Our home farm is the heart of Randall Glen. Our cove has been farmed for over two hundred years, and we continue that tradition. We welcome our guests to visit with our animals, to lend a hand around the farm, and to share our harvests with us.

• Our Animals
• Our Garden and Orchard
• The Seasons of Farming
• A Farm Album

Knowing that many of the old breeds and varieties are disappearing, wherever we can we raise traditional, heirloom animals and crops.

Our highland Shetland sheep are the same ancient breed long treasured in Scotland for their wool, and said to have been brought there by the Vikings. These beautiful, sturdy sheep have wonderful curved horns and bear wool in every color. In the spring you'll be delighted by the new lambs playing in the sheep meadow, and in summer you might see the annual shearing.

Our Sebastopol geese, with their orange beaks and brilliant white, fluffy feathers look as if they've been through a wind tunnel backwards. Ducks keep us company on the pond and you're likely to see parades of ducklings all summer. When the young ducks learn to fly, they delight in tap dancing on the tin roof of the barn! Every day you're welcome to help us gather eggs from our free range chickens. The feisty little Banties like to spend the day in the rhododendrons by the creek, and the red-gold Comets like to visit the horse barn and lay eggs in the feed boxes. The fluffy-legged Cochins and the shimmering gold Buff Orpingtons are always out and about looking for grasshoppers. You'll enjoy their eggs for breakfast, ranging from tiny, 2-inch Banty size to enormous speckled brown eggs.

Our Nubian goats bring perhaps the most smiles. They'll climb anything, and love to nap on rocks, logs, and even the picnic table in their pasture. They come in every sort of color and marking--Razzle Dazzle is black with white polka dots-and they're very friendly. They love to be petted, and happily join us on walks. The tiny spring kids might be the most adorable baby animals there are. Well into the summer we'll be hand feeding those that need it, and you're welcome to give a bottle to a baby.

Almost as many smiles come from our llamas. Black Shiloh is the dad llama, very kind and definitely buck-toothed. Sequoia the mama llama and her daughter Magnolia are both spotted. There's something inherently silly yet dignified about these preposterous-looking animals, and we love them. They don't always want to be petted, but if you stand quite still they're likely to come up and gently sniff your nose. Shiloh is always happy to be given a llama-chow treat, and he's very polite about it.

We have a large herd of horses both for work and for riding. Besides the saddle horses we have Sarah, our buggy mare, Mac and Ed, our huge spotted draft horses, and Ben, who's not only a very gentle horse to ride but also pulls a plow, the sledge, or a cart. Guests are invited to ride with us at our stables or to give a hand with feeding or grooming the horses.

We couldn't get along without our guardian dogs. Not watchdogs and not herders, guardian dogs watch over the other animals and protect them from predators. Bred in the Smoky Mountains, our guardians are a cross of Great Pyrenees, Anatolian, and Komondor breeds. The Smokies still have predators that threaten livestock, including coyotes, bobcats, wild dogs, mountain lions, and bears, and guardian dogs are alert against them all. They stay with their flocks in all weather and work in pairs, with one dog going out to confront the predator and one staying close to the flock in case the predators circle back. Awake watching all night, during the day they also keep an eye out for buzzards and hawks because their European ancestors were bred to guard against eagles. Sally and her puppy Sam stay with the sheep and goats; Roscoe and Heidi protect the horses and llamas and watch over the mountainside. These huge and valiant dogs are unfailingly fierce with predators, willing even to take on a bear, yet they're gentle and affectionate with people and other dogs.

Our nearly two-acre garden yields vegetables all summer and well into fall. We grow a number of heirloom varieties that are hundreds of years old. With us you can enjoy Mr. Stripey and Mortgage Lifter tomatoes, old English sweet peas, and green beans grown here in the cove for generations that are found nowhere else, along with squash, cucumbers, okra, peppers, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, beets, onions, watermelon, cantaloupe, and all sorts more. When the sweet corn comes in we have a feast, roasting ears in their shucks over a wood fire, and all summer we have the pleasure of digging new potatoes fresh from the garden.

We have a bounty of fruit, too. Early summer starts with wild black raspberries, followed by blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries. The old apple trees start ripening in late summer, and in our young orchard we have a score of heirloom apples traditional to the Smokies, along with peaches, cherries, plums, apricots, pears, grapes, and figs. The fall brings wild grapes and a harvest of chestnuts, hickory and black walnuts to crack all winter.

There's a wonderful, gentle rhythm to the seasons of farming, and we'd love to have you join us through the year. In the spring there's plowing with the horses and planting the crops, and the arrival of lambs and kids, sometimes while it's still snowing. In summer we're tending the crops and harvesting vegetables most every day, picking fruits and wildflowers, shearing sheep, and welcoming new chicks and ducklings. In the fall we're turning the garden and planting greens, tying up cornshocks, gathering apples and nuts, and putting away the potato crop under beds of straw. All winter we're smoking bacon and hams. The orchard and garden sleep under the snow, which brings nutrients rich as any fertilizer. Before long the crocus and daffodils burst blooming out of the snow, and our spring rhythm begins again.

We love our farming life. As a 17th-century English verse describes it:

Click here to view A Farm Album