Backyard Green Films is now in Florida, getting ready to start the World Devon Congress 2024.  But first (and last), our podcast with the butcher.  The place where everything ends – everything that is ordered medium rare, anyway. A.J. O’Neil is the perfect one to encapsulate almost everything that is fantastic about why Devons are popular.  He’s a member of Red Devon USA, and a wonderful addition to their friendly and active Board of Directors.  He’s sometimes serious, sometimes quiet, but always a family-oriented guy.  He talks with us about O’Neil’s Quality Devons, O ..read more

Our stay at Clockwork Cottage was one of the quiet delights of our UK trip in August of 2023.  The Peak District in England is well known as being a day-hiker’s destination filled with rolling emerald fields, ancient stacked stone walls, and sheep, sheep and sheep.  There are those amazing things, yes, and found aplenty, but for the Backyard Green Films crew the hills were alive with the breeze blowing through the grass, and the sound of…Dexters!  Dexter Cattle, that is.   This smallest native breed is originally from Ireland, but found in other places now.  It might b ..read more

Steve Montgomery of Lamppost Farm is our guest on today’s podcast, coming to you from a stop on the Devon Congress pre-tour - Columbiana, Ohio style this time.  Steve and his family raise Devon Cattle, Coopworth Sheep, pigs, turkeys and a partridge in a pear tree (okay, no partridges, but there are more chickens than you can safely count).  Their goal is to make and teach connections between living things, but the annual flock of Lamppost interns can tell you that they learn how to do the sweaty part on the farm as well.   These are just plain good solid people who open up their ..read more

Andrea Tibbets of Clover Brooke Farm is our guest on today’s podcast.  We usually see her at the New York State Sheep & Wool Festival (Rhinebeck), but since at that fine event we see her running the Camelid Barn and running the Leaping Llama contest and running the Spitters’ Club and…well, just plain running, we decided it was way past time to visit her home turf.  For a walk. One of the most peaceful things you can do, we found, is to take a hike through Hyde Park with a llama on a leash.  It sounds like something for people with way too much time on their hands, but were s ..read more

Don’t you love talking to people who know their stuff?  While crashing the Kilnsey Show in Yorkshire on our UK trip last August, we came across Clive Richardson, Field Officer for the Jacob Sheep Society.  It was a spontaneous tailgate conversation, but we magically ended up with not only someone who raises some of the most interesting-looking sheep you’ll ever lay eyes on, but he was a truly well-spoken and well-researched man.  He has more than one book on his author creds page, and we’re thinking it might be well worth a trip back across the pond.  He did write about Fel ..read more

It’s the Devon Congress 2024 - Coming soon to an east-coast back road near you (if you live on the east coast and are there in April, that is).  This April, people are coming from all over the world to celebrate the Devon Cattle breed and all of its many shapes and sizes.  And if you live in the U.S., 400 years of Devon history is something even more amazing to celebrate. Red Devon USA is the host organization for this amazing road trip, and they gave us a little taste of the families and farms that would be on the tour (Okay, not a little taste.  Lots of tastes.  They feed ..read more

It’s time for the mashup!  The Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Growers’ Association once again hosted 30,000 (plus) attendees at the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, and we were there to see (and interview, and livestream, and…everything) all of it! Maybe lots of it.  Part of it.  Okay, so we got what we could again this year, but this is the kind of wonderful occasion that we still haven’t seen most of, no matter how much we run or how many relatives we co-opt to help out. You can visit the Backyard Green Films YouTube channel to see the livestream part for yourself, and ..read more

Here at Backyard Green Films, we’re getting ready to celebrate the 400-year anniversary of the Devons coming to America with our Plymouth to Plimoth documentary.  In preparation for this event (and our film!), we spoke with Tom Begley, Deputy Director for Collections Research and Public Engagement at Plimoth Patuxet Museum.  Doesn’t the site of the Pilgrim connection seem like a wonderful podcast for today’s Thanksgiving holiday?  We thought so, too. In addition, we hope you join us in April and May, as we follow the Devon World Congress tour 2024.  People come from all ov ..read more

Our podcast guests today are Jeri Robinson Lawrence and daughter Irina Lawrence Matthais.  This hardworking mother/daughter team has contributed a few soundbites in between Points A, B, C and X in the rush of the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival every year, but as they’re the ones that everyone needs something from at all times, a relaxed moment has been hard to come by with these two. So we went to the mountain (so to speak, although it’s southern Pennsylvania just west of the Susquehanna River, so there were a few hills in there).  They have plenty of things available on thei ..read more

You know how there’s always someone who not only goes the extra mile, but looks good while they do it?  And does it with a genuine smile, to top it off.  That’s Christine Hulse, from Hulse Hill Farm.  Just outside of Cooperstown on a little slice of heaven, this tireless woman has set up shop (and her farm shop).  She excels at all things she puts her mind to:  She runs a blissful farm stay B&B and is a hostess extraordinaire; she’s a businesswoman and the co-owner of her fiber company Clean Cashmere; she’s a member of the Board of Directors for the Cashmere Goat A ..read more