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Rock Sheep Promotes Livestock Business
Roger Harley found a unique way to promote his farm using a perfectly situated hillside and a big pile of rocks.
The Keene, Ontario farmer made a football field-sized sheep on the side of a hill next to his farmstead, where he produces cattle, sheep and hogs.
The purpose of the 300 by 400-ft. piece of rur
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Rock Sheep Promotes Livestock Business LIVESTOCK Sheep/Goats 29-1-6
Roger Harley found a unique way to promote his farm using a perfectly situated hillside and a big pile of rocks.
The Keene, Ontario farmer made a football field-sized sheep on the side of a hill next to his farmstead, where he produces cattle, sheep and hogs.
The purpose of the 300 by 400-ft. piece of rural "artwork" was to promote his farm and also focus attention in the community on the lack of any nearby packing plants. The closest one is almost 4 hours away.
The determined farmer wants to revitalize his rural community, which he says is dying because of past closures of regional abattoirs.
Harley is proposing a federally inspected, multi-species plant that would increase local employment and help provide a local market for farm products.
So far, his plan is working, because once the giant rock sheep was completed, people started driving out to see it. He points out that there has even been a lot of aerial traffic. But most importantly, strong support has been mustered for the abattoir project.
"It's something different," he says, "and it has certainly gotten people talkingà and listening, too. I recently spoke with the federal minister of agriculture and he wanted to know what our plans were. Today, I got a letter from him, giving names and addresses of people and organizations who may be able to help."
It took about 15 days to create the sheep. Local animator, Barney Wornoff of Super Popular Studios, helped with designing a grid pattern for the sheep. After a matching grid was "drawn" on the hillside using reels of caution tape of the type used by police at crime scenes, volunteers used rocks to complete each section of the drawing inside the grid lines.
"There are probably 1,500 tons of rock in this sheep," Harley says "Most were taken from an old fence line on the farm. Moving and placement was mostly done with backhoes, but some was also done by hand."
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Roger Harley, Freedom Foods, 1578 Heritage Line, R.R.3, Keene, Ontario, Canada K0L 2G0 (ph 705 295-4656; email: freedomfoods@nexicon.net).
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