Our Story

Clover Brooke Farm began in 2007 with two goats named Clover and Daisy and a nine-year-old named Brooke. Our daughter helped us with the chores every day, and when it came time to name our little farm, we put Clover and Brooke together. The name stuck. So did the goats.

Two goats became a herd, and a few years later we added two llamas to help protect them. We loved caring for the animals together as a family, and before long we were bringing them to schools, daycares, nursing homes, parades, and county fairs. Some of our llamas and alpacas went on to become therapy animals through Pet Partners, then known as Delta Society. Those early visits showed us how much we enjoyed introducing people to our animals and sharing what we were learning.

From a dairy farm to a fiber farm

We were raising a family and working full time at local schools, but whenever we had a free afternoon, we seemed to end up helping friends on their farms. We liked the physical work and the stories that went with it. There was always someone who could tell you why a stone wall ran where it did or how a barn had been used a generation earlier.

In August 2016, we bought the Hyde Park farm we’d been looking for. It had rolling pastures, historic barns, and an old farmhouse with plenty of character. We learned that a family had milked a herd of 25 dairy cows here in the 1960s. By the time we arrived, about 20 years of brush had taken over the pastures, there was little fencing to speak of, and the barns needed more than a good sweeping.

We moved in that September, ordered a tractor, and got to work. Andrea spent her days sketching barn renovations, watching tractor safety videos, pulling toxic plants, and meeting neighbors who stopped by to welcome us. They remembered fishing in the pond, picking apples in the orchard, and going to barn parties. As we brought the farm back into use, those stories helped us picture the place as it had been.

That first year, we cleared brush, rebuilt stone walls, pulled out buried barbed wire, and set more than a hundred fence posts so the animals could graze by spring. Our daughter came home from college to help us get it done. Family and friends came back to help plant hops, and that year we added beehives and planted an orchard. We thought we were asking people to give up their weekends. They were already asking when they could come back.

Sharing the farm

We opened the farm to the public in 2019. In August 2026, we marked ten years on this property. Today, Clover Brooke Farm is a woman-owned, solar-powered fiber farm on about 45 acres in Hyde Park, New York. We rotate our animals through the pastures so the grass has time to recover. Our llamas, alpacas, sheep, and Pygora goats grow fiber that we turn into yarn and other goods, and that we use to teach visitors what goes into making them.

We’re both lifelong learners, and many of our favorite things to teach grew out of something we wanted to learn ourselves. On a farm tour, we might talk about why we shear our animals or let you feel the difference between sheep’s wool and alpaca fiber. In a workshop, you can try your hand at felting or natural dyeing, or learn how Michael brews an all-grain beer. And if you’d rather spend your morning walking through the woods with a llama or alpaca, we’d love to take you.

You can book farm tours, animal experiences, and classes directly through our website. Follow us on social media for upcoming events, the latest farm project, and, when the timing is right, a first look at the newest little face in the barn.

Warmly,
Andrea Parent-Tibbetts & Michael Tibbetts, PhD

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience” Eleanor Roosevelt