Rachel Wagoner

3 weeks ago | farmanddairy.com | Rachel Wagoner

Rural arts programs helped Eastern Kentucky maker Cynthia Main develop Sunhouse Craft, a sustainable business with an Appalachian sense of place. Main’s origin story parallels that of many small-town makers. She was scrappy, sleeping in a hammock  and working hard to make a living. But now Sunhouse Craft is on a growth trajectory to reach a seven-figure revenue in the next several years. Main’s livelihood has always been at the intersection of the land and handmade craft.

1 month ago | farmanddairy.com | Rachel Wagoner

The best way to avoid getting a tick-borne disease is to avoid getting bitten by a tick. And the best way to do that is to avoid contact with ticks by staying out of tick habitats (wooded and brushy areas with high grass and leaf litter). But this advice doesn’t work so well for farmers and other folks who work outdoors.

1 month ago | farmanddairy.com | Rachel Wagoner

PARMA, Ohio — Soda Kiser walks his 4-H steer on a rope halter out of the barn at Stearns Homestead. It’s a rainy day, but Soda and the bovine seem unbothered by the steady drizzle as they head to the front of the farm for the Homestead Hoofers 4-H club Potential Buyers Night on May 3. Soda stands with the black steer in the driveway of the homestead, talking about his 4-H projects and answering questions from visitors.

1 month ago | farmanddairy.com | Rachel Wagoner

MANTUA, Ohio — Two men and a sledgehammer. That’s all it took to take down the Kotkowskis’ 80-foot concrete silo. The silo was damaged by a fire last fall that destroyed the Kotkowskis’ barn and killed two-thirds of their goat herd. When its concrete staves hit the ground on May 1, it brought the couple one step closer to closing the final chapter on their farm life in Portage County. Blair and Karen Kotkowski had been waiting for the silo to come down to build their new modern beef barn.

2 months ago | farmanddairy.com | Rachel Wagoner

Warming spring weather brings relief from the biting cold of winter, but it also marks the start of severe weather season in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. At our farm, we’re used to securing the barn doors before a big thunderstorm and checking the fenceline for downed trees afterward. It floods occasionally here, and we’re no strangers to hunkering down to ride out a cold snap or a winter storm. But I think a lot about what we would do if another natural disaster struck our farm.