ST. PAUL – In the morning as the sun peeks over the horizon, Darlene Hawco rises from her bed, eager to start the day. After having breakfast, she heads outside to tend to her farm animals.
From pen to pen, the sheep wait for their milk and feed, and she pays close attention to ensure none were missed. Then she heads to work, returning at noon to check up on her flock.
Sometimes she pulls a lamb or puts the ewe in the lambing jug to bond with her lamb.
“It’s very peaceful,” Hawco says, adding that it can be a little stressful while she’s away at work, thinking, “is everybody, okay?” After work, she comes home, once again making sure everybody has their water and feed.
“It’s a lot of work, but a lot of fun,” she says. It’s been a routine she’s followed since she started her sheep farm four years ago.
Getting started
Hawco and her family, including her parents, lived in Edmonton most of their lives, but she always had a passion for farming. When she purchased her parents’ property located within the County of St. Paul, she moved to the area.
Shortly after, she got a job in sales with the St. Paul UFA Farm & Ranch Supply Store, where she ran into farmers, got to know them - and that’s how it all started, recalls Hawco. Speaking to others fuelled her interest in taking on her own sheep farm.
“[Sheep are] a little smaller than cows,” and Hawco thought she “would be able to handle them a little bit myself.” But “they are feisty,” she added with a laugh.
Then, she had the opportunity to purchase two bottle babies from a farmer. She named them Lamb Chop, like the sock puppet, and Molly. Then, as if with a kindled passion, she thought, “I have to have more.”
Dream
Tending to her sheep farm was a dream come true for Hawco, realizing, “This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life.”
“I just fell in love with it [because] it just felt like that was always a part of me, [and] I just needed it to come to reality.”
Hawco’s sheep farm has since expanded. She has started selling lamb meat at farmers' markets as well as to a local restaurant, Twisted Fork, based in St. Paul.
She reveals a cookbook recently published by Twisted Fork. She stops and points at a portion of a page, where it says, “Darlene's Sheep Farm,” and written below is her recipe for a Greek Lamb flatbread.
She then points to a photo at the page, “I am right there as well,” she says with a smile on her face. Cooking lamb, according to Hawco, is “super easy.”
The process of cooking lamb burgers is like cooking beef hamburgers, but she recommends not adding a lot of seasoning, “because it’s just a beautiful flavour.”
Challenges
When asked if she finds any work at her sheep farm stressful, especially juggling it with her full-time job and attending farmers' markets, her answer is without hesitation: “It doesn’t. It’s very enjoyable. I love my life.”
“It’s a passion I do enjoy doing,” she reiterates. “[When] I wake up, I love going out and seeing all the bottle babies and the little lambs with their moms.”
Also, “I’ve got my guardian dogs and they had puppies. So, now I’ve got all these puppies that I get to go help train to be guardians and protect the sheep.”
Farming has “just kind of always been my dream and my passion,” she says. “And I'm trying to make a difference in the farming industry because I'm not born and raised [in it].”
“It's like...” she says, with a pause, adding, “It's always kind of been in my blood. I just needed a place... to make the magic happen.”
Hawco wishes her parents, who passed on, were here to witness her success. And while she may not come from a farming family, that “doesn’t mean it’s not in your heart to do it.”
Support
Without a farming background, Hawco found mentors and friends who helped her along the way. “A lot of people were happy to help me grow,” she says. “You don't learn this stuff overnight... [But] I can phone [people] for advice.”
“And I want to thank the local farmers for encouraging me and helping me, giving me advice,” says Hawco. “My boyfriend's awesome, too... He supports me 100 per cent on what I’m doing. He’s my cheer squad.”
Hawco also thanked Twisted Fork, along with the farmers' market vendors and shoppers for their continued support.
“They are all about local. The local industry.”
In the last four years, Hawco has expanded her operation from the first two bottle-fed lambs. She has other farm animals, including a couple heifer calves, chickens, pigs, and “lots of” sheep.
Hawco aims to attend more farmers' markets in the future, in addition to continually growing her farm and encouraging “farm-to-fork" in the community.
