Goodbyes and Hellos All Around
As in most things, change is inevitable and even more so on a farm. Or maybe it’s just that it is more obvious! We wish here to say goodbye and thank you to our departing farm managers, Justin and Teagan Moran; and hello and welcome to our arriving farm managers, Denny and Kate Rivera.
For the past two years Justin and Teagan Moran have worked at Leaping Lamb Farm, introducing us to rotational grazing, organic farming methods, detailed work tracking, and vegetables we have never heard of nor eaten before.
When we were first introduced to them, they were just a lovely couple finishing up a two year internship with Rogue Farm Corps. By the time they arrived on our farm, they were pregnant, had a puppy, and a yurt! While change for us meant an easing of heavy labor, theirs was the complexity of child and puppy rearing, building a house, and taking on the responsibility of managing a new farm.
As their daughter, Tulsi, grew to a point where she could run faster than her parents, and Justin and Teagan both took other jobs off the farm, priorities changed and family life evolved to a place that needed more time and space to themselves. Thus, a decision was made to move away from the farm and back to the familiarity of regular schedules and old friends in the Willamette Valley.
And with that, we welcomed Kate and Dennis Rivera to our farm as our new managers in May, 2019. In fact, Kate is well known to us. She has worked for me at Leaping Lamb Farm in her capacity as Membership and Marketing Manager for the U.S. Farm Stay Association since 2011. She has also focused on the LLF website and our Facebook and Instagram accounts. We knew Dennis mainly as a photographer, one whose photos of our farm have shown up in national publications.
In the last several years, Kate and Denny had taken up their own small farming operation – purchasing some of the LLF flock for their own, raising laying and broiler chickens, and working for a neighbor farmer in Monroe. When they applied to be our farm managers, it seemed like an easy glove to fit. Kate already knew how the farm ran and Denny had experience now not only in farming but construction, vineyards, and operating a tasting room (customer service).
We feel change is good all around. We thank Justin and Teagan for their hard work and wish them all the best in their new adventures. And we welcome Kate and Denny onto our farm and into their new adventure. Farming is a small world and our paths are intersected forever. If you run across Justin at the farmers market in Portland, say hello for us. If you see Kate welcoming you at the front door, don’t be surprised if Denny isn’t right behind her… or out pruning our vineyard so we can actually toast with wine someday and not just make jelly for our toast!
