About the farm:
Mosby's Secret Sidehill Farm is a small, woman-owned & operated homestead farm in Amherst County, Virginia. It provides a range of handmade, organic farm lines, including soap, wool products, gluten-free grains, free-range eggs, pasture-raised pork and a raw milk herdshare.
Crops, livestock & Education:
At Mosby's, we're the opposite of monocultural! Our farm includes:
- Heritage, gluten-free grains, raised by draft-horse power,
- Oberhasli Dairy Goats, whose sweet milk makes up the majority of our raw milk goat herd share program,
- Finnsheep, or "Finnish Landrace" sheep, provide wool, meat and milk for the herdshare,
- American Guinea Hogs, for breeding and pasture-raised pork (custom butchering available),
- Ancona Ducks, who lay large eggs from March through July,
- Livestock Guardian Dogs, who protect our flocks and herds from the predators that live in our local forests,
- Medicinal herbs and a dye garden (for dyeing wool fiber products),
- A variety of homemade, traditional craft items, including soaps, syrups, cold-press oils, hand-combed wool roving, handspun threads & yarns, and hand-woven wool fabrics.
Who we are:
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Weaver/spinner/animal enthusiast/history-nerd/farmer Shannon started the farm in 2012, pursuing her passion for reconstructing history, hands-on. Besides traditional homesteading and livestock, her interests include archaeology, primitive skills, leather tanning, prehistoric construction methods, spinning, weaving, traditional soap making, gluten-free baking and calligraphy/illuminations.
In 2014, handsome farmhand Chris signed on to become a part of the sustainable farm goal, and in 2017 he started his own sustainability consulting business, Stoffel's Sustainable LLC, so that he could work fulltime with the farming & education business. Both also participate in an international medieval reenactment group, the Society for Creative Anachronism. |
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Location
Located in the rural mountains of central Virginia, the farm sits on a rise along the side of Mt. Pleasant, an easy drive from Lexington, VA (on I-81), an hour from Roanoke, VA and Charlottesville, VA and 30 minutes from Lynchburg, VA. Sweet Briar College is only fifteen minutes away, and the Appalachian Trail crosses Rt 60 ten minutes away in the opposite direction.
The farm relocated from its original site along Dutchman's Creek in northwestern Virginia, where it acquired its name from Col. John S. Mosby. The Civil War guerrilla cavalryman hid horses in a cave along Dutchman's Creek, near the original farmhouse--thus the farm was named, Mosby's Secret Valley. The new location is higher in the mountains, thus requiring the name change from Valley to Sidehill. At the new farm, there are lovely views of the Blue Ridge mountains, including Mount Pleasant, along with a mature forest of oaks, pecans and other nut trees, a small creek and a hidden spring.
The farm relocated from its original site along Dutchman's Creek in northwestern Virginia, where it acquired its name from Col. John S. Mosby. The Civil War guerrilla cavalryman hid horses in a cave along Dutchman's Creek, near the original farmhouse--thus the farm was named, Mosby's Secret Valley. The new location is higher in the mountains, thus requiring the name change from Valley to Sidehill. At the new farm, there are lovely views of the Blue Ridge mountains, including Mount Pleasant, along with a mature forest of oaks, pecans and other nut trees, a small creek and a hidden spring.
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