Hi! I’m Judith Giusto, and the story of Round Barn Merinos is more than just how a fiber operation got started – it is a personal story of an artist, farmer and mother and an incredible adventure!!!

Like many of the truly monumental occurrences in our lives, we often don't know they're happening until we're too far along to turn back. That's a little bit of how I feel about the last 14 years of my life.

It begins in 1990, after I adopted my son from Peru as a single mom. At that time I owned a business in New York City – the place I lived all my life – and I began thinking about leaving the City and starting a new career and life.

I wanted to live in the country on a farm, raise sheep and make yarn and knitwear!!!! What was I thinking??????

In retrospect I realize how crazy this sounds, but at the time I was feeling very confident having successfully navigated a difficult adoption process, I believed I could make the transition from business owner to farmer as "easily" as I had made the transition from single person to single mom. (It's a good thing I didn't know how challenging this was going to be -- sometimes it’s better not to know.)

After 3 years (1993) and many hours of reading about various sheep breeds, their fiber, visiting farms, sheep and wool festivals and even working for part of a winter during lambing season on a sheep farm in West Virginia, it was time to take the plunge. I had learned all I could from books and other people now I had to try it for myself.

In June of 1993 I bought a farm in Vermont sorely in need of renovation along with my first 11 merino sheep – since then there’s been no looking back.

Now – that’s not to say that this project has been easy….not for a moment. There are those days when I can’t help but wonder what I was thinking when I started this. I’ve developed a whole new set of business skills. I know what to do when the snow plow takes down a mailbox, I know that hairdryers are good for defrosting pipes and I know that ovens are good for warming new born lambs.