More than 100 years ago, the last logs were driven down the Connecticut River within sight of Maplemont Farm in Barnet, Vt. The famous log drives are long gone. But the farm, where an anniversary celebration was held in 2015, is still in agriculture.

For the past five years, owners Amber Reed and Chris Doolan have been bringing its former dairy barn back to life for use on their sheep farm. The gambrel-style barn, on the State Register of Historic Places, is 40 feet by 80 feet with a galvanized steel roof and cow weathervanes. A wide high-drive leads into the second floor, which was once a haymow.

The roof was replaced by the previous owners through a Vermont Historic Barn Preservation grant. Reed and Doolan just received another preservation grant to continue the restoration work.

They’ve invested plenty of their own money into the barn. One of their first projects was installing French drains around the barn to keep roof and hillside water from running into it.       

They have also replaced many floorboards in the haymow and some beams that were rotting from the failing roof — and doors that were left open for too many years.

When they started using the barn for sheep, they removed the remaining tiestalls and filled the gutters with sand.      

More work to do

The $20,000 matching grant the couple recently got will help pay to rip out the broken concrete multi-level floor, once a tiestall, leveling it for easier cleaning and resurfacing with Staymat. The walls and ceiling are original Douglas fir and are in good shape.

But the metal columns, filled with unreinforced concrete, are rusting at the base from exposure to cow urine and manure. They’ll be replaced with historically accurate wood columns after new footings are poured.

Rotting wooden door frames and windowsills will be replaced, especially on the north side. The work will improve the barn for winter housing and lambing. And with more space, a more efficient pen setup and updated frost-free tanks, the couple plan to increase their flock size.

The former milk room is contaminated with lead paint. After that’s removed, Reed plans to turn it into a farm store to sell lambskins, fleeces and meat.

From dairy to sheep

The barn, visible from across the Connecticut River in New Hampshire and from Interstate 91, is a well-known local landmark. Reed and Doolan host events for farmers and schoolchildren, often in conjunction with the Barnet Library. Last year, 125 people visited the farm.

The history of the farm starts with its sale by Willard Gill in 1844 through a series of owners, ending up in the hands of Martin and Lizzie Turner in 1904. Turner was an orphan who built a successful life, first as a butcher, logger, and then a landowner and town official.

By all accounts he was an excellent farmer, restoring the fertility of the soil, and constructing the house and barn to showcase the farm’s improvements. Turner’s “dairy barns, built with a view to labor savings, are perhaps not equaled in the state,” Vermont of Today wrote in 1929. A lightning fire razed the barn in 1936, but Turner rebuilt.

Reed and Doolan bought the farm in 2018, mainly for its rolling pastures and proximity to the Connecticut River. Planted to corn at the time, they seeded the land to pasture and brought in sheep the next year.

Sheep are lighter than cows and can graze steeper land. They also provide meat, milk and wool, Reed says. In her planned grazing management, she rotates a flock of 75-80 ewes and lambs through small paddocks.

“The pastures need a long rest period for the parasitic worms to die off; otherwise, they reinfect the sheep,” she says.

Fortunately, Doolan owns a fencing company, so the sheep are well-protected from coyotes, bears and domestic dogs by a hot fence and a guard donkey.

 “We fit the flock to the size of the pastures here; we can’t have a thousand head of sheep,” Reed says. “And we keep the farm at a manageable size so we can still work off farm.”

Lamb is wholesaled to cooperatives and chefs in the region, she adds.

Reed works full time as a grazing specialist for University of Vermont Extension and White River Natural Resources Conservation District, helping farmers improve their grazing management with goals of good water quality and healthy soils.

Planting roots in Vermont

Before buying Maplemont, Reed ran a diversified farm for several Boston restaurants, just across the Connecticut River in Bath, N.H.

After growing up in Maine and attending Bowdoin College, she participated in the Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF) program in Europe, and studied honey production and agroforestry in Brazil. “I had a global farming education,” she says.

One of her previous work stints was as a ranching apprentice for the Quivira Coalition in Colorado. That experience gave her an appreciation for good grassland management, which she carries on at Maplemont.

“We care deeply about making a positive impact,” she says.

Harlow writes from Vermont.