The Accidental Sheep Farmer
First Came Chickens, Then a Flock of Sheep
By Wendy Carlson
Photos by Rana Faure
If you visit Dashing Star Farm in Millerton and ask the owner, Lynn Mordas, about the products she makes, you may need to take a seat first. It’s a long list, and the workroom of her cozy farmhouse is filled with woolly works in progress. Her cat, Theodore, has the best perch, atop an ironing board.
Almost everything is made on site from wool sheared from her flock of sheep, which Mordas raises for meat. Only a few products are outsourced; the beautiful naturally colored yarns are processed at a mill where the raw wool is washed, picked, carded and spun into skeins. With two part-time employees helping, Mordas produces sheepskin-covered benches and stools, pillbox-style hats, plush sheepskin rugs and throw pillows, dusting wands and bedding. Felted wool is fashioned into tech covers, pot holders, pet toys, dryer balls, trivets, totes, boot liners, booties and more. The product line will soon include apparel, accessories and decor developed by students from Parsons School of Design through a grant from the New York Fashion Innovation Center.
It’s a busy place inside and out. Several sheep pelts air outside on the crossrail fence, waiting to be trimmed and shipped to a tannery. In the barnyard, chickens treat themselves to dust baths under the watchful eyes of multicolored, placid-looking sheep. One of the ewes will give birth any day. Each year, Mordas chooses a naming scheme for the lambs; this year, it’s artists from the Works Progress Administration, the government program that supported artists through the Great Depression. The newborn might be called Margaret, after the photographer Margaret Bourke-White.
Mordas fell into sheep farming by chance. She had a long career with the Environmental Protection Agency and worked a stint as a sports photographer, covering NBA and NCAA basketball. In 1984, when she and her now ex-husband purchased a historic farmstead in Millerton, they bought a few hens and geese. About ten years later, she provided temporary housing to a flock of sheep, but the farmer never returned to retrieve them. So, with no livestock experience, Mordas took a leap of faith.
A single mom by then, she credits the friends and mentors who guided her early on. Working with experts in the field, she educated herself on breeding sheep, crossing English Romneys and Border Leicesters. Later, she added other breeds, including Coopworths, developed originally in New Zealand, and Finnsheep, known for their tender meat. Now these unique breeds graze in Dashing Star’s pastures. The farm’s eggs and meat are featured on menus at several restaurants, sold at area retailers, by appointment at the farm, and at farmers markets in Cold Spring and Beacon.
It’s been a long haul from the day Mordas became, as she notes, an “accidental sheep farmer.” Today, she finds delivering healthy lambs and caring for them in a humane, regenerative and environmentally sustainable manner especially gratifying. “Making superior, useful products that people appreciate, that’s the icing on the cake,” she says.
