B2—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 7,1984
V
Sheep farm satisfies city
BY JOYCE BUPP
Staff Correspondent
JEFFERSON Billie Andrews
is one of those rare persons who,
even from early childhood, knew
exactly what she wanted to do with
her life. The Baltimore-born
youngster planned, to somehow
spend her life working with
animals.
At age ten, Billie, the big-city
youngster who had resigned to
doing without a horse in her urban
back yard, began breeding exotic
birds like cinnamon ring parakeets
and red siskins.
Today she’s a full-fledged far
mer and livestock breeder. Billie's
Comedale and Romney bloodlines
are becoming well-known in
purebred sheep circles, and her
Astro is half of the cornerstone of the Corriedale breeding
genetics. Bred by Philip Reister of Tenino, Washington, Astro
was champion junior ram at the California Cow Palace expo in
1981 and reserve champion at Seattle’s Pacific International.
Aurora, also bred by Philip Reister, is the other half. Aurora
won champion junior ewe lamb honors in 1979 at the Pacific
International show, then topped the Merlan-Reister 1980
production sale.
Diversity describes Andrews’ flock, geared toward four separate breeding programs of
purebred Corriedales and Romneys, a colored-fleece flock, and a red-fleece flock.
high-quality colored fleeces
command top prices from
discriminating craftsmen.
In between the eras of the exotic
birds and the 80-head flock of
wooly beasts, she became an ac
complished dog groomer and
handler, pursued a mixture of
college studies and spent time
traveling and studying in Europe.
“I took my dog clippers with me
wherever I went and could always
find a job that way,” she
remembered of several
memorable months spent working
her way from Italy to England.
While in England, Billie had the
opportunity to expand her
knowledge of the dog grooming
profession by working under some
of the very best canine specialists,
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girl's dream
including the wife of the then
Keeper of the Keys of the Tower of
London.
Returning to the United States,
she decided it “was tune to get on
with my life,” by first completing
college. After earning her degree
in fashion design, she settled in
New York with a job in the gar
ment district.
Not particularly happy with her
career in the fashion industry,
after about six months Billie
returned to Baltimore, purchasing
property to open her own dog
grooming business, “The Dog
House.”
Determined to have only the
most accomplished and qualified
people running her business, Billie
set up a program to tram her
specialists for the shop. Demand
for her skilled employees soon told
this entrepreneur that she could fill
a need in the dog industry. Ex
panding her training program into
a teaching center, Billie opened
The Baltimore School of Dog
Grooming\
The school has proven highly
successful, with students applying
for the 10-week course from all
over the world. Classes are limited
to five students per teacher, and
every five weeks a new class
begins studies. Not only do
students learn technical expertise
of dog grooming, they are actually
taught how to establish and
operate a business of their own.
With a successful school and a
second branch of the Dog House
opened in Washington, D.C., Billie
still yearned for something more.
She wanted to farm.
A strictly methodical person
from a family with real estate and
statistical marketing
backgrounds, Billie purchased a
book. Written by Les Scher,
“Finding and Buying Your Place
in the Country ” details anything
from soil types to digging a well,
and became her handbook, studied
from cover to cover.
For several years during the
early 1970’5, Billie spent her
weekends exploring the backroads
of the imddle-Atlantic states in
pursuit of properties for sale.
Having traveled over much of the
world, she is convinced that this
area is one of the most beautiful on
earth, and the help-one-another
philosophy of country people one of
its greatest resources. But no
property she examined was ever
quite right.
“I had almost given up. This was
after Hurricane Agnes went
through, and it seemed like
everything for sale was on a flood
plain. But late one day we were out
looking, again, and I saw a sign up
at the end of this road. When we
(Turn to Page B 4)
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Learning to spin made Billie Andrews more able to un
derstand her customers' needs for wool fiber. In the "wool
room" near her spinning wheel are assorted retail samples
and experiments she has underway. The skeins of wool have
been dyed with natural colors from such plants as walnut and
goldenrod.
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On a detailed topographical model of her 100-acre farm,
Billie Andrews plans additional pasture fencing and plots the
location of the new barn to house her unique flock.
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