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Eleanor & Franklin
Loving Life on the Farm By Nancy Dewar
Six years ago, Virginia and Chris Roosevelt of Newfields, New Hampshire made a life-changing transition and have never looked back. Having spent a great deal of their adult lives in New England, they’d always thought of themselves as “water and beach people.” The couple lived in Newport, Rhode Island for the past several years, and spent four to six months a year in North Carolina where Chris pursued his life-long passion as a commercial fisherman. As the industry became more regulated and overloaded with paperwork, it was time for a change; and make a change they did by becoming homesteaders here in New Hampshire!
The modern-day definition of homesteader is “someone who seeks a lifestyle of self-sufficiency.” Disillusioned with commercial fishing, Chris started thinking about things he could do back in the Northeast and began reading about farming. His extensive reading piqued his interest in compromised food sources. The idea of a farm was beginning to take root, and they started gravitating to New Hampshire where Virginia had spent her childhood summers at the beach. When they came across Windroc Farm in Newfields, a meticulously restored 1794 home in a pastoral country setting, Virginia said, “That was it. We discovered this farm, and we just went for it. We really didn’t think it through at all.”
Though the property had been a vineyard complete with a restored barn that functioned as a tasting room, the land needed a lot of work. There were three acres of cleared land and according to Chris “lots of dust and little pasture.” To improve the soil, they started with pigs to loosen it and then brought in goats and sheep to fertilize and clear it. Pigs use their snouts to work the soil, tilling several inches into the ground. Over the past few years they’ve cleared four more acres and created 1 ½ miles of walking paths around the pastures built by Chris.
Windroc Farm now has sheep, chickens and of course, family dogs; and the animals have wound their way into Virginia and Chris’ hearts. They started with eight lambs, and this year they have five ewes, one ram and nine little lambs. “We’re more into animal husbandry. We love the animals and sell the babies that we don’t keep to other homesteaders for pets or for utilitarian purposes (grass or wheat cutting). Initially we raised them for meat but had such a hard time taking them to slaughter that we decided to try husbandry instead. This is why we began referring to ourselves as failed farmers,” Chris and Virginia declared with a chuckle.
Windroc Farm in Newfields
This spring three of the lambs were orphaned so Chris fed them each three bottles a day. “These little ones became very attached to us. On nice days we take the three lambs and dogs to the top of the knoll, and they just stay with us,” Virginia said. She went on about the others. “They have their own way of communicating. We understand them, and they seem to understand us. We’ve a lamb that loves to be hugged and looked in the eye. They are very serene, peaceful, gentle animals. And of course, there is the all important fact that we feed them! What animal doesn’t love being fed?”
What’s funny is Virginia wasn’t always into animals. Chris laughed as he told me, “When we started this Virginia said to me ‘I hope you realize that I’m not an animal person.’ Now she’s the most non-animal lover, animal person I’ve ever met!” They got their two dogs as puppies, and they are inseparable…from each other and from their Mom and Dad! Eleanor is a 5-yearold toy Aussie Shepherd and Franklin, a 4-year-old Coton de Tuléar, a small breed originally from Madagascar named for the city of Tuléar. “I wanted a lap dog and saw Franklin,” Virginia explained. “He turned out not only to be a lap dog but also more of a farm dog than Ellie! He is expert at herding the sheep when we move them from one pasture to the next.”
The couple also grows a variety of vegetables that they’ve made more productive with the installation of a hoop house (a metal framed building covered with plastic). Temperatures stay 10 to 20 degrees warmer than outside, and they grow seven 65’ rows of veggies with a timed drip irrigation system. Fresh veggies are placed in their roadside farm stand on weekends and sold on the honor system.
Though homesteading sounds a bit romantic, it’s actually a lot of hard work; and Chris and Virginia do all of it. “I need a job that’s all consuming and takes up a full day,” Chris explained. “I’ve read dozens of books about how to bring back land and make it productive. We have good, healthy pastures now. I really want to spend my days in the field. We do everything ourselves here except for the vineyard which is leased out.”
Virginia expounded a bit more. “With everything going on in the world these days, working a farm is like being transported to an easier time. The lifestyle, it’s really quite beautiful. We are very focused and spend time together again. When Chris was fishing, I was alone from early morning to late at night and sometimes for several days at a time. Now we have three meals a day together again!”
In the six years that Virginia and Chris have lived at Windroc, it has become a fully productive, functioning farm again thanks to their relentless hard work. But getting it to this point wasn’t easy nor for the faint of heart. Virginia laughed as she explained a bit more about what motivates her husband. “Chris isn’t attracted to something unless there is a huge learning curve. This is what attracted him to me; a woman with five kids under the age of twelve. Now there’s a big learning curve, and obviously he loves a challenge!”
