agri-Culture

Send us Fan Mail We’ve been hunkering down for the last few months now on the traveling side of our Backyard Green Films universe.  2024 was a doozy of a year for us in many respects, so we had to take a few moments to catch our breath this winter.  Enrique Guerra, also known as “Kiko,” is our guest today, and he’s pretty much royalty in Texas Longhorn Cattle circles.  Kiko is the son of another E...

Send us Fan Mail Now, if you hear me talk about Rhinebeck, you might think today's guest is going to focus on wool. Nope! Not really. Sheep, yes, hair yes, but mostly wool, no. Our podcast guest today is a lovely man named Brent Zimmerman, and as I introduce him I'm kind of hard pressed to call him one thing, though you could definitely call him a sheep farmer. Links: https://www.faceboo...

Send us Fan Mail Music by Charlie Recksieck to usher us into the New Year. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Most people commemorate Thanksgiving today, and all things associated with this holiday.  There will be some celebrating family, some marking the day with food, and some praying at the altar of football.  Some will be remembering the Pilgrims, and the earliest arrival of Europeans bringing colonists and their livestock to North America.  NOT! Stephen Monroe schools us on a common...

Send us Fan Mail We were in the mood for something sweet, so we thought it was time for a visit to the sugar shack. We packed up our gear and headed back east to Westbrook, CT to our friends John and Bonnie Hall at Maple Breeze Farm. There we saw the whole process of making that sweet maple syrup.  Just in time for the maple glazed ham at Thanksgiving. Links: https://www.facebook.com/p/Maple-Breez...

Send us Fan Mail October is not only a great time to celebrate fiber (what with the Lambtown and Rhinebeck festivals, just to name a few), but it’s also Breast Cancer Awareness month.  How do we get both things in one podcast?  Knitted Knockers! Barbara Demorest is the Feisty Lady with Fortitude who took a horrible event in life and made it into something that has helped millions to cope with the...

Send us Fan Mail Every once in a while you meet a person you’ve read about in a book.  It might not be the actual person, but is the personification of a character that is so accurate, it might as well have jumped out straight from the pages.  Today, our podcast guest is one of those.   James Metcalfe lives on Hardenclough Farm, “in the heart of the beautiful Peak District [with a] flock of pedigr...

Send us Fan Mail We’re back from the North American Hill Sheep Show in Escanaba, Michigan.  This inaugural event showcased some British Hill Breed Sheep and some not-quite-Hill Breed Sheep, of course, but there was more to see, hear and smell.  Lovely vendor booths with soft woolens and fragrant soaps in abundance, sheepdog trials with panting puppies, food trucks (with some mighty fine brisket, t...

Send us Fan Mail Where do we go for fun?  Well, all kinds of places, but fish hatcheries, farm shows, and livestock auctions are on the list.   Today, we’re taking you back to jolly old England (almost Scotland, actually), to a little town called Hexham.  It lies at the foot of Northumberland National Park and a stone’s throw (literally) from Hadrian’s Wall.  This is as charming a hamlet as you mi...

Send us Fan Mail Located in the southern portion of Scotland, Lanark might be best known in agricultural circles for those big guys from the area around the River Clyde, and to history buffs as the first place local resident William Wallace drew his sword in earnest.  We love heavy horses with a passion, but the sheep need to have their day, too.   Last September, Lanark Agricultural Centre saw Sh...

Send us Fan Mail In life, there are talkers and doers.  Of the doers, many of them have a characteristic known as “True Grit,” and today’s podcast guests are in that category. Millie and Stacy Bradshaw own Dry Creek Livestock, and a few hours north of Salt Lake City, these two intrepid souls are building a place to call home on the windswept plains and low hills of Utah.  On their ranch you’ll fin...

Send us Fan Mail It’s time for Horse Progress Days!  It’s one of our favorite events of the year, and this July it was held in Lancaster County, PA - just in time for the height of a national heatwave.  Everyone soldiered on through, though, with nary a complaint to be found from this stoic bunch.   It was a good thing everyone pushed through the heat until the close of the day, because the HPD or...

Send us Fan Mail It’s time for a talk – a Shepherd’s Talk, that is.  Every year, the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival has this popular segment available for shepherds, wannabe shepherds, ecologists, historians, and people who are just plain interested in fiber production from the ground up.  Today’s talk is with Erin Bradt, of Helder Herdwyck Farm, where she talks about not just these fantas...

Send us Fan Mail On this podcast episode Bruce Farr of Farrview South Farm, American Milking Devon Cattle breeder (and a teamster!), sits down with John Hall, the President of the American Milking Devon Cattle Association. They discuss the history of the breed, characteristics they appreciate, and some non-traditional ideas for a very traditional breed. If you want to see the man himself (and the...

Send us Fan Mail This week, we’re speaking with Theresa Walker of Great Bay Wool Works and her lovely natural-colored ovine assistant Hazel (okay, so hubby Patrick did a little bit of modeling, too.).  We learn about natural-colored sheep, geography in New England, a bit of why New England and Old England feel familiar to each other, and much more.  This is one of those where Rick had to keep sayi...

Send us Fan Mail We’re going down memory lane, and back to the beginning of all things for today’s podcast.  In this case, it means the start of something that has grown into a behemoth in the world of Agriculture.  Originally from the shores of Scotland near Aberdeen, the cattle breed known as “Angus” has become the powerhouse breed by which all things are measured.    Today we’re going back to t...

Send us Fan Mail We concluded the World Devon Congress adventure with the State that put these cattle on the map – okay, they’re on the flag, anyway.  We had a wonderful tour through the Green Mountain State of Vermont, on our way to meet up with Anson Tebbets, Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets.  This lovely man took a walk down the lane on his family farm to talk about the finer things i...

Send us Fan Mail Backyard Green Films is now in Florida, getting ready to start the World Devon Congress 2024.  But first (and last), our podcast with the butcher.  The place where everything ends – everything that is ordered medium rare, anyway. A.J. O’Neil is the perfect one to encapsulate almost everything that is fantastic about why Devons are popular.  He’s a member of Red Devon USA, and a wo...

Send us Fan Mail Our stay at Clockwork Cottage was one of the quiet delights of our UK trip in August of 2023.  The Peak District in England is well known as being a day-hiker’s destination filled with rolling emerald fields, ancient stacked stone walls, and sheep, sheep and sheep.  There are those amazing things, yes, and found aplenty, but for the Backyard Green Films crew the hills were alive w...

Send us Fan Mail Steve Montgomery of Lamppost Farm is our guest on today’s podcast, coming to you from a stop on the Devon Congress pre-tour - Columbiana, Ohio style this time.  Steve and his family raise Devon Cattle, Coopworth Sheep, pigs, turkeys and a partridge in a pear tree (okay, no partridges, but there are more chickens than you can safely count).  Their goal is to make and teach connecti...

Send us Fan Mail Andrea Tibbets of Clover Brooke Farm is our guest on today’s podcast.  We usually see her at the New York State Sheep & Wool Festival (Rhinebeck), but since at that fine event we see her running the Camelid Barn and running the Leaping Llama contest and running the Spitters’ Club and…well, just plain running, we decided it was way past time to visit her home turf.  For a walk....

Send us Fan Mail It’s another stop on our Devon Pre-Tour run.  This time, we’re bringing you the sights and sounds from a delightful and delicious visit to Lakota Ranch in Remington, Virginia.  Lakota is the home of Jeremy Engh, President of Red Devon USA, Dr. Jerry Engh, the founder of the herd itself (and Jeremy, for that matter), and Patty Engh, who runs them both, we’re fairly sure.  We had a...

Send us Fan Mail Don’t you love talking to people who know their stuff?  While crashing the Kilnsey Show in Yorkshire on our UK trip last August, we came across Clive Richardson, Field Officer for the Jacob Sheep Society.  It was a spontaneous tailgate conversation, but we magically ended up with not only someone who raises some of the most interesting-looking sheep you’ll ever lay eyes on, but he...

Send us Fan Mail It’s the Devon Congress 2024 - Coming soon to an east-coast back road near you (if you live on the east coast and are there in April, that is).  This April, people are coming from all over the world to celebrate the Devon Cattle breed and all of its many shapes and sizes.  And if you live in the U.S., 400 years of Devon history is something even more amazing to celebrate. Red Devo...

Send us Fan Mail It’s time for the mashup!  The Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Growers’ Association once again hosted 30,000 (plus) attendees at the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, and we were there to see (and interview, and livestream, and…everything) all of it! Maybe lots of it.  Part of it.  Okay, so we got what we could again this year, but this is the kind of wonderful occasion that...