Meet the Team: Stephen McGinley

Welcome to our new blog series: Meet the Team. Each month, we will share an interview of one of team members! We hope you will enjoy these!

We are starting with Farmer Stephen, who, in addition to founding the farm with Casey-Mae, teaches philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s University.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Hagerstown, Maryland.

What did you do before you came to farming/Good Soil Farm?

I was a youth minister at Sacred Heart Church in Bowie, Maryland.

What inspired you to become a farmer?

I was inspired by Aristotle, Plato, Wendell Berry, and the Church’s teachings on Creation and Redemption.

What are some things you didn’t expect to learn that farming has taught you?

How angry I get when things don’t go my way, like when poultry netting tangles, or the sheep get out!

How has farming benefited you?

It has unleashed my poetic side.

Here’s one of my poems:

Clouds, like winter’s breath, inspire me, O, to sing.
Undulating, spooling, wisping, dancing clouds
Play upon my heartstrings.

What do you hope to accomplish through farming?

I hope to work with Christ, for the restoration of all things, through farming.

How has your role at Good Soil Farm evolved in your time here?

I do less farm office work than I did at first! [Casey-Mae does most of that now].

I like getting up early now. One of the benefits is that I am living better in the natural patterns of both the natural and liturgical seasons. I understand them better now.

Most memorable Good Soil Farm experience?

In 2021, when our house was being built, we did not have a place to live anymore! The two places we had rented up until then were no longer available–the septic had failed and was irreparable at the first place, and the family who owned the second was now using it. It is very hard to find a short-term rental for a family with four children and a dog, so we ended up living in a camper! Here is a story about when we first moved in to the camper that Stephen is going to include in his book about our six months and a week in a camper:

A couple of days later, I decided to shower in the afternoon because it was unbearably hot and I was unbearably gross. As I suffered the cold water, looking north west, I saw ominous dark clouds moving from the Mountain toward us. Rarely have I seen such black clouds before and thought I’d better hurry up. Before I started showering, Casey-Mae and the kids decided that rather than showering they would play in the stream, St. Mary’s Run. As I watched these clouds I thought that they had better hurry up. I might need to go and help them. As I was finishing up, the kids and Casey-Mae had just broken out of the woodline from the stream when the winds started picking up. I yelled to the kids to hurry up. A crash of thunder broke the sound. Suddenly we heard a speaker announce, “Seek shelter now! Seek shelter now!” FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is just across Route 15 from our farm. Their warning came a little late. The winds were torrential. Casey-Mae and I looked at each other and she said that she didn’t think a camper counted as shelter in a tornado. Neither did our roofless basement. I concurred and yelled to the kids to run to the car quickly. Raphael, our 8 year old, was terrified and ran as he said, “quicker than fast” to the car. Before he got there though 10 feet in front of him and six feet from the car a tree fell over in the driveway between him and the car. He ran back to me and I yelled over the wind why he came back. He told me that a tree almost hit the car. I said I understand, but it didn’t hit the car and we need to leave now. The rain had just started falling with spits of huge droplets. A mere foretaste of what was to come.

I turned around and noticed that the wind was blowing the two blue “permanent” tents really hard and that if they gave way they would go smashing into the camper and break the exterior or the windows. I ran over and tried to untie the tarp. To no avail; the wind suddenly picked it up and started pulling one of them straight for the camper. I grabbed the leg and dragged it against the wind to the north side of the camper so that the west wind would blow it across the field. I did the same to the other. Both were mangled pieces of metal now, having lost all form proper to a “permanent” tent. Having secured the camper from the imminent threat of tents, I ran to the car. As soon as I got inside the skies opened up their fury. We drove to the neighbors across the street but they weren’t home for us to shelter in their basement. 

As we drove to Marnie’s house, poor Raphael was screaming in the back that we were going to die. When we got to her house he ran out of the car to her screen door, turned around and yelled back to me that it’s locked and then he pulled with all his might and broke it open. Marnie by then had come to the door and let us in, drying the kids with towels and feeding them food to calm them down. We had all survived and so did the camper.

When I got back to the farm, the wind had blown off the cover for our feed. Hundreds of dollars of feed was trash, a small price to pay for having passed through the storm. 

What’s your favorite animal on the farm? And why?

Dandelion [sheep] because I saved her life.

In the first summer that we were farming, we bought 4 sheep from a local. Two of the sheep were four months old and already weaned. Two of the sheep were two months old and weaned by virtue of being relocated to our farm. They had been at our farm for about a week when, after a good Friday’s work, our first intern and I happily went up the hill to look at them. One of the two youngest sheep was on the ground, on her side. Within five minutes, she died in my arms. The intern went to get shovels so that we could bury her. Prior to her death I looked at her eyelids, performing the famacha test to see if she had worms. I was rusty on interpreting it, but her eyelids were white which I thought indicated anemia, death by parasitic worms—the barber pole worm to be exact.

After she died, I looked up and noticed that the other younger lamb was listing from side to side. Her name was Dandelion. She must be sick too, I thought. I called the local that we bought the sheep from to ask him if his sheep had worms. He said that they did not and that it would be unlikely that they got it from his farm. Moreover, he said that it is unlikely that they got worms from my farm since no ruminants have been on it for so long. He recommended that perhaps they had colic, which is when they eat too many leguminous plants (e.g. clover) and so produce too much gas in their rumen (beans are also a legume—think about what happens when you eat too many beans. The old adage comes true for both you and the sheep).

I called another friend who has raised sheep, and he said something similar.

I inspected the forage and thought that this was very unlikely since where they were had very little clover, but being new to this, I deferred to their judgements. I tried snaking a tube through her rectum to release some pressure. No dice. It didn’t work. She was in such pain that she did not mind the snaking, but it didn’t release any pressure.

I called another friend who raises hundreds of sheep a year. He didn’t answer.

I thought, this doesn’t make any sense. The famacha test (which my other two friends didn’t know about) showed worms to be the most likely culprit. The lamb doesn’t look bloated big. She is definitely dying.

I looked up herbal remedies for worms thinking I could make something from that. I tried using a syringe made for infant-humans to feed the lamb some sort of concoction. Most of the liquid just dribbled down her neck and onto my arms.

Eventually, after hours of attention, I went to bed, praying that the lamb either be healed or die.

The next day, I was supposed to go to my friend’s Ordination to the Priesthood in Washington, D.C. I woke up at dawn and tended the animals and then spent all morning massaging the sides of this lamb, trying to release more gas because I had no idea what else to do, and syringe feeding her some molasses water for electrolytes to keep her alive.

Around 11am, I decided to leave the lamb to the care of my wife and my friend so that I could go to this Ordination. I got out of my filthy farm clothes which were covered in lanolin, molasses drool, and sheep poop and donned one of my suits. I said good-bye and that I would bring medicine from Frederick, the big city, on my way back. There’s a sheep store down there: Sheepman Supply Co. 

As I was driving down the highway, I started praying the rosary for my friend to be ordained and my dying sheep. Suddenly, the thought struck me: If “the Good Shepherd does not leave his sheep” has any supernatural meaning, any spiritual meaning, it must have some natural meaning, since grace presupposes and perfects nature. In other words, for Jesus’ claim to hold, there must be some prior responsibility that the natural shepherd has to prioritize the health of his sheep when the sheep needs him to do so, even at great cost to himself. I called a friend of mine who was going to the ordination and asked him to please tell our soon-to-be priest friend this, that I am sorry I cannot make it, and that he can turn this into a homily sometime.

I set my face to this sheep store in Frederick, the big city, and eventually found it. The parking lot was a confusing mess, but I eventually made my way into the store, dressed in my finest. Heads turned, but no one said anything. I found Ivermectin amidst a bunch of other de-wormers, read the back of the bottle, and bought it, along with the appropriate drenching tools (syringes specially designed to administer de-wormer when placed passed the back teeth of the sheep ensuring the sheep swallow it–far better than child medical syringes). I called Casey-Mae and told her that I was skipping the Ordination and on my way home with the medicine for Dandelion.

When I got home, Dandelion was worse than when I left. I measured out the dose based on my best guess as to her weight. I filled the syringe. Her jaw was super tight. She was grinding her teeth badly from the pain, but I got it past her back teeth and gave her the Ivermectin, praying all the while that this would work. I checked on her a couple of hours later and she wasn’t dead yet.

I woke the next morning and tended the livestock. Dandelion was up and walking. Prior to this near-death experience my sheep ran from me when I came to them. Dandelion came to me when I came over and let me pet her. After a couple of months, she taught the other sheep that I was trustworthy. Dandelion has been the best mother ever since. She taught me how to be a good shepherd and for this reason is my favorite animal on the farm.

P.S. I later spoke with my friend who raises hundreds of sheep a year and he informed me that moving and weaning lambs on the same day causes so much stress on sheep that their immune system plummets leaving a space for the barber-pole worm that is always present in their guts to proliferate. It’s not a question of whether your sheep have worms, but of the whether the worms are too many. The two sheep that had the worm spike were the two that were moved and weaned on the same day. I’ll never make that mistake again.

Favorite hobby?  Or favorite things you like to do when not working? 

Cooking with farm food, hiking

Favorite food?

Nothing beats the seasonal sandwiches!

Favorite dish you like to make with a Good Soil Farm item?

Salad!

I just love making a salad with our greens! And I love our arugula–other arugula just doesn’t taste as peppery!

And I love making an arugula-goat cheese sandwich.

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