|
|
| Book captures spirit of Goat Knoll |
|---|
| DALLAS - The city transitions to country very quickly near Dallas' southern outskirts, where Linda Fox and Paul Johnson have carved out their own unique little corner of the world. |
|---|
 | | Photo by Adam Korst | | Linda Fox pets one of the younger goats in the herd at Goat Knoll. |
|
By Craig Coleman
DALLAS - The city transitions to country very quickly near Dallas' southern outskirts, where Linda Fox and Paul Johnson have carved out their own unique little corner of the world.
Their two-story home and 50-acre farm sit at the end of a winding road high in the oak- and fir-covered foothills overlooking the community. Spread out on rolling green pastures are herds of sheep and cashmere goats.
"It's easy when you live in the city to forget why the land is important," Fox said. "This keeps us connected."
How two professionals - Fox is Polk County Treasurer and Johnson a legal mediator - manage careers and operate their appropriately named Goat Knoll Farms is sort of inspiring, said Joan Tapper, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based writer and magazine editor.
It's one of the reasons Tapper and photographer Gale Zucker of Connecticut decided to include the couple and their story in their recently published coffee-table book "Shear Spirit."
Aimed at knitters and yarn producers, the book profiles 10 fiber farms and ranches in the United States. Goat Knoll represents the Pacific Northwest.
"I was very impressed with our chapter, and the rest," Fox said. "They did a good job of capturing the essence of people from different areas of the country and what type of farming they focus on."
Zucker said she conceived the idea for the book as a way to indulge her passion for knitting and as a change of pace from a two-year stint of photographing at-risk youth projects.
Knitting has enjoyed a surge of popularity in the past five years. According to a 2005 study by the Craft Yarn Council of America, 36 percent of women in the United States know how to crochet or knit, while the number of women in the 25-34 and 18 years-and-under categories tripled and doubled, respectively, since 2002.
"Knitters have become interested in the origins of their yarn, what kind of sheep or goat or alpaca it grows on, (and) how it is processed - the same way people are interested in wines and artisan cheeses," Zucker said.
Three of the five publishers that looked at Zucker and Tapper's proposal responded immediately, Zucker said, "which is nothing short of amazing based on our experiences."
Tapper said the book is "as much about dreams as it is about crafts."
"Aside from giving knitters some cool patterns, I'd like readers to know that there are people who acted on a long-term ambition and went on to have a small farm or become an artist," she said.
Tapper and Zucker used the Internet, animal breed organizations and word-of-mouth to select the ranches to appear in the book. Some were tapped because of their unusual approaches to farming.
For example, the owners of 13-Mile Farm in Montana choose not to use lethal means to protect their flock from coyotes, wolves and cougars.
Goat Knoll was selected for its geography, and because the authors wanted to devote part of the book to cashmere, Tapper said.
Tapper was impressed by the fact that Fox and Johnson "also had careers they kept up while raising goats."
Fox and Johnson met while both worked in the same building in Portland, and married in the early 1980s. They moved to Dallas in 1996, bringing along three sheep and three cashmere goats.
The herds have varied in size over the years. The number of goats has ranged from 150 down to about 50 now, and the prized animals are the centerpiece of the couple's small operation.
Cashmere, the goat's undercoat, starts growing in the summer and is sheared or hand-raked every spring, before the valuable hair is shed.
Each goat produces about 4 ounces of cashmere. The fiber is sent to a processor in Canada that separates the under- and outercoat before it's turned into rovings and yarn.
Fox, an avid knitter, said the animals are easy to care for, with once-a-day feedings. She and Johnson share hoof-trimming and veterinary work on the animals, while she handles most of the fiber duties.
They sell cashmere and sheep's wool at regional craft fairs and online. For eight years, starting in the mid-1990s, the couple also put out their own cashmere-centric newsletter, "CashMirror."
"It was a monthly thing, in black and white," Fox said. "But it was the only thing out there for cashmere goat owners."
That publication and Goat Knoll's longtime Internet presence led Tapper and Zucker to approach the Dallas couple about being in the book.
"At first I said no," Fox said. "When people volunteer for stuff like this, they usually end up with something that isn't them at all and isn't accurate."
But the author and photographer's body of work, which includes National Geographic Traveler, Newsweek and The Smithsonian, convinced Fox and Johnson to take part.
Zucker visited Goat Knoll last spring for a photo shoot. She said she was impressed with the "green and juicy" surroundings and Fox and Johnson's self-sufficiency - besides breeding and sheering fiber animals, the pair keeps honey bees and raise poultry and grow their own fruits and vegetables for food.
"One of the joys of this project was staying for a few days at each farm/ranch," she said, "and seeing life behind the scenes ... that was my favorite part of Goat Knoll."
Fox and Johnson said they're happy with the book and that it would build exposure for the farm. It's affect on fiber sales, however, would be marginal.
And they're fine with that.
"We don't have a lot of product to sell anyway because we're a small farm," she said.
"Shear Spirit: Ten Fiber Farms, Twenty Patterns, and Miles of Yarn" is published by PotterCraft and is available at most major books stores and online. For more information about Goat Knoll Farms: www.goatknollfarm.com. |
| Go to top. |
|
 |
Hot Jobs |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Special Sections |
 |
|
| City / State |
|
| Education |
|
| Services |
|
|
