Wallace’s White Dove Farm Provides Connection to Sheep and Wool

By Sarah Watson, Livestock Editor
Thursday, June 28, 2007 2:16 PM CDT

Since childhood Mary Wallace had wanted to live on a farm. Growing up in Kaukauna, Mary didn’t live on a farm and her mother made it clear she shouldn’t marry a farmer.

“I used to help the neighbor across the road with his dairy cows,” she recalls. “My mom told me I had to marry someone that wore a suit and tie to work.”

“My mom was right,” she says. Mary’s husband Peter, originally from Oshkosh, works for Aria Communications in Madison. He aids non-profit organizations with fundraising efforts.

“He’s never complained once about living out here,” Mary says of her choice to farm. “He’s always embraced it.”

The couple resides on a small, five and a half acre sheep farm named White Dove Farm, outside of Cambridge, and has for 21 years. They have two daughters, Emily, 24, attending medical school and Allison, 21, in her third year at UW-LaCrosse.

The name White Dove Farm sometimes makes others question if Mary either has a pet dove or raises them, but she doesn’t. The story goes that after a strong storm had hammered the area; a white dove appeared on their porch. The dove would sun itself and could be seen circling the farm. Just a few days after the dove appeared, it left the Wallace homestead, but left its mark in their farm name.

There are no doves on the farm, just sheep, and the sheep are a story in themselves.

As a child Mary had been teased by the rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, and it’s ironic that Mary chose to become a sheep producer.

“I always had to recite ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ as a kid n even to get Halloween candy,” she recalls. “I was never going to have sheep. I should have learned ‘never say never’!”

Mary needed an animal she could control since she was doing most the work independently. She says her husband was not used to farm animals and was slightly “uncomfortable” with them.

She chose sheep because they are “something she can handle” and “requires little input.”

The sheep are raised in a managed intensive grazing system.

“We have a couple of different paddocks,” she explains. “We have two temporary fences going at the same time.”

First the ewes and lambs will go through the system. They are followed by the dry ewes and replacements to do “clean-up”.

Mary believes the fresh air is one of the most important needs of the sheep. “They are out on pasture a lot,” she says. “I don’t feed them a lot of grain.”

The lambs are wormed three times and ewes are wormed twice per year, and antibiotics are used only when necessary. “I do not routinely give antibiotics,” she says. “I’m a real proponent of fresh air and getting out of the barn.”

Mary began her operation with five bred ewes and has had as many as 20 ewes.

“I am going to cut back to ten now,” she says of the 15 ewes she currently raises. “I want to have them grazing, not in a dry lot system. I want the lambs out on pasture as much as possible.”

Along with cutting back her flock size, Mary has also decided to purchase hay instead of making it herself this year.

“We’re getting older and we’re changing things,” she says.

The breed of choice at White Dove Farm is Corriedale, both natural colored and white wool types. Corriedales were selected after Mary attended a class with Art Pope, a UW-Madison animal science professor, at the University of Wisconsin Farm and Industry Short Course.

“He referred me to some people that had Corriedale sheep,” she recalls of the class. “He referred me to Martha Maxwell from Middleton who happens to be a Corriedale breeder.”

The Maxwells were a good match for Mary since they lived close enough, she could ask for help if needed. “I can call and ask if something is typical or not,” she explains.

Mary likes both the wool and market aspects of the Corriedale breed.

“It’s a nice dual purpose breed,” she explains. “It’s a nice quality market lamb and nice quality medium wool.”

“For the fist several years we sent our lambs to the commercial market - Equity,” she says. “Now we’ve been able to sell them as either breeding stock or to private lockers.”

Mary enjoys the connection to the agriculture community and wants to make people aware of where their food is coming from. “We’re not a big farmer by any means, but we have more of a connection to the farming community than anybody else in our families,” she says of her and her husband. “I do my own little thing here with the niche market with the wool.”

Mary keeps her connection to agriculture not only through her own farm, but through neighboring farms as well.

“I help my neighbors with chores,” she explains. “I help with some dairy farm tours. I’m involved in the agriculture sector.”

Mary’s passion is wool because she uses it for felting to make purses, scarves, blankets, wall hangings, hats, and very detailed faces and many other products.

When she first began her sheep and wool endeavor, Mary sold fleeces to the shearer because with little kids to care for she didn’t have much time to spend working with the wool.

“As I got older I started spinning,” she says and joined Spindifters, a successful wool marketing group that has since disbanded.

Mary recalls the large sales the group would hold and the people would come from all over to buy wool.

“The group was instrumental in my development in terms of how to care for the wool,” she says. “It made me conscientious about marketing of the wool and caring for the wool in a good way so people would want to buy it.”

Once spinning began, Mary needed to “do something” with the yarn she was making, so she began to knit.

It wasn’t until her children were in high school and even out of high school that she was able to create her felting masterworks.

“Felting is a tangling of fibers in such a way it becomes a dense type of fabric,” she says. “It cannot be raveled like a knit or woven item can.”

Different colors and shapes of wool can be used to create intricate designs.

There are two different techniques to felt wool she says. Mary chooses to use a more labor-intensive version of felting that uses water, soap and hours of manual agitation and rolling.

“The more current technique is using a felting needle,” she says of the dry technique. The sharp needle has multiple sharp barbs on the tip, and as is poked through the various layers of wool, it tangles the layers together, and works well for very detailed design and placement.

Mary markets her felted pieces in several places including art tours, where people will visit the studios and workplaces of the artists to watch techniques and peruse through products.

On Oct. 27-28 Mary’s felting pieces will be one of 14 showcased in the Earth, Wood & Fire Artist Tour, a driving tour of selected fine arts and craft studios in south central Wisconsin.

She also takes part in sales at Tall Grass Farm in Delevan, in April and October. The sales are great, but Mary really relies on word of mouth.

“People see my stuff or I attend classes,” she says. “I don’t have a shop.”

Mary welcomes visitors to the farm as long as they call ahead. She enjoys showing “how much wool comes off a sheep”, and giving them a “bit of a story to take home.”

“I’m teaching more classes and people hear your name quite a bit,” she says about marketing her White Dove Farm wool pieces. “Of course word of mouth is always the best.”

Mary shares her wool techniques through classes and demonstrations across the state and has even taught in her home.

“I’ve taught at community schools,” she says. “I’ve taught at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival.”

The Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival is held Sept. 7-9 at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. Not only will Mary be teaching in both the Producers Roundtable “Management of Wool n On and Off the Sheep”, and Wonders of Wool, “Beginning Felting” and “An Exercise in Fulling” at the Sheep & Wool Festival, she is also the superintendent of the Fleece Show & Sale.

“I help a lot with the Sheep & Wool Festival. That keeps me busy,” she says.

She is also a member of the Blackhawk Artists out of Fort Atkinson. The Blackhawk Artist group consists of 12 women promoting fine arts, and put on an art show in November.

Mary will be teaching at the Midwest Felting Symposium at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, July 25-29 and at the Midwest Fiber & Folk Art Fair in Crystal Lake, Ill., July 20-22.

As a wool judge, Mary, has judged at some of the largest shows in Wisconsin and surrounding states including Wisconsin State Fair, Walworth County Fair, and Shepherds Harvest in Minnesota.

Mary continues to work closely with both the agriculture side and consumer aspects of agriculture. Consumer education is “hugely important” to Mary, she says.

She gives farm tours at Hinchley’s Dairy in Cambridge, and has for seven years. The tours are a “nice way to get people exposed” to agriculture.

“There are fewer and fewer people involved in agriculture,” she explains. “I feel at the Sheep & Wool Festival you have same type of thing. The non-agricultural and the agricultural sectors come together.”

The connection is also important to because the people without the connection to agriculture are “making the regulations for those that are”.

“It’s important to give them information to base their voting on,” she says. “It just gives them a better understanding if they were to move out to the country they would realize the smell is there for a reason.”

“I think I have a good connection n I straddle both worlds,” she says of her evolution in agriculture. “It’s kind of nice I think.”

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