Us:

Ragged View Farm is a diversified farm on 18 acres located in Andover, NH, looking out to Ragged Mountain to the North. Mark Cowdrey & Lea Ayers LaFave have been reclaiming the place from the brush & scrub since 1999. Our endeavors include keeping a sow & selling pork & piglets, growing a small commercial garlic patch & running about 100 maple taps here in the Spring as part of a 400 tap operation, and raising a beef every couple of years. We stay quite busy with these efforts, growing our family garden, and keeping the woodshed filled. These labors are their own rewards, however, providing contact with the earth & the seasons that sustain us intellectually & emotionally. Central to this rewarding, challenging mix is the heart of the farm, our Suffolk draft horses.

Our Goals:

We try in our small way to contribute to the sustainability of our world & especially our local community. Maintaining farm land in active production, even in areas as small as a family garden, is of paramount importance to our society in this uncertain age, and is the best “Homeland Security” that money & effort can buy. The more we come to rely on advanced electronic communication & global trade, the quicker & more completely our lives can be disrupted in very short order. We strive to make what physical contributions we can to local food production & capacity, to maintain & advance the use of draft horses for motive power. By doing so, we hope to set an example that inspires others to do likewise.

View of Ragged Mountian

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson