Living the simple life on Yellow Brick Road Farm
‘It fits so well with my soul to do what I’m doing’
There’s no denying Jennifer Spencer has a passion for agriculture.
Descended from generations of farmers in Welshtown, Shelburne County, where the family still has farmland, Spencer and her family have been “living more simply with intention” since 2014 when they started the Yellow Brick Road Farm in their backyard.
“It fits so well with my soul to do what I’m doing,” said Spencer in an interview at her home in Stoney Island.
“We have an acre here. People are amazed at what you can do on an acre.”
The family already had egglaying chickens and a vegetable garden when they decided to start living more farm to table. Dogs, cats and rabbits were also part of the family's picture when it came to animals they cared for.
The garden was expanded and meat chickens and turkeys were added to the livestock to start out, says Spencer.
Since then, the farm has grown to include two ewes, three horses, ducks, as well as pork-and-beefraising in season, utilizing the family farmland in Welshtown.
“We didn’t just want to bring in a bunch of animals here just for the sake of having them,” says Spencer. “We use more of a restorative agriculture approach so whatever we have on the farm has to have a purpose and has to contribute to the cycle of the farm.”
Besides eggs and meat, the rabbits, chickens, turkeys and ducks all provide fertilizer for the garden, says Spencer. Wool from the ewes is turned into value-added products such as dryer balls, arena seats and hunting seats. “We use the wool for a lot of different things.”
Spencer said they rescued two miniature horses with the intention of learning more about them and to explore animal therapy. Visits to Bayside Home with April and Amber over the past few years “have been wildly successful,” she says.
The third horse, Kali, is an Appaloosa cross her daughter Charlize uses for barrel racing.
“There’s a therapy aspect to that as well,” says Spencer.
Spencer is planning to expand a lot of what Yellow Brick road does to her family farm in Welshtown.
“On this acre of land, we have what we have. Its on scale and we don’t want to expand beyond what we can do on this acre,” she says.
Education also plays a role on the Yellow Brick Road Farm, where school class trips have been hosted for the past three years, as well as visits from the local scouts. Spencer is also a local 4-H leader.
“Anything we can with the 4-H kids here, we do,” Spencer says. “We use the farm for lots of different activities.”
Spencer also shares her knowledge with the community by doing presentations such as edible gardening for beginners and chicken keeping for beginners.
“I love to just help people,” she says. “I see what people struggle with. Just because you weren’t raised in it doesn’t mean you can’t do it.”
Spencer was instrumental in getting a farmer’s market off the ground in Barrington in 2019, and has developed a wonderful support system, she says.
“There are lots of men and women in this area with a wealth of knowledge,” she says. “We built such a great fellowship last summer with the farmer’s market, I thought why not bring in other people to talk about what they do.”
So, Spencer has organized the Simple Life Fair for this spring.
“I’m really excited about it,” she says. “We’re getting really good uptake for it.”
Scheduled for April 18 at the Barrington Area Lions Hall, the Simple Life Fair will not be a big consumable thing, says Spencer.
“It’s more about a sense of community, fellowship and pulling together…It is a day dedicated to the community coming together to share our basic skills in a complicated world.”
The one-day event will feature information sessions and vendors for more sustainable living and getting back to basics such as an introduction to canning, breadmaking 101, firewood basics, essential oils, edible gardening presentations, seed swaps, and children’s programming.
A second Simple Life Fair is planned for Shelburne but the date has not yet been confirmed.
Spencer, who recently transitioned her professional career into the tourism industry, is also looking at expanding into agritourism.
“That’s on the horizon,” she says.