By Lynn Johnston
Photo credits to Jennifer Villeneuve and Stephanie Lapensée
A conversation between Jennifer Villeneuve and Lynn Johnston.
Tell us a bit about your farm, how long have you been there and how big is the property. How did you get to where you are today?
We started our farm 7 years ago in Vankleek hill. We bought a small hobby farm and renovated the house and barn. We had 18 acres around the property. We had a border collie named Lady - we loved the breed - and when we got her, the breeder told me she didn't have IT to be a working dog. She was only 10 weeks old! She started to show us a lot of potential so at 10 months old I contacted Nathalie Labelle to do an instinct test. Nathalie knew her lineage and told me she was very good . We lived in Saskatchewan before moving to Vankleek hill, working on a cattle ranch with dogs and horses.
When we bought the farm in Vankleek hill, I (Jennifer) wanted 5-7 sheep to work with our Lady. Ludovic came back with 25. We had no idea what it took to raise sheep. We learned very fast that you need good fencing to keep them inside. 5 years passed and we were now up to 400 head and 6 young kids. We didn't have enough room to pasture them all and the house was getting small, so we decided it was time to get a bigger place. We bought this property 2 years ago from Ludovic's family farm. This property is surrounded by 250 acres. With the amount of work we had to get done (building a house, caring for a newborn baby boy, fencing (A LOT of fencing), renovating the barn, selling at farmers markets etc.) we decided to sell some ewes and reduce the flock to 200 head. We moved into the house in August of 2024 and moved all the animals at the same time. We started doing farmers' markets 3 years ago. We started with all kinds of lamb cuts, then added maple syrup (we have a sugar shack on the new property) and pasture-raised chickens. We will be adding fruit, veggies, and beef eventually.
Where does the name come from? Did either you or Ludovic grow up on a farm? What attracted you to farming?
I was the one that came up with the name of the farm. It's both of our names combined. I was doing a lot of research on how to start a brand and wanted it to be short and personal. So, I started to draw things and finally decided on a logo we both liked. We started with Dorpers, and we have a cash crop operation so the logo was the image of what we do. Ludovic grew up on a dairy and cash crop farm and I am from the city. When we met, it was my first time ever stepping on a farm, but I was a BIG animal lover and always wanted to have all kinds of animals.
You mentioned Lady - do you use dogs in any way on the farm?
We now have 3 border collies. One of them (Bo) is working every day on the farm with us. We have a rookie, Flash. Patrick Gosselin has helped us a lot with Bo and is now helping us with Flash so that he can work with us. We also added LGD's 6 years ago. We have 3 females and one male. They are as essential on the farm as our border collies.
What prompted you to host a novice trial 2 years ago?
We got to know Patrick and talked a lot with him about our farm and what we wanted Bo to be able to do. While getting to know him we realized we like him a lot and have a number of common interests. He explained the competitions and we thought it would be something interesting for us to go see with the kids. At some point, he asked us if we would be interested in hosting a trial. We had the land, the flock, and the interest so we said yes without hesitation. We believe in helping others out in all the ways we can and for us, helping this amazing community was a no brainer. We also thought it would be an amazing experience for our kids to be able to watch and participate in helping.
This year you have moved on to host a full trial with open and novice classes. Tell us about the setup of the trial.
The last couple of times Patrick came, he told us how much potential we had with our fields. We decided to go ahead and have two trials at the same time . We have a smaller field we use for camping and beside it we have a field that we use for the novice trials. On the other side of the dead end road, we have the bigger field so we will have the Open trial there. It's very private and accessible. Everything is close by so it will be practical for every handler.
Jenovic Spring trial will be held June 5-7, 2026. Patrick Gosselin is the trial manager and the judges are Werner Reitboeck and Lorna Savage. Entries will open around May 1.