the farm

we believe in :

land conservation 

affordable land access

historic breed sustainability 

native habitat protection

from What They Teach Us (Drake Patten, 2017)

Today, Hurricane Hill operates as a small-scale fiber farm and provides affordable land access to women farmers. We raise Leicester Longwools, an endangered, historic breed of dual-purpose sheep best known in North America for the breed’s popularity with George Washington. The first president not only raised these sheep at his home farm Mount Vernon but also championed them as the ideal breed for a newly independent America. We are the only registered LL breeders in Rhode Island, and one of only a few in New England. Longwool fleeces are particularly beloved by fiber artists and hand spinners and we sell ours directly to them. We prize our Longwools not only for their decadent fiber, but also for their kind and steady disposition and their ability to lamb and raise their young with a minimum of human intervention. Given that we do not sell our lambs for meat, we tend to breed and lamb later than most. A visit to the farm in late April or May is a virtual guarantee of the sight of sweet small ones following their moms around in one of the upper fields.

Our farm is home to other farm animals as well. We try to make sure that all of them have jobs-or create a product that will help to support our overall farm undertaking. To that end, two llamas guard our sheep and we keep chickens and ducks for eggs and meat. We also have four picky goats who occasionally help with land clearing but mostly just keep us amused. Amusement matters when you manage 48 acres.

Our farm is part of a longer history, one that we are actively researching and exploring and hope to make available to you starting in 2023. The land our farm occupies was once home to the Narragansett People who, like the Europeans that would take their land, were drawn to the abundant natural resources of the area. The first people to claim ownership of these resources and exclude others from their enjoyment were people of English descent. The Bakers bounded and farmed this land for generations, enslaving Africans and possibly indigenous people as well. While this story is not an uncommon one in New England, we maintain that telling our farm’s story clearly is an opportunity to invite you into a conversation about our human responsibility to one another.