Herd the call

A few years ago Kathy Donovan got the opportunity to become a small Virginia farmer. It was all there - the land, the fences, the buildings, grass, sky, and cool mountain air. But what should she raise? Horses immediately came to mind, but she didn't know enough about them and thought they were too big. Cattle would be good, but they were too big, too. Then she thought about bees. Bees could work. So she researched bees. She talked with a master beekeeper and was excited about the prospects until she told him where she lived.

"Oh, you've got black bears all over that mountain, you don't want bees!" he told her.

Kathy wanted a project she could master herself, so she settled on sheep. But not just any sheep. She chose Karakuls, a rare breed that comes in whites, blacks, reds, and browns. She was enamored with their reputation for hardiness and adaptability, and their calm intelligence and inquisitive demeanor. She liked their size, their wool, their uniqueness. Perfect.

Kathy is now a shepherd, but it wasn't always that way. Just a few years ago, she and her husband, Joe, and two sons lived in a suburban community outside Washington, D.C. There, life was controlled by covenants, and Joe commuted by public transportation to his job in the city.

But Kathy dreamed of living on a farm. She had spent her childhood in Ohio visiting farmer aunts, and she garnered a love for farm living, gardening, and animals. "It's in my genes," she says. "But it's not in Joe's!"

When they got the chance to move to the country, they took it. They bought 10 mountainside acres near Bluemont, Virginia, and named their place Checkmate Farm. "Now, with this property," she says, "my dream has become our dream." They are still within commuting distance to D.C.; the Washington Monument is visible from their living room window on a clear day. But they are definitely in a rural area, with their acres surrounded by bigger parcels of land and no close neighbors.

The land is ringed with stone fences that have been bordering properties in that area since Revolutionary War times. Kathy's flowerbeds ring their 1800's home and bring color to the barns, outbuildings, and driveway. There is history here. Kathy feels that it is their duty to take care of this home and to improve upon it, to preserve it further into history. "We are caretakers of this property," she says. "I feel like we're just custodians traveling through this house, and I feel so honored just to be here."