Our Farms
We plant, maintain, and harvest crops with our ecological footprint in mind to preserve plentiful life in the soil, in the borders of our fields, and in our farmed and wildlife areas for future generations.
We use appropriate technology to minimize ecological impact.
We love our pets, provide for our livestock, and cherish the wild animals that help our farm thrive.
While we do not have a "green label" we use organic practices, and permaculture techniques and integrate animals and plants within our farming systems.
Twin Parks Farms
Twin Park Farms has been at the forefront of the organic movement in Ohio They dehull, clean, and bag their own grain and stone grind flour for their customers. Mixed feed rations are available on request. Grass-fed beef is sold on the hoof or in the box. Sheep have been a part of the farm's livestock projects. Twin Park Farms now offers grain for local distilleries.
Blue Heron Farms, in Lisbon, Ohio, is an award-winning commercial sheep farm, founded by Cynthia Koonce and run by her daughter, Rebecca Miller. The farm has about 200 acres of reclaimed strip-mined acreage with some timber land, and is surrounded by about 1,000 acres of open land, farmland and woods, providing a haven for abundant wildlife. Decades of the sheep moving across every inch of the farm has helped to improve the forages and soil health.
BHF runs about 275 commercial maternal ewes, with production Dorset base, and Ile-de-France, Polypay and South African Meat Merino influences, focusing on multiple births, easy keeping, hardy sheep with good maternal traits, and premium, fast growing lambs. The goal is to provide premium lamb meat all year round, with three lambings a year.
BHF lamb is sold in regional and Northeast grocery stores, and custom or direct retail. Breeding stock is available from time to time as well
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We moved to NE Ohio from Pennsylvania and bought our small farm in 1995. We started with registered Jacob sheep in 1997, then tried Icelandic sheep for about 14 years. We had also tried some crossbred wool sheep and fell in love with the Texel ram we bought to breed them. Currently, about half our flock is made up of registered Texels enrolled in NSIP, and we are reducing our crossbred flock. We use some Texel and Texel cross wool to spin, dye yarn, and make dryer balls. We added crossbred meat goats along the way, making it hard to keep fleeces clean, so we had been looking for a purpose for our dirtier and lower-quality wool.
We also grow berries, some tree fruits, and produce, and sell them at the Seville Farmers Market and Local Roots in Wooster. We use mostly lower input and some organic methods on our food crops
Our family purchased Summerhill Farm in 1983 and started raising sheep in 1986. We started with different breeds and settled on Polypay sheep due to their out-of-season lambing potential, prolificacy, and mothering ability. Our main product is breeding stock. We use NSIP/Lambplan EBV’s to help with selection decisions. We have changed lambing systems over the years. For the first 15 years, we were on the STAR lambing system, which has 5 lambing periods per year. After that, we moved to 3 lambings per year, and currently, we lamb 80+ ewes once per year from September to October. We lamb on pasture and our sheep spend most of the year outside.
About half of the farm is wooded and the rest is a mixture of permanent pasture and hay ground with corn in the mix some years. The permanent pastures tend to be along the woods' edge and are not ideal for row crops, but this ground makes good pasture and the grazed forages protect the soil from erosion.
Most of the hay fields are also grazed in the spring and fall. We have some alfalfa but most of the hay is grass/legume mix.
We sold our wool clip through Mid States Wool Growers until it closed in 2023. The market for mid-grade wools isn't profitable and has not been for many years. We have used wool in gardening as mulch and as soil amendments in garden beds and potted plants.
​Hoon Farm was established in 1963 by Terri’s parents.With an existing flock and property available in Ohio, the decision was made to relocate the farm to Columbiana County, Ohio – the Hoon farmstead. Wool and meat production continued thru the end of 2023, when the flock was sold. Wool is still being put into production, both as yarn and as finished products. In 2024, a dye garden was started, with the expectation that our wool products can be dyed naturally, both from the dye garden as well as foraging on the property.
Terri has extensive experience with the day-to-day care of the animals. Brian has extensive experience with breeding genetics and classing wool. He is also a Mentor in the Sort Grade Class (SGC.com) program. He co-instructs the Advanced class as well as accepts students interested in taking the 2 year Apprenticeship program.
Hoon farm currently has 11 ac in hay production and 32 ac in leased, row-crop production. The balance is in timber production.
