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This week Felicia is joined by Anna Hunter: knitter, business owner, entrepreneur, community leader, and now shepherdess and homesteader. For some of our listeners in the audience who are from our local Vancouver, BC area, you’ll recall that Anna was the founder of the Baaad Anna’s yarn store in East Vancouver. About two and a half years ago, she sold the store to a longtime friend and customer Paula who has continued to build the store. Since that time Anna, her husband, and her two young sons have had some big adventures on their new farm Long Way Homestead.

Please join us as Felicia and Anna discuss the challenges one faces when starting your own farm!

In this episode, we talk about:

• 1:43 Anna talks about how she was first introduced to knitting and how she was inspired to open Baaad Anna’s
• 7:00 Felicia asks Anna how her strong beliefs in community building has affected her decisions in creating Baaad Anna’s and her current business ventures
• 9:34 Anna talks about why she decided to sell her yarn store and move to Manitoba to start a farm
• 13:01 Talking about starting up the homestead and the Kickstarter that made Anna’s SponsorSHEEPprogram possible
• 18:54 Anna and Felicia discuss the SponsorSHEEP program in more detail and how it changes the way fibre artists view the materials they work with
• 24:00 Garlic VS sheep, escaping llamas, and how Anna documents all that she’s learning living on a homestead
• 27:09 Anna discusses why local wool production is so important and the lack of wool mills in Canada and how it affects our carbon footprint
• 36:32 With all the responsibility of keeping a homestead going, does Anna have time to knit?
• 40:13 What kind of sheep Anna raises on her farm and some nerding out over sheep facts
• 44:25 How Anna’s family has adjusted from living in the big city to now living on a rural farm
• 46:07 Where to find Anna online to follow her family’s adventures and information on upcoming SponsorSHEEP opportunities
• 47:15 Felicia’s final notes

Links and Things

Here’s where to find Anna online:

• Website: www.longwayhomestead.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/longwayhomestead