Limitations can definitely be the road to many possibilities.
Laura Bissonnette, who runs Copper Bell Farm in Indiana with her husband Patrick, found this to be the case with their homesteading journey. The journey to Copper Bell Farm began over 9 years ago, as Laura and her husband began exploring more natural products for their growing family in the suburbs: growing a vegetable garden, handmade soap, making sourdough bread and the like.
There was a dairy herdshare nearby, which began her journey with making raw milk and eventually introducing her to the dairy sheep world. This seemed like the perfect solution, as someone who had a cow’s milk allergy.
“I somehow stumbled in there and I guess the rest is history!” she laughs. “I started dabbling with our raw milk-share; I started testing out butter, sour cream, mozzarella cheese…I was trying to find every possible way to use up every little bit of what we were growing on our homestead.”
The Bissonnettes had a “massive” vegetable garden, a hive, and were even raising quail for eggs (their neighborhood did not allow chickens).
And then, by the grace of God, they found a new property.
Laura eventually moved onto sheep milk. “I knew in my heart that I always wanted to have sheep,” she says. “The market was hard, it was hard to find a place where we lived, so we had to step outside of our comfort zone a little bit. So we found the place where we are now.”
They are an hour away from the nearest city. However, the land is fertile, giving the Bissonnettes ample opportunity to cultivate their operation. Many of their crops and animals also have old-world, European roots, such as their French garlic, sheep, and soon, the raising of a French breed of chickens.
This was certainly a new experience for the family, as they are first generation farmers. It is a whole-family endeavor, says Laura, as even the children have parts to play in the work. The children collect the eggs and feed the animals.
“It’s not just mom and dad doing the chores. I think the family involvement is beautiful, because there’s a sense of purpose there.”
The Bissonnettes also see the importance of being good stewards of the land. They use organic seed supplements for their animals, staying away from conventional ingredients like soy and corn; the sheep are purely grass-fed, and the chickens also have access to the organic feed. They also have honeybees.
Although farming and gathering their food directly from the natural source is still costly, she is grateful for the ability to “control the parameters of what they’re being fed.” The certainty that the animals from which she derives food and other natural products are living a good life–access to sunshine, fresh grass–is something that she appreciates and does not take for granted.
To feed their family nourishing food, cultivated in an ethical manner is a passion for Laura.“I like that I know what goes into it,” she states. “The efforts that our family puts forth to grow everything…there’s love in it.”
And it’s not solely food that the Bissonnettes produce. After the switch from cow’s milk to sheep milk due to her dairy sensitivities, she began turning the milk into soap, selling them at local markets, and eventually leading to a successful Etsy shop.
“There’s a lot of vitamins and nutrients in the milk,” she says, “and it helps to moisturize your skin…that’s what I like about it, it’s not drying.”
Her goal is to expand this part of their operation, and to begin making liquid soap and lotions.
The Bissonnettes’ values and love for the care of creation have clearly influenced their daily living. Their membership in the Catholic Rural Life community has only strengthened their sense of stewardship.
“We’re bringing the land back to our Creator,” Laura remarks about the importance of Catholic Rural Life’s work. “It’s a good way to come back to our roots and build community.”
