Yankee Rock Farm was not born of decidedly deliberate goals. Our farm is the result of a couple wide-eyed appetites falling into unison at just the right place and exactly the best time. This story is crowded with selfless mentors, humble 4-H clubs long forgotten, big-hearted parents, a quick and keen love story, and enough bumps along the way to form a mountain. We’ve condensed the gobs of daring technicalities for a simple take on how Yankee Rock Farm came to be.

Growing up along the suburban southern coast of Massachusetts, Siri had narrow exposure to agriculture. Before all else came regular visits to her uncle’s farm in a bucolic valley stuck on the map as small-town Vermont. In his barns Siri’s captivation with livestock began and gained ground. By the cunning age of ten or so she had her heart set on life in the shadow of the Green Mountains, with a life built around animal husbandry. We can’t have a guess at what was said to convince Siri’s folks that a move north was the right idea. Merely weeks before a new school year’s start, Siri and her family left behind the normalcy of suburban life to replant in Addison County, Vermont.  In this agricultural landscape, Siri was able to test out the life of “shepherd” sampling several breeds and management styles before settling on her Finns and Border Cheviots.  For several years and all through college, Siri was the proud owner of Dancing Moon Farm.

Meanwhile, young Colin was maneuvering his first flock of Border Leicesters between several properties without a farm of his own. Colin was a child who would nearly never move his nose from a book which is how the seed was planted to grow up and become a farmer. First, it was the “gateway livestock” of rabbits that filled the basement of his parent’s home in central Massachusetts. When his 4-H club took an interest towards sheep, Colin was introduced to a shepherd from Rhode Island who sold him his first lamb. That shepherd, Polly Hopkins, would become a teacher, guide, and friend to Colin as his flock blossomed. The first sheep captivated him with all the wonders or lambing, shearing, showing, and every part of being a shepherd and quickly grew into a thriving flock. Just before he entered high school, Colin’s parents came around to accepting that the sheep were not a passing phase. Thanks to their ample foresight, they began the search for a new home with a bigger backyard which eventually brought Siegmund Family Farm to a couple of acres in northern Connecticut. 

Plenty of years growing up with sheep shows, shearing, and lambing seasons plus some college and separate flickering careers found the two of us bumping into each other, by odd chance, at a sheep sale in Ohio. We’d both seasoned our young statures in the tight network of New England sheep farmers and so we most certainly knew of each other at the time. But it took the desire for a familiar face all the way in a Midwest fair barn for us to actually carry out a conversation. Only a few more dates (back east!) and the sparks were lit.

For five years, Yankee Rock Farm evolved out of the groundwork we’d each laid in our separate farms.  The flock peaked at around 50 purebred ewes kept in rented barns and pastures spread out around Vermont plus Colin’s family’s home in Connecticut.  In the summer of 2024 we were granted the opportunity to settle into something more steady.  We bought a farm – locally known as “the old Rutter farm” which we are told was the first grass-fed dairy in Vermont! – and found some sense of place deep in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.  The farm was acquired with a long, thoughtful plan for growth and expansion kicked off with the addition of a commercial flock of Cheviot-based ewes and a few more dogs.  Though it feels like we’ve spent a lifetime getting to this milestone in many ways, our story is only beginning.

Cheers,

Siri & Colin