Farming is bittersweet.

I’ll start by saying: I raise lamb for meat, to feed my family and my neighbors.

I recently took four of my wethers (neutered male sheep) to a butcher in St. Johnsbury, VT. I always have very mixed emotions about this process. After all, I’ve cared for these animals since birth, doing everything I can to ensure that they are happy and healthy. Their welfare is of paramount importance to me.

Loading them onto the trailer, into the livestock box that I built, and driving them an hour away is always an emotional experience, a combination of pride and sadness. The wethers need to be trained to go into the box, and become comfortable there to minimize any stress they feel. This takes a couple of days, but it is well worth it. Then the drive in the cool hours of early morning, arriving at the butcher at about 6:30.

The NEK Processing crew are incredibly nice—gentle and careful with the animals, super nice facility—in short, an extension of my own animal husbandry philosophy.

A week later, four boxes of various cuts were ready for me. Driving home on a cooler than usual summer day, I decided to make an impromptu lamb stew as soon as I got home. I browned a package of stew meat, threw in some carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, onions and a splash of red wine, and cooked it for 35 minutes in my InstantPot. It was, without a doubt, incredible. Tender, sweet, succulent. Maybe the best lamb I’ve ever raised, and this ain’t my first rodeo.

THAT, friends, is why I raise lamb. I know these animals, I know how they have spent their lives, and I am proud of the quality of the lamb I produce. I like to say that my lambs have one bad day in their lives—and I try to make that day as easy for them as possible.

I’ve been asked how I can stand to raise animals for meat. The question for me is, How could I NOT raise my own meat? If I’m going to eat meat, I want to know where it comes from, how it lived (and died). I have the means, the willingness, and the ability to do so. I want to be intimately connected to producing my food.

Not everyone can do this, or even wants to do this. I get it. And if you’re someone who appreciates knowing where your food comes from, who values local agriculture, who wants healthy meat, Lucky Dog Farm is the place for you. And you know what? Even if those things are low on your list of priorities—you’ll still love my lamb. That’s my promise to you.

Farmer Judith