Farmer Friday returns - Pleasant Valley Farm

GardenShare intern Maya Williams traveled over to Edwards recently to learn more about one of the new vendors at the area farmers markets, Pleasant Valley Farm.

A curious Red Angus, one of the 60 cattle living on Pleasant Valley Farm in Edwards NY

“It’s come a long way,” Jeff Shippee says as he drives me over the rocky hills that span the Pleasant Valley Farm. Ten years ago, Jeff and his wife Mo bought more than 300 acres in Edwards, New York. Over the past 160 years, the land has changed ownership and has been divided up in the process but Jeff and Mo have spent the past decade restoring it to the farmland it once was in the 1850s. The couple brought the fields back, installed extensive lines of fencing, and refinished the historic barn, which was initially 2-feet deep with pigeon poop, hay, and trash. Pleasant Valley Farm is now a thriving meat farm with 60 cows and 10 pigs, all grass fed and grain supplemented. The land is extensive, rolling with hills and divided by a small stream that meanders across. The property also continues on the opposite side of the road, and cattle are rotated between fields during grazing season. Jeff shows me the property on his 4-wheeler, while Mo sits on the back, describing the history of the farm.

The herd of Red Angus graze together, overlooking their expanse of farmland.

A small stream cuts through the farmland

“We started with two cows,” Mo laughs, as she recounts the decision to start farming. Jeff grew up on a dairy farm but Mo had never farmed before. After years of working for a plumbing and mechanical business in Philadelphia, the couple sought a different lifestyle away from “suburbia America” as Mo called it. “Both of us wanted to live on a farm,” Mo explains, so they bought the land in Edwards and began the process of raising animals. “I felt like it was my calling.”

Jeff admires the herd of Red Angus

With limited experience, the couple bought two Scottish Highlanders and took care of them for two years in Philadelphia before moving them up to Edwards to start breeding. For the first nine years that Jeff and Mo owned the farm property, they were still living in Philadelphia. Jeff would commute every weekend to look after the farm and animals, receiving help from local neighbors when he was back at work during the week. “He put 80,000 miles in less than a year on a new truck,” Mo tells me. The couple finally retired from plumbing and mechanical in December 2016, moving up to Edwards full time.

Jeff pets two Red Angus steers, Rumple and Leroy, the first that will be butchered in May

Mo pets one of the Red Angus

Love for their animals and their land is what keeps these two working.

“I find if you interact with them they are a lot kinder,” Mo tells me as she places a soft hand on the neck of one of the Red Angus cows. Jeff and Mo light up as they describe calves in the spring. “It is such a joy to watch them run and frolic,” Jeff says fondly as Mo describes it as, “The epitome of frolicking!”

The lifestyle is rewarding for Jeff and Mo, between taking care of animals and being able to work in the outdoors. However, there are also challenges, especially as a relatively new farm in the area. “We are still in the beginning stages of trying to get established,” Mo said, but she is optimistic. Pleasant Valley Farm sells at the Canton and Gouverneur farmers markets during the summer, which has helped get their name out into the communities, but many people don’t realize they can visit the farm as well. Increasingly, the farm has been seeing visitors to get a tour, see the animals, and pick up meat for sale. This interaction between farmers and consumers is one of the greatest aspects of eating local. Seeing first-hand the amount of love and dedication farmers have put into their land and their animals has certainly helped me foster a deeper connection to food and appreciation for the people who make it possible.

The Pleasant Valley Farm barn, built in 1853.

The farm started with Scottish Highlanders but Jeff and Mo are in the process of switching the herd.

“We like the highlanders but they are destructive with those horns! And they don’t give us the meat we want,” Mo explains. “Eventually we will be all Red Angus.”

“We can get a lot more meat out of Red Angus,” Jeff pipes in.

The future plans that Jeff and Mo detail for me also include continued renovations to the historic barn. They hope to turn the meat locker, where meat is stored, into a room for sales, and refurbish other parts of the barn into a country store where Mo can sell her quilts. I grew up in a house built in the 1850s so I immediately recognize the old wooden beams that are the framework for the barn. It gives the space a sense of history. Pleasant Valley Farm prides itself as being “an old farm with a renewed life,” and the barn is a perfect visual of this renewed life that Jeff and Mo have breathed into this land. Mo tells me she’s heard the barn is haunted, however, she’s never seen any ghosts. “They must be happy with what we are doing with the place,” she jokes. How could they not be? It seems this is the way the land should be taken care of, by Jeff and Mo and their happy, frolicking cows.