If you haven’t had a chance yet to soak up some of Horse Network’s breathtaking footage of Big Sky Farms in Starksboro, Vermont, now’s your chance. The barn and wedding venue has been a longtime labor of love for owner Aaron Pollak and his fiancee, trainer Megan White, who boards up to 10 barrel horses on the property.
Little Big Sky Farm - 30012 290th St. Henderson, MN 56044 651-214-3670 - [email protected]. Big Sky Farm (East) LLC is an Illinois LLC filed On December 19, 2007. The company's filing status is listed as Active. The company's filing status is listed as Active. The Registered Agent on file for this company is Nancy Corwith Hamill Winter and is located at 5229 S Massbach Rd, Stockton, IL 61085. Big Sky Farm Community Supported Agriculture is a mutually beneficial partnership between farmers and community members, sharing the risks and rewards of growing food. Susquehanna Community Agriculture Project (SCSAP) provides members with a variety of locally grown organic fresh foods.
We caught up with the couple to find out more about country living, those beastly Vermont winters, and (literally) turning mountains into molehills barrel racing arenas.
HN: Megan, I believe you’re from Arizona originally, how did you end up in Vermont?
MW: I was born and raised in Arizona. I started hauling my horses to Vermont to continue training and to spend summers with my now fiancee [Aaron]. This is the fourth summer I’ve spent here, and I brought seven horses with me this year.
On the road with Megan’s barrel horses. (©Big Sky Farms)
HN: Aaron, what was the property like when you bought it?
AP: The farm was there, and dates back to the mid-1800s, although it was in some parts of disrepair when I bought it. We have done a ton of work to bring it back into shape. It’s taken lots of hard, sweating long days.
MW: There was an existing orchard, sugar bush, and barn, and we combined two pieces of land to create it. We added an arena, round pen, fenced pastures, and we had to improve the pasture quality from disuse.
HN: What else did you have to do to make Big Sky horse-friendly?
MW: We needed to add stalls to the barn, so now we have six. I have separate pastures for every horse, and each pasture has its own run-in shed. I keep the horses separate because of the risk; one bad kick or play turned too rough can end a horse’s barrel career. They can touch each other over the fence and see the other horses all around, but it keeps them safer. Labyrinth of legendary loot mac os. I have 10 pastures total. The horses I have now are all my own personal horses, with a few outside horses in for barrel training. We have a total of nine on the farm this month.
HN: What do you do with your horses in the winter?
MW: I don’t spend winters at the farm. I pack up and take my horses back to Arizona with me. Winter is peak [barrel racing] competition time there. So none of my horses get a winter break like many of the horses [in Vermont] seem to do. They get breaks all throughout the year as needed.
HN: What was your biggest challenge in creating the property?
MW: [Aaron] had to basically move a mountain to flatten a place for my arena. There’s not a flat piece of ground on the property, and I have a love/hate relationship with it.
AP: Yes, the arena was the biggest project to date. All I can describe it as is jello. I would pick the dirt up on one side of the hill, move it downhill, and then it would just keep melting and sliding. It was a slimy mess. Waltz (brunoabreudoesgames) mac os.
Moving mountains, no big deal. (©Big Sky Farms)
HN: Megan, what’s the difference between training horses in Vermont vs. Arizona?
MW: My horses are easier to keep in shape here, but I miss things from flat Arizona, like my sand track where I can breeze them and stretch them out. I use a four wheeler to get around and bring the horses in a lot more here, and I’m still in better shape than when I walk everywhere in Arizona. My horses don’t get pasture in Arizona, so they definitely think that’s the best part—although it comes with a lot more pulled shoes and biting bugs.
HN: What’s next for the property?
![Farm Farm](https://bigfishgames-a.akamaihd.net/en_sky-high-farm/screen1.jpg)
MW: We are busy hosting weddings on the farm; we’ve had five or so here so far. The view is the hook, and we have so much space, we can pretty much accommodate anything. We are in the process of creating an outdoor pavilion, we have a pond, an orchard, and now the experience to plan weddings too. We also sugar and sell maple syrup from our own trees and sugar house.
(©Big Sky Farms)
HN: What’s your favorite thing about Big Sky Farms—and how’d it get that name?
AP: The name ‘Big Sky Farms’… well, I guess when everything is said and done, we are there because of the privacy and the view, and it has one very, very big sky. Flames (rbosmediano) mac os.
Big Sky Farm Mac Os Catalina
MW: Yes, the best part about living here is the view of Camels Hump [State Park]. We are at the end of a road, on the top of a mountain. When everyone goes home for the day, we have total peace and quiet.
Camels Hump and that big, Vermont sky. (©Horse Network)
THE FARM
Our mission at Little Big Sky Farm is to produce chemical-free, high-quality, sustainably grown vegetables for our community, while paying close attention to soil health and creating educational and entertaining experiences for the people who interact with our farm. We got lucky and found land on high ground, with the Minnesota River Valley descending in our backyard. The land was farmed on a soybean and corn rotation until we bought it in 2013. We established native prairie which still remains on 3 acres. The other tillable acres are either cover cropped or farmed each season. We are passionate about keeping the soil healthy, giving it the nutrients it needs to keep providing us with quality crops each year. We do this through organic compost, and an organic fertility program. We continue to dream about the life of this farm, building necessary pack sheds, community spaces, treehouses, and planting trees as natural windbreakers. We love this space and look forward to days of giving tours of the farm.
THE FARMERS
We are Dan and Jenny Kapernick and we founded Little Big Sky Farm in the Spring of 2013, but the vision for the farm began back in 2003 when Dan worked on an organic farm in high school. Over the last seven years we have had two children, Omer and Mirah, built a house on the land.
Dan’s background is in carpentry and he still does a lot of building in the off season. Jenny is a musician and spent years touring and recording with her sister in a band called the Ericksons. Dan and I both happily farm full time March-November.
Big Sky Farm Mac Os X
In addition to farming we also love laughing, cooking, building structures both functional and fun, playing music, dancing and spending time with friends and our big St. Peter extended family. Jenny shares stories about farming, family and art via her blog.