Nature’s classroom
From left, Lakyn Weems, Hogan Williamson, Judy Snead and Eli Snead have fun feeding some of the chickens at Snead’s farm. PHOTOS BY TONIA R. WILLIAMSON/LIFE IN THE SHUTTER PHOTOGRAPHY
City girl turned full-time farmer shares passion for animals and education By Jennifer Crossley Howard
O
n a recent cold spring day, goldenrod glowed against dull, gray skies and porch swings floated idle on the county roads that lead to Snead’s Farmhouse. Judy Snead – farmer, educator, animal wrangler – walked to the side of her house and greeted her flock. “Mama’s here!” she called with glee as she opened the gate. On command, a menagerie of chickens, pigs, ducks, peacocks, roosters and white turkeys came running with the enthusiasm of puppies. Every creature is welcome at Snead’s Farmhouse, amongst the crowing, oinking, cackling and mooing, and whatever sounds an alpaca makes. These farm animals educate their Cullman County community and beyond about how they grow, and what it takes to run a small farm. So many of these species thrive together rather than being segregated, a typical farm practice. The notion of inclusivity, along with teaching and sharing the pleasures of how such a farm works, is what led to Snead reaching out to the public and schools.
of a pandemic. Her husband, a welder and carpenter, was transferred from Stapleton to north Alabama. Snead’s stepdad was sick and moved with the family in April 2019. When they arrived at their new homestead deep in the woods of Cullman County, Snead was out of her element. “I am not a farmer,” she said, dressed in a barn coat and thick-soled boots. “I grew up in the city. I was in sales and wore heels.” There was a simple wooden chicken coop behind their house that hadn’t been touched in a minute. “I didn’t know anyone, and I couldn’t leave the house because of care taking,” Snead says. “I was depressed, and my husband said, ‘Why don’t you get some chickens?’” She asked him why she’d want to do that, and he told her fresh eggs. “I said, ‘I’m not eating any eggs that come out of a chicken’s butt — mine are clean and come from (the grocery store),’” Snead says, laughing. She has since eaten her own words, in a sense.
“I think I’m going through a midlife crisis. Most people get a Corvette. I got a farm.”
It was the pale pastel blue-, gray- and clay-colored eggs that drew her to invest in more chickens, to expand her palette of eggs. Discovering fuzzy-footed chicks with huge hair didn’t hurt. “I thought, ‘Oh dear Jesus I’ve got to have that,’” Snead says, laughing. That led to collecting more species of chickens including Silkies, Tolbunt Polish and Cuckoo. “The more froufrou the chicken is, the harder it is to raise,” Snead says. Then she decided she had to have a rooster. Then her husband’s
Snead’s Farmhouse, a member of Cullman Electric Cooperative, is a 501C3 nonprofit educational farm that sits down many a winding road between Old Highway 31 and Alabama 157. It sprang unintentionally, and in Judy Snead’s case, in the middle 20 JUNE 2022
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Farm animals find homes at Snead’s
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