stoney meadows farm

Stoney Meadow Farms is a 147 acre family owned farm in Rappahannock County, in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The farm is owned and operated by a Dutchman, Hieronymus (Jerome) Niessen, and his Virginia-born wife Lucille Wampler Niessen. They are enthusiastically assisted in their farm work by their farm manager Jeremy Christopher and their 4 year old son Stuart, who is in charge of Turtle, the cat.

We raise grass-fed Clun Forest sheep and beef cattle in a natural and sustainable way.  Our livestock is never given hormones or unnecessary antibiotics.   Our fields are naturally fertilized by the animals roaming freely; no chemical  fertilizers.   We produce our own hay from those same fields.  

In addition, the farm produces a small number of delicious tasting blue eggs from our Auracanas and Thanksgivings Turkeys.  Free roaming of course, eating nothing but the three Gs (Grain, Grubs and Grass).  (Unfortunately, the local foxes have developed a real taste for them as well; the price we pay for free ranging).    In the near future we hope to produce Gouda cheese for local consumption from unpasteurized milk from Friesian cows.   

In earlier days we produced energy from our wind farm in West Virginia (Ned Power Mount Storm), but we find our new lives as sheep farmers as gratifying as our previous lives as wind farmer.

The farm goes back to at least 1812 and was probably started by German settlers, as evidenced by a date stone in the old German bank barn on the farm and the old farm house currently under restoration. And while horse and plough (still in use in the 1950s) may have been replaced by a John Deere tractor, the way of farming is still traditionally small scale and sustainable.  Streams are fenced off to ensure the free roaming livestock are not polluting the creeks (and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay).   

By joining the Rappahannock Farms coop, Stoney Meadows Farm joins the movement to bring good tasting and healthy food back to local consumers as an alternative to feeding consumers lamb and beef from far away feedlots of unknown origin and background.  That is how this farm was operated from the 1800s till the mid 1900s and now again in the 21^st century.