Spotlight on: Chris Spitzer, Yellow Creek Cottage
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| Chris Spitzer |
When I interviewed Chris Spitzer, owner of Yellow Creek Cottage in Medina, OH, last month, I literally spent almost two hours just chatting with her, standing next to her red pickup truck. Although we had never met before, her easygoing nature and casual attitude made the conversation flow as though we were longtime friends.
Then we moved on to the fields, where Spitzer keeps one of the largest purebred flocks of California Variegated Mutant (CVM)/Romeldale sheep in the United States. Her love of this very rare breed shows not only as she leads her flock through the fields as a jeans-clad Pied Piper, but also through her volunteer leadership of the nonprofit National CVM Conservancy, Inc.
“Other breeders were having such a time selling their flock, whereas I had a waiting list,” she shrugs, recalling the impetus behind the association. “The Conservancy was created to not only bring about an awareness of the sheep, but to also act as a support for the breeders who dedicate their time to these sheep. NCC runs a group ad program for our breeders to help bring this awareness about, and help each farm market these incredible animals on a group platform. We constitute 26 purebred groups, which are mainly situated east of the Mississippi.”
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| CVM/Romeldale sheep come in various colors, including a specially bred rose gray that lies beneath an otherwise ordinary surface coat. |
While there were only about 250 sheep listed with the American Romeldale CVM Registry when Spitzer first started breeding them about 15 years ago, there are nearly 1,000 today. As their name implies, they originated on the West Coast — though they are stalwarts against the variable Ohio weather. “We’ve done a lot of research with them,” she notes, “and it’s a fine breed.”
Spitzer thrives on challenges, it seems. Whether it’s parenting six children or being Nana to her many grandchildren, fulfilling a last request from a treasured friend or even opening up a goat’s milk-centric dairy and bakery, she puts her best foot forward when she’s knee-deep in a project.
Born in Munich, Germany, Spitzer came to the U.S. with her parents under the age of 5 (“I can still speak German, but with an American accent,” she admits). She has always been a bit of a “farm girl” — recounting with a laugh how her white lacy First Communion dress got caught on a barbed wire fence when she attempted to get a closer look at a relative’s cows. Spitzer started and sold 3 businesses during the years when her children were young and later worked in the corporate world in both advertising and marketing, which later led the way to managing a Buick auto dealership as part of Spitzer Auto World group, but the allure of getting back to the farm always remained strong.
She fulfilled that dream by starting Yellow Creek Cottage about 15 years ago. “The farm is named after a small cottage on our property that over the years has housed different people who had nowhere else to go,” Spitzer explains. “It was a refuge and a new start for a single mother, a struggling young couple — the home was a welcoming place that helped them overcome a major hurdle in their lives. It has played such an important role that I decided to honor it by naming the business after it.”
The home farm, where we met for the interview, consists of approximately 200 acres in Seville/Medina, with close to an additional 400 acres being leased as crop land. Spitzer also utilizes additional space at a home in Bath, OH, where the lambs are incubated until they are delivered to new homes all over the country. The house in Bath is also where Spitzer does her fiber crafts, such as spinning and weaving. The Seville/Medina property, known as SF, or “Spitzer Family” Farms, is where the eventual goat dairy and cheesecake factory will open. In their five years of ownership, the Spitzers have taken the property from literally a dirty scrap yard to a fully operating farm, and are utilizing every square inch.
“We breed and raise about 1,000 pigs a year for 4H and freezer pork. We also have freezer beef, freezer lamb, fresh eggs, hay, straw, soybeans, corn, wheat and oats,” Spitzer notes. “I don’t know when was the last time I stepped into a grocery store for food!”
The farm hosts pig roasts in the fall, where horses Tink and Tanker, affectionately known as the Spitzers’ “pasture ornaments,” are always a big draw. “We love when we’re able to open up the farm to the community,” Spitzer says. In fact, much of the wool she gets from her approximately 150-sheep flock is snapped up during an annual January open house and sheep shearing day event. “We only shear once a year, because that’s all they need,” she explains. “Right now, I only have about 10 lbs. left. For about two weeks after the January event, I feel like a UPS employee because I’m packaging and sending constantly!”
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| "Here, girls!" |
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| With the electric fence turned off temporarily during our visit, it didn't take long for this lamb to go exploring outside her normal stomping grounds. |
CVM: Cute & Very Mischeiveous
The CVM/Romeldales were definitely ready for their closeup. Spitzer threw some corncobs around, calling “Here, girls” now and then, and they rushed to her out of interest as well as the prospect of an easy lunch. Some would stay still long enough for a scratch on the head or even seem to pose for the camera, but when it comes to having their wool inspected to get a closer look at the beautiful colorations, some of which were hidden just below the surface of an otherwise nondescript coat — they were quickly on the move.
“They remind me so much of people,” she says with a laugh. “They definitely have their own cliques. And some, even if there’s corn right in front of them, if you throw one off to the distance they just have to take off running to see it, because maybe it’s a better piece.”
The sheep are particularly prized for their rich color tones, which include a dark slate gray, a chocolate brown, and what Spitzer calls an “Irish setter red.” A recent introduction is rose gray, which is the red interspersed with the gray for a beautiful smoky tone. It took Spitzer seven years to breed the color, but its popularity was well worth it.
Spitzer has communicated with Dr. Phil Sponenberg, a Viriginia Tech animal geneticist, who believes the genetics of the breed are still mutating. Therefore, with each round of breeding there’s always a bit of surprise as to what will arrive. Spitzer says she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“If it were predictable, it would be boring,” she adds. “I love when I’m totally wrong, when it’s not what it was supposed to be.”
Save the Species
The CVM/Romeldales are her focus for the near future — despite knee surgery in late May, she is spending the summer delivering lambs to anxiously awaiting recipients around the country. But she has also begun a new challenge: Santa Cruz Island (SCI) sheep.
The SCI sheep are a couple years away from providing profitable wool, as she is currently breeding for a longer fiber, but Spitzer doesn’t mind. She took about 30 of them in about two years ago as part of a notable cause — the species was essentially exterminated from their namesake island about a decade earlier.
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| Dixie is one of Yellow Creek Cottage's two canine sheep herders who keep close watch over their wooly charges. |
“It’s a horrible, horrible story,” she says. “Settlers had brought them to the island about 200 years ago, and they became feral. Around 1997, the Nature Conservancy decided to ‘reclaim’ the land for some native plants. Rather than just taking them to slaughter and use the meat to feed the homeless or do something useful, about 30,000 of these animals were simply exterminated, and their carcasses were left on the island to rot. The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy was able to rescue approximately 125 sheep before this all happened, and have since brought the population up to about 250.
“Because I’m known for my work with the CVM/Romeldales, the SVF Foundation in Rhode Island — the people who do quite a bit of freezing embryos and semen of rarebreeds — felt that letting our farm breed and work with some of these sheep would be a positive thing in the survival of this breed,” Spitzer continues. “I actually have some of the original animals from the rescue.”
SF Farm is already working on placing some of these animals with a new breeder in Georgia, who also wants to provide a safe haven and future for these animals.
Spitzer finds a sense of community among her fellow CVM and SCI breeders. In fact, she’s preparing to be in a wedding next month of another shepherdess in New Jersey. “I told her no dresses, so she’s letting me wear a dressy pantsuit instead,” Spitzer says with a laugh. “I also told her that I have a delivery nearby, so I’m bringing my trailer. After the ceremony, I’ll be in the parking lot, checking on the animals!”
The bride-to-be, however, understands completely. “She knows it’s just me being me,” Spitzer says.