia, where we met and fell in love. Craig joined the Navy after graduation, and so we spent our first year of marriage living in Norfolk, Virginia, in a town setting; but we knew from the beginning that we wanted to move to the country to rear our children. Neither of us grew up farming — though we both have extended family who farm on a large scale — so we had to learn as we went along and wait to get our home until the time was right. (We joke that we were on the five-year-plan for getting our home in the country for about nine years.)
It is a long story (involving St. Thérèse and St. Joseph and a lot else), but we moved to our current home in 2016 with our (then) six children, two cats, and several rabbits. We now have ten children (ages nineteen through two years, all living at home) and have expanded to chickens, ducks, turkeys, bees, goats, an alpaca, and livestock guardian dogs to protect them all. We call our little home on five acres Dorothea Dell because it means “gift of God,” and because we are in fact located in a little dell, nestled between two foothills between the mountains and the valley.
We call our little home on five acres Dorothea Dell because it means “gift of God,” and because we are in fact located in a little dell, nestled between two foothills between the mountains and the valley.
Our goals have not really changed since we were only dreaming of farming: we want to raise our family in a way that fosters love of God and good stewardship of his creations. After participation in the sacramental life, we think the best way for kids (and adults!) to grow in virtue is to have meaningful work, work that helps us participate in God’s ordering of the world. There is a lot of work in a large family already (food prep, dishes, and laundry are colossal endeavors on their own) and farming does add more labor. But the reward of having our own milk and cheese, honey, homemade bread, and vegetables from the garden makes it worth it.
There is also the joy of the work to consider. For example, our eldest daughter does the milking every morning, and she truly enjoys getting away from the bustle of the house — embracing the quiet of the morning, and the routine. There are times when we feel overwhelmed, and Craig and I ask the kids, “Should we just sell the animals?” And the children’s answer is always a resounding, “No!” We don’t take trips and outings very often or play video games, so our kids have a different lifestyle than some. Our hope is that we are giving each child a strong foundation from which to move into adulthood with ease by fostering in them a love of work, of family, and of home.
H&F: It sounds like your kids have really come to appreciate having animals around, despite the work that caring for livestock entails. Can you give us a breakdown of the daily farm routine? How do you manage the chores? Who does what?
Mrs. Spiering: Our daily routine has changed over time. When we first started our children on doing animal chores, we only had three children and a bunch of rabbits. We kept the rabbits in three hutches in our in-town backyard, and Craig and I took care of them, for the most part — but our eldest, who was about six years old at the time, helped alongside us. He was very interested in the work at that age. Soon, he was refilling waters and food all on his own.
For a long time rabbit care was the first job each child got. Since moving to our farm, however, our rabbit infrastructure has gotten a little more sophisticated and the littlest kids simply aren’t tall enough to reach all the cages and watering system. So, the four- and six-year-olds collect eggs, and our eight-year-old feeds the free-range chickens and ducks. Our oldest kids all know how to milk the goats, but our oldest son did the milking until he started college. He doesn’t participate in the daily animal chores as much now, but he still tends the bees.
Our second eldest, a daughter, now milks most of the time. That also includes locking any goat kids away from their moms through the night, so they don’t drink all the milk. She also gives the goats any supplements they need, morning and evening. Our fourteen-year-old daughter puts the hay out in all our different pastures, feeds the cat up on a high wall so the chickens don’t eat the cat food, and is training our new livestock guardian puppy. She also strains and puts the milk in the fridge at the end of milking so the milker can get some breakfast. She has also invested in heritage breed turkeys and does all the care for them. Meanwhile, our sixteen-year-old son cares for the adult dogs, and fills the large water troughs, and the twelve-year-old fills the smaller waterers around the property for the ducks, chickens, and dogs. He is usually the one to do odd jobs such as taking out large amounts of compost or cleaning off the porch when the chickens sneak on and leave their mark there. And it is our ten-year-old daughter who now feeds and waters the rabbits.
Most of these chores are done morning and evening, though we only milk once a day.
H&F: Did you start in on all of your farm projects all at once, or have you added different crops and animals over time? And what failures have you had that required you to adapt or adjust?
Mrs. Spiering: We definitely did not start all at once. When we moved, there were a few things that were higher on the priority list than animals. For example, we needed access to heat and water, even if the power went out (which it does regularly). So we got a wood burning stove and a hand pump on our well before we put up proper fencing in order to get animals.
I had heard at the time that there are “fence in” and “fence out” kinds of farmers. We have learned that we are “fence out” people. We really want our birds to free range for two big reasons: 1) The nutrition the birds get when they are out scratching around for bugs is optimal, and 2) The birds are our tick control. Craig had an acute case of Lyme shortly after we moved to our heavily wooded property, and although we caught it early and the antibiotics worked for him, that experience put getting chickens at the top of the priority list! We see far fewer ticks now that we have chickens and ducks free ranging around the property.
Each new endeavor has also had its setbacks, of course. At one point we had gotten chickens and ducks and had our rabbits out in moveable tractors and were feeling well on our way. But then one night a bear took most of our ducks and destroyed two rabbit tractors; he flipped them over and tore them open like they were made of balsa wood! We realized then that we needed to either lock up all the animals every night or get dogs. We opted for dogs and soon got ourselves some Pyrenees, a livestock guardian breed. They have been a great addition to our farm. We still lose the occasional bird to a predator, of course, but overall, the dogs allow us to let the birds live almost completely free range.
Another hurdle we have had to jump as “fence out” farmers is related to our birds’ preference for roosting on the porch and resting in the shade near the house. This leads to an unpleasant mess right where we least want it. They also love freshly tilled earth, so they immediately scratch up any seeds we plant.
So, we have slowly learned to put up fences around the areas where we do not want the birds to go, fencing them out and our house and garden in. Last year we put a fence around the orchard and put our annual garden there, to keep the chickens out. They watched eagerly from outside the fence as I planted snap peas, even though they have acres of other places to seek food. Somehow, no matter how well we thought we had secured the fencing, they got in and dug up every pea. It was like I had made a scavenger hunt for them. I cannot tell you how many times I looked out the window and saw them in there, actively scratching up and devouring my precious peas. I would holler to the kids, “chickens in the garden!” There was a scramble of kids, shoes, and doors slamming as we ran to herd the chickens out. Of course, chickens don’t really herd well, so other precious seedlings were trampled in the process. The orchard was just too large of an area to secure and maintain.
H&F: So even with being fenced out, the chickens wouldn’t cooperate! How, then, do you manage to have a garden?
Mrs. Spiering: Just this year, we decided to try making a smaller vegetable garden with a six-foot-tall fence. For the first time since living here, we have a lovely garden over which I have not had to contend with the chickens.
H&F: Brava! What about the goats, though — Do they respect the garden fence? Do they have a pasture?
Mrs. Spiering: Unfortunately, the goats, too, like a tender vegetable garden. Though the six-foot-tall fence is high enough to keep them out, the posts were not all close enough together to prevent the goats from pushing the fence in until they could crop off the tops of half the sunflowers. So we added more T-posts and learned to leave more space between the plants and the fence, and we’ve been able to have a mostly goat-free garden since.
In terms of grazing, we do not have a lot of open pasture land because we live in the woods. The goats get as much hay as they want and we feed them any weed or branch clippings we harvest from around the property. They love berry and rose brambles, Redbud, Poplar, and Locust leaves. We let them out in the woods to browse, but we have to keep a close eye on them so they don’t wander too far or start eating my flowers (we can’t fence animals out of everywhere, so sometimes it just takes supervision). Also, when the goat kids are little, they can be escape artists; right now, for example, we have six little doelings who like to squeeze out the gate and roam my yard. They mostly stick to the woods where they can eat anything they find, but when they prance into my yard and eat my hostas, they must be herded back into the fence and watched to make sure they don’t come right back. They will grow to a size at which they can’t fit through the gap anymore, but until then or until they are sold, it is a little extra work to keep them protected and in line.
We also learned early on that deworming is essential if you are going to keep goats — or any animals, for that matter. Our first goat got very sick and we were told by several friends that she probably wouldn’t make it. It was terrifying, but I ran out and got the standard dewormer from the farm store. We are fortunate that she recovered completely and we learned our lesson to always keep up with deworming. We have used Mollie’s herbal dewormer and have found it to be very effective for all the animals, even the dogs and cats.
H&F: How have you balanced the demands of these different types of labor? What positive effects do you think daily farm work has on children, and what effects has it had on you yourself?
Mrs. Spiering: I think farming is not for everyone. We are all called to different tasks. If we all were farmers, we wouldn’t have shoes (for lack of shoemakers). I am glad that not everyone keeps goats, so we have something to share with our community. Any work we do can feel like slavery, I think, if one is not suited to it or if our perspective on it is not correct. But there is merit to all work done well; whether we are teaching, building, cleaning, et cetera, doing our work well supports our God-given dignity as persons.
That being said, I do think it is of the utmost importance for everyone to understand where our food comes from and the work that goes into procuring it. Food is fundamental, yet it also has a higher place in our lives beyond sustenance. Eating is essential for the physical life, but dining, feasting, communal eating are essential to the spiritual life. Food brings people together in a way that other things cannot. Again, the shoemaker is invaluable, but we don’t tend to gather communally around a pair of sneakers; there’s something uniquely special and transcendent about food. So farming, too us, is deeply, personally important.
Balancing it all is difficult, however. Craig works full-time outside the home and has a business that takes him away some weekends and evenings. Our schedule is full, and “our cup runneth over.” Yet we all choose our activities and how we spend our time, whether or not we are farmers. I am sure not all of our children will continue raising animals into their adult lives, but I think they will be glad we did it as a family. We hope that the skills they learn here on the farm will help form them and prepare them for whatever they do in their adult lives
We hope that the skills they learn here on the farm will help form them and prepare them for whatever they do in their adult lives.
H&F: And of course, the animals give their work as well as require work. Can you share an example of some of the work goats have done on the farm?
Mrs. Spiering: In our experience, goats have proven to be less like garbage disposals and more like weed whackers. We have seen them eat very random things — one goat ate a Nerf bullet that strayed into the pen — but for the most part, they like to browse. In this way, they are more like deer than like sheep and horses, who graze. Our first large animals were a pony and a goat. When we let them out in the yard, we never had to mow! They were quite the team. We were initially concerned about them eating poisonous plants, but after much research and worry, we have found that they don’t eat the plants that are dangerous for them. If they are healthy and have access to hay and clean water, they seem to know what they can eat.
We also use goats to clear the underbrush when we need to build new pastures or fenced areas. They do a great job, but tethering requires almost constant supervision. They do get so tangled up, and in less time than one thinks possible! One summer, for example, our daughter tethered four goats, spread out in what is now our orchard, early each morning, and then she would sit nearby and read for several hours, watching them while they ate their fill. By the time it got hot, they were all — girl and goats — ready to go back to their homes. Goats and child-goatherds can make for a great combination! In fact, we joke that the older kids should get a trailer and start a brush clearing business. Maybe in the future!
H&F: It sounds like you’ve had a number of adventures as you’ve learned how best to manage crops and animals on your homestead. What do you do with the fruits of your work?
Mrs. Spiering: There is so much work, but the fruits are worth it! We mostly eat our bounty ourselves — with twelve people living here, we go through a lot! Our orchard has not produced much of a surplus, so whatever does come of it, we try to divide up so everyone gets to taste. We do not drink all the milk from the goats, so we make a lot of chèvre. Compared to chèvre from the store, it is a real treat. We love having something really special to share with people at gatherings or as a gift when someone has a baby, and we do sell some at the occasional farmer’s market or local fair. We also have a herd-share program in which people can buy a part of our little herd; then they get a share of the milk or cheese each week through the milking season.
Mrs. Jamie Spiering lives with her husband and ten children at Dorothea Dell, their little forest farm in the Shenandoah Valley.
