Meet the Pendell Family
Edwin and Emily and their four children: Ellie, Ember, Ethan and Esther live in Stonyford at their family farmstead. Every member of the family is involved in the day-to-day care and keeping of the animals. All animals are handled and loved daily (times six) and because of that, they are gentle and friendly. We consider all of our animals to be family-raised.
We believe in family.
Our entire family (yes, even 2 year old Esther) is involved in the raising and care of our animals. All of our animals are "family-raised" meaning they are used to small children and are very friendly.
We believe in knowing your food.
Our animals are treated with the best care. They have top notch veterinary care, plenty of high quality feed, and all the love and belly rubs they could ever want.
We believe in education.
We love what we do and even more, we love sharing our passion with others! You'll often find us at our local TSC Market Days educating the public about pigs and goats or hosting 4-H and school field trips to our farm.
For the love of goats…
I grew up with cats and dogs but never with livestock. For years I’ve had a strong desire to own a couple of goats, just to keep the grass down. In February of 2018, my dream came true when Domino, a two-week old Nigerian Dwarf goat, joined our crazy little home with four young children, a dog, a handful of chickens and whole lotta love. Domino stole our hearts and our laps...and anything else she could jump up on. It wasn’t long before we decided that Nigerian Dwarves were for us so we started adding to our herd.
One morning, while eating eggs from our chickens, blackberries from our yard, and drinking milk from our goats, I realized that having a small farmstead was the next logical step. I loved the feeling I had from raising our own food without pesticides, without preservatives, from animals that are healthy and live good lives. Soon after, we added KuneKune pigs to our farmstead, named 6E after our family members: Edwin, Emily, Ellie, Ember, Ethan and Esther.
It wasn't long after beginning our farmsteading journey that lessons from the farm began finding their way into our homeschooling. So much of our day is focused around animal husbandry; it was only natural that our kids became part of that and began learning beside us. It really is a family-affair at 6E Farmstead.
A leap of faith…
A year and a half into our farming journey, we started feeling cramped on our one-acre property. Our business was growing quickly and the demand for classes and events kept increasing. We decided it was time to make a change-- to move to a new larger property in Stonyford and build our business to be a real business. Emily put in her notice to leave her teaching career. Now we are on a journey to build our barns, fences, and eventually our dream home.
