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Nettle Meadow Farm in Thurman, NY is like the Florida of the Adirondacks, full of retired animals. There are brightly colored peacocks and mini horses. There’s a flock of old sheep and a bachelor pad of bucks.
Owner Sheila Flanagan leads me on a tour of the farm on a recent spring day. She’s wearing tall muck boots and a thick black sweater. She starts the farm tour with Lucy, a pot-bellied pig that is splayed out in a fluffy bed of yellow straw.
“Aw, Lucy,” says Flanagan, “she’s sunning herself, she’s so happy.”
Flanagan thinks Lucy is about 14 or 15 years, which is pretty old for a pot-bellied pig. She says Lucy needs a bit of extra care these days. “She gets painkillers every day. She gets all sorts of vegetables along with her grain.”
Animals here come from farms across upstate after their agriculturally productive days are over. Flanagan points to where the other retirees live.
A lot of these animals have worked most of their lives. Flanagan says she and her partner, Lorraine Lambiase wanted to give them a place to grow old. Flanagan describes this part of the farm as their animal sanctuary. It’s open every day to the public.
A couple pulls up and tells Flanagan they’re hoping to see the animals. “There’s a tour at noon and then there’s also self-guided tours,” Flanagan tells them. She grabs the two a brochure and they head out to see the place themselves.
Kids come to the farm’s animal sanctuary with their families. There’s a concert series here in the summer. Flanagan says she loves the joy these animals bring people.
It was her own love of animals that brought her to the Adirondacks 16 years ago. Flanagan had been working as an insurance lawyer out in Oakland, California. She says she hated the work and wanted a change.
Plus, Flanagan says, she’s got the heritage for it. “I come from many generations of dairy farmers in Ireland, so it was something that wasn’t completely foreign to me.”
Sixteen years later, they’re got a huge retirement compound for farm animals and a successful cheese business. Milk for their cheese comes from other herds of goats, cows, and sheep.
Flanagan shows me inside the main farmhouse and leads me down a narrow set of stairs. This used to be a subterranean butter cellar in the 1800s, she tells me. Now, it’s where they make the cheese.”……
View the whole story here: https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/43647/20210427/out-to-pasture-an-adirondack-cheese-farm-is-also-a-haven-for-retired-animals