July 2023.

Michael and I, with great sadness, share the following news… We have closed our creamery business of 12+ years. It has been an amazing journey meeting so many people through our markets, events, and here on our farm! We truly thank all of those who have honored us with their support and love of our products. To family, friends, and customers, we leave on a top note having succeeded in bringing our dream to its fruition; raising healthy, viable sheep, making award winning cheese, and mentoring the young people who stood beside us working on the farm and those whos questions we answered in their wonderment of how this operation worked. It has been the most rewarding journey of our life and at the same time, the hardest we have ever endured! So with mixed emotions, we move forward to other adventures! Always believe that anything is possible! WE DID! We thank each and every one of you for your commitment to us and hope our paths cross again one day.

The D.C. region’s only sheep creamery, built from scratch, has closed
WASHINGTON POST
By Alisa Tang
July 23, 2023

NEW WINDSOR, Md. — Colleen Histon walked past tidy pastures toward her 19th-century barn as she recollected the backbreaking work of running a sheep dairy. The farm had once been filled with the sounds and smells of birthing lambs, milking ewes and making cheese. It had been a labor of love, but it had taken its toll.

The pens were empty, immaculate. The last 90 or so sheep had been sold and were living with new owners in southern Maryland, Pennsylvania and Upstate New York. A guy from Minnesota bought about 60, including the majority of the milking ewes and one ram. The D.C. region’s only cheesemaking sheep dairy had fallen into silence, broken by the occasional birdsong from trees that bordered the fields.

Shepherds Manor Creamery was being liquidated. Colleen and her husband Michael had built the entire cheesemaking operation from scratch after moving there in 2010. They had put it on the market in August 2021 for $1.1 million, complete with the offer of a few months of mentoring, from lambing to cheesemaking. But after a year, no one bit. Some buyers were interested in the 22-acre farm but not the sheep or equipment. So the Histons took it off the market in August 2022 and were selling it off piecemeal. [Read Full Article]

ARTISAN SHEEP CHEESE • SOAP
American Cheese Society Winner – 2017, 2018, 2019
Carroll County Department of Economic Development’s 2011 Agribusiness Award Winner!