Now that Juniper Moon Farm is serenely settled in our new beautiful location, Erin and I are very excited to be starting up Shepherding Camp again!
Our Shepherding Camp is a six-day, five-night fiber vacation at our farm You’ll stay at our farmhouse, help us take care of the flock, and knit and spin yourselves silly.
The price for Shepherding Camp is $1300 for up to two people. The accommodations are a private room with two twin beds, so it’s a great trip for two girlfriends or a Mother and Daughter. We can, in some cases, host a third person for an additional charge. While we encourage you to spend some time with our flock, you can do as much (or as little) farm work as you choose. If you’ve ever considered having a flock of sheep or herd of Alpaca of your own, Shepherding Camp is a great way to find out if shepherding is for you.
[2009 Shepherding Camper Kay snorgling Colorado]
When you’re not helping out on the farm you are free to explore the Charlottesville area. There are some lovely Vineyards nearby, as well as Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, The fee for Camp includes all meals, served family-style with the farm staff, but we can recommend some amazing restaurants nearby.
Space at Shepherding Camp is very limited! We can only accommodate two people at a time and we will only be doing three week-long Camps this year. However, we will be offering several mini-camps this year for the first time ever. The mini-camp will be a shorter, long weekend version of Shepherding Camp, with arrivals scheduled for Thursday evening/Friday morning and departures on Sunday. Just like with the week-long camp, all meals are included and we will keep you busy while you’re here. The cost for the Weekend Shepherding Camp is $600 for two people.
We will only be booking six weekends throughout 2010 so reserve your weekend early. I highly recommend the weekends during our lambing and kidding season, although we can’t make any promises that you’ll get to witness a birth. (Although, I will say that one lucky camper this summer saw twins being born half an hour after she arrived!) Kidding will begin in March and lambing will hopefully start in April.
And now, for the giveaway! You can enter here to win a Shepherding Camp Weekend for up to two people, all meals included. All you have to do is leave a comment here telling me why you’d like to spend a weekend at Juniper Moon Farm and who you’d bring with you if you win AND help us spread the word about the giveaway. Post the info and link on Facebook, twitter, your blog, in your Rav group, everywhere you can think of, cause we have to have 1000 comments before I’ll pick the winner. Fair enough?
One winner will be chosen at random from among all the entries. One entry per person, please. The winner’s name will be posted on the blog- then winner then has 48 hours to email us at prizes AT fiberfarm DOT com to claim his/her prize. A second drawing will be held in the event of an unclaimed prize and the clock will start again when the new winner’s name is posted.
The winner will work with Erin to schedule a mutually agreeable weekend for the visit. The winner will be responsible for all travel expenses to and from our farm.
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My daughter would like to start a fiber farm so I’d love to experience a weekend at Juniper Moon Farm. I’d bring her because she is such a fantastic knitter, and my nickname is “Mooncrazy”!
I’ve wanted to do the camp from the first time I heard about it. After spending a few hours at the farm, I only want to do the camp more! I do wish all the Aunties could be there at the same time. I don’t think I’d be allowed to return to work if I didn’t bring Eileen with me, and Victoria would probably hide herself in the suitcase.
I am a fairly new knitter who moved to the country four years ago trying to live a simpler richer lifestyle. My husband and I now have two horses as well as our three dogs and two cats. I have been fantasizing about having sheep and goats so that I could take that next step to be able to shear and process my own fleece. I would likely bring my friend Meghan of stitch it podcast with me if I were so lucky as to win this great experience. Thank you.
I’d like to spend the weekend at the farm because i want to have my own fiber farm someday, and your journey is so inspirational! as a college student on a budget, i haven’t been able to work up the funds to visit yet, but i’d love to learn what it is really like! i’d bring my best friend, who loves animals and farming as much as i do.
I would love to have a few sheep and an alpaca some day and a shepherding weekend would be the perfect way to see if its really for me.
Our (husband and I, starting to view ourselves as an actual farm with chickens and honeybees in place) plans for the coming year include sheep. This would be an excellent learning experience for us!
I would love to spend time at the farm! Knitting and working with the herd would be wonderful for me. More importantly, my husband wants to start our own farm someday when we can afford to buy a real house with land and everything! He would love it more than me!!
a weekend on a beautiful farm isn’t enough reason? I would love to see how they make it all work
I would love to go to shepherd camp! I am thinking of having a farm in a few years and I think this would be a great way to find out if I am cut out for farm life. I would bring my friend Lisa with me because she is thinking of doing the same. And the thought of having time off just to spin and knit amongst the other activities seems like a dream!
I’ve been a long time follower of the blog, though finances have kept me from becoming a shareholder. I participate in the Ravelry forum (a little) and I love the community. Every year DH takes a weekend trip with his buddies and I’ve never gotten around to scheduling my own trip. Lately I’ve been thinking that I want my trip to be to the farm. I do harbor the dream of owning an alpaca farm–but that is many, many years off. I’m not certain who I would bring–possibly my mom, or my knitting/spinning friend Dana who babysits my kids for free, or I may just have my own contest on Ravelry for the second bed!
I want to spend a weekend at the farm for many reasons. First, to meet Susie and Erin and the flock. Second, to be more involved in the CSA, which will make me feel more connected to my share. And third, to spend some time outside the city. I’ve started to get citified, and I don’t like it. I think some time in the country would do me good!
I would bring my mother with me, because I think she would enjoy it the most. Also, she needs a vacation!
This would be so much fun! I’d love to come work with the flock. An entire weekend meeting all the sweet animals that you post about would be amazing, and I’d bring my high school buddy. As moms, we rarely get the chance to hang out and chat. This way we’d have time to catch up.
Ooh, I’d like to do this because I’m a knitter – reason enough, right?
I’d bring my mom. She taught me to love knitting, and we’d both love the experience!
I started reading your blog the week before fair (we have dairy goats, chickens, and rabbits) began for my kids back in Sept. I have goats because my partner in crime, goat owning, knitting friend got me hooked on fresh goat milk…and I, in return, offer to “pick up” her alpaca from the farm nearby and drive it down in my van (we live 4 hours away from each other) the next time I visit. She has been grappling with the idea of owning a fiber alpaca, as well. Both of us encourage the other in ways of knitting, fiber hoarding, and goat herding that our husbands don’t exactly, um, appreciate…She would be my PERFECT partner for a getaway shepherding (okay, truth-she’s allergic to wool, so alpaca- and goat-herding) weekend! I can do the sheep chores. We both have teenagers that can take over OUR farm chores while we’re gone…and if they refuse, we’ll find someone to goat-sit!
I would love to see how you turn something that my husband regards as a very expensive hay-eating hobby into a lifestyle and a business. And how you keep yourself going in the day to day labor of it all, without getting discouraged in the grey gloom of the winter. This year I fell in the spring and broke several bones…I’m healing up, but not being able to care for my animals in the way I wanted to when I wanted to had me struggling to justify to the hubby, really, why they were so important to me. Now, I know they *are*, but it’s hard to put into words. I know you ladies get that…they just ARE important, and doing the work to care for the animals is fulfilling, somehow. I need to convince myself that I will be able to do this on my own again, and be strong again, and that just giving up on raising animals is not a choice I can make. I have somehow been drawn to this, it is worth all the work to keep them for what they give back to me, even if it is mostly right now the sort of thing you shovel out of a stall!! Some time to regroup with ladies who have come out the other side of a bad year would be just what the doctor ordered for this mom. Now, enough time on the computer, gotta go feed my goats!
I would love a getaway to such an idyllic place — I would love to learn more about shepherding! I would bring my husband. We’re newly married but the recession has hit us hard… We love trying out new and different things. This is a part of the country we’ve never been to.
I would take my mom and I would love to see the new farm and see, 1st hand, all of the hard work Susie and Erin put into the farm. It would also be nice to spend a weekend with my mom without her having to babysit my kids!
I’d like to attend shepherding camp because I didn’t get to do all the things I wanted to do while I was visiting, like spending more time with the animals and more time in the kitchen with Susie learning how to make some of the great dishes she makes. I promise I won’t sleep as much as I did last time if I’m chosen. I’d take GrandpaTutu with me–he’d LOVE the farm!!!
I would love to spend the weekend at juniper moon farm so that I can learn more about the fiber farm business. It has been my dream to raise sheep and goats. Currently I am a college student so financially it would be near impossible to find to money to pay for the shepherding camp.
This is a wonderful idea. I would love a weekend away and for it to be around fiber would be lovely.
I would so love this! I really love the IDEA of having a farm w/ various animals, and would love to introduce my husband to the whole thing, and to see if a couple days of vacay-reality does anything to change my mind (I’m sure it won’t, just make me want it more).
I would love a long weekend at your farm! I want to learn how to spin and dye my own yarn and I could be your apprentice. It looks so peaceful there and I could use a retreat/getaway. I would bring my friend who loves yarn almost as much as I do. Fingers are crossed.
I’d love to spend a weekend at Juniper Moon Farm to experience the process from animal to fiber to yarn. I have never visited a farm with sheep and alpaca before. I want to see and feel the fiber in its native form before it becomes luscious yarn to knit beautiful pieces with. I would take my mom along as she’s an old school knitter whose not familiar with most wool yarns. Starting from the animal, she’ll get to see the how it’s made versus the factory big box yarn. It would be an engaging way to learn about fiber firsthand.
Oh, I would SO love to win this! I’d bring my Mom. She lives in Front Royal, VA. She loves the outdoors and gardening and animals but hasn’t had much exposure to sheep or goats. Since my Dad passed on in Feb. (and her dog shortly after) she’s been exploring life on her own. It would be so much fun to have a weekend of girl time with her at your beautiful farm! I went to UVA but I’m in the Philly area now. Thanks for a wonderful contest!
I would really love to visit the farm…I want to play with the loom and the animals! But even more, I want to bring my husband to visit the farm. He grew up on a working farm, and we moved back to the farm when his parents died. It is no longer a working farm, but we have a grandson who really REALLY wants alpacas! My husband has had a very difficult year, healthwise, and I think this would be just the treat he needs!
I am very lucky to have a wonderful wife and a career that I find incredibly fulfilling, but I want to be more closely connected to the earth and the environment around us. Right now, my wife and I live in a suburban condominium where I have a fairly expansive container garden (I just planted apple trees!). My dream though is to buy a small house on a few acres so we can have a little farm so that we can live off the land and really practice farm to table values everyday.
I’ve gotten pretty good at gardening, but I want to learn more about raising sheep (and then eventually other animals). My wife knits, so we would shear the sheep for her. I want to learn how to make cheese, and I’d love to make cheese from our own milk. The one thing I could never do is eat our animals. A few weeks ago I went to a farm that practices permaculture, and I think raising and caring for sheep are a part of that.
It would be such an honor and a privilege to come to your farm to learn from you and spend time with your adorable wooly friends.
Thank you,
Jonathan Strausberg
Wow! What an awesome thing to give away. I would love to come and spend a week playing with sheep and goats. And the opportunity to do it when there’s the possibility of brand-new babies!?!? If I were to win, I would bring my sister who needs a touch of cuteness in her life right now. Add that we haven’t seen each other in two years… It’s time we had an excuse to spend some time together.
I only recently discovered JMF, but have already purchased a 2010 share to give my dear sis for Christmas and a calendar. I would absolutely love to bring my sister Claire for a Shepherding Camp Weekend for two reasons. First, because we are both enthralled by your entire operation and second, because she has actually shorn sheep when she worked on Fair Isle through a Thistle Camp run by the National Trust of Scotland. We both love sheep, knitting, helping out, etc. Oh, please, it would be a dream come true!
There are so many reasons: because I fantasize about having a little farm (even here in Fairbanks Alaska), I knit and would love to learn more about the sheep-to-yarn process and I love the Charlottesville area most of anywhere I’ve been. I would bring my best friend, who knits like a fiend. We are both turning 50 in 2010, and are looking for the perfect way to celebrate — this is it!
I am renovating my kitchen in the city because I will probably end up living here forever. And there is this LARGE part of me that wants to give it all up for the rural life – I want to go to shepherding camp so I can sort out fantasy from reality. And if I win I want to share with a “runner-up” for double the pleasure – double the fun. I will be paying off my kitchen for a while but have lots of vacation time due to those nasty furloughs.
I would love to come to the farm and see that there are folks living my dream and it can be a reality. I would bring my friend Diane because she is into this sort of life too and has a better car than I do and she can drive!! (haha)
I would like to spend a weekend at the farm so that I can learn more about shepardry and spend quality time with a flock. As an undergraduate student I am planning my future and would like it to include a farm. I would bring would bring one of my best friends, who is also a roommate and fellow fiber nut. We regularly discuss if it would be possible to sneak a sheep into the apartment…
I would welcome this to be an opportunity of a lifetime for me, I love all animals big and small!!
I would love to attend the shepherding camp so I can meet and know well the animals and people that supply me with yarn/fiber. I would bring a girlfriend or daughter…have to think that over ’cause so many would enjoy this! Thanks for offering.
I’m in my 3rd year of raising sheep. I’ve grown into a competent shepherd, but still have so much to learn!
Juniper Moon seems like an amazing place; My husband and I would love to attend shepherd camp as part of our education. Our sheep really do benefit from all of our visits to other fiber farms!
I’d love to win a shepherding camp weekend. I’d bring my daughter it would be a great addition to her 4-H projects.
Oh goodness, it would be wonderful to spend time with you, Erin and Paige for an entire weekend and possibly see a new lamb enter the world. You are such a blessing to Virginia, farming and raising awareness about the entire world of fiber. One thing I can guarantee -whomever wins this weekend will leave changed people
Best wishes.
My husband and I are both graduate students in theatre, and every day after mentally exhausting classes we collapse at home and talk about how we should drop it all and start a fiber farm. I would do the spinning, dyeing, and knitting, and my husband would tend to the sheep. We try to get as much fiber in our life as we can, but our academic & career demands make it difficult – both financially and timewise. This shepherding weekend would give us the skills needed to launch our dream and let us have a lovely weekend together – something we don’t get to do often enough.
I would love to spend a weekend at Juniper Moon! I think it would be a lovely experience. I enjoy seeing and reading about your flock in this blog so much, and I think it would be even more enriching to experience life there in the flesh. I would definitely bring my mom with me. She always jokes about buying a couple of goats or sheep for me, and I think she would really enjoy & appreciate a Shepherding Weekend with me.
Ooh, this sounds so lovely but how would I pick who to bring? I’d love to bring my mom (who is a fellow knitter) and my baby girl who loves sheep and goats! I’d also like to see/experience more of farm life in person and have a chance to get out of nyc for a bit!
I have never been to Virginia and your farm seems so much more graceful and civilized than the sheep farms I grew up around in the rural Rockie Mts. I would love to bring my daughter, visit some historical sites and maybe also visit some other farms. Farmers have a lot to learn from each other and you have been such an innovator. I would love to meet your lovely flock and the amazing Erin. We would have to rob a bank for the airfare, but who knows….
This would be a great excuse to spend time with my wife (Jen) and kids (Lou and Maggie). Maybe the kids could sleep on the floor?
Having a chance to see the new place and spend some time with Susie, Erin, Paige and the fleece growers would be a dream. If I were to win, I think I would run my own little contest among the Aunties to see who I’d bring with me. I’d want to make sure that it was someone who understood how special the experience was.
I’d love to spend a weekend at Juniper Moon because It would be wonderful and amazing to spend time with my best friend Debbie, play with lambs, kniit, read, rest, hike, and experience some renewing sabbath time!
Juniper Moon sounds like an amazing experience. I’ve always loved everything country but know very little about actually raising sheep and would love the experience. I also think it’d be cool b/c I’m a preacher and could learn a little bit more about all the sheep/shepherd metaphors Jesus uses in his teachings. My friend Jeannine is the one who mentioned it to me and it’d be a great way for us to get away and reconnect since we live so many states apart!
I’d love to spend a weekend at the farm because I love sheep and would love to experience caring for them and getting to know some of them personally. I would bring my friend Sarah who is my knitting buddy because I know she’d love it!
Wow, what an amazing gift you offer! I would bring my friend Kristina, who has been toying with the idea of raising alpaca for a few years now. She’s currently training to become an accountant. So the plan is for her to earn a tidy nest egg in her new career and THEN pursue alpaca farming! I will be her spinning consultant. We both knit. That’s the plan. Pick us!
Oh my! How fun would this be for a lucky gal/guy! I’d love to go and play with the all the sheeps, goats, dogs, chickens and anything else I could find! And learn how a farm works day/night. I would bring my husband, maybe, if he was a good boy, or my friend, who loves to knit/crochet and would love to get away.
I’d love to spend a weekend at the farm because we moved two years ago and for the time being don’t have any farm animals to take care of. I miss the care, feeding and the smell of my wonderful fiber animals. I would love to knit and spin and have a get-a-way. Haven’t been out of NH in almost 10 years – it is time!!
I’d bring my daughter or my friend Mandy. Mandy is a fellow “fiber freak” and my daughter is a “fiber freak cheerleader”. Might consider bringing my husband so that he will get inspired to get back into the fiber “biz”.
I think this is an awesome opportunity! Living a self- sustained (as much as I can) lifestyle is my dream. I am learning as much about everything as I can now. I would bring my friend Fran since she’s a fellow critter lover and she “gets me” – or, hee, hee, hee – since she’s older, I actually “get her”.
When I grow up I want to be an alpaca/sheep farmer. Oh, I want to come!!! In real life, I am a lawyer, but I still want to change careers. Please pick me.
Jenny
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