When you come to The Grantham House, you’ll see a beautiful, rustic wedding venue with tree lined drives, rustic red barns, a historic farm house, and my favorite…the silos! There is another aspect of The Grantham House that makes our venue unique and that’s our animals.  We have a variety of farm animals who call The Grantham House their home.

I want to introduce you to everyone!

THE SHEEP

Photo by Emilee Craft Photography 

When we first moved to The Grantham House, we quickly realized that having 11 acres was much different than the half acre lot we owned before moving here.  It took hours every week to cut all of the grass, so we decided to recruit some help!  Daniel has built four pastures over the last few years, and we filled them with sheep.

We rotate the sheep throughout the pastures, and they keep several acres of our grass cut.  They’re also a lot cuter than a lawn mower.

 

THE GOATS

Photos by Ethan Gaskill

We have three goats, Nibs, Stub, and Rhonda.  They help with the grass and help clear the brush out of the wooded areas.  They also happen to be fainting goats, which our boys find a little too funny.  They are constantly running up to the goats and scaring them, and then laughing hysterically as the goats stiffen up and fall over.  I can’t really blame them, it’s actually really funny.

Photo by  Holly Kearney Blanco

THE CHICKENS

Our chickens have been around since before we bought The Grantham House.  I guess you can say they inspired this farm lifestyle that we’ve grown into.  We started out with backyard chickens in a subdivision, and ended up buying a farm.

Our family can easily go through a dozen eggs in a day, so they are a huge help! Our son, Cruz is the egg man.  It’s his job to collect eggs everyday. It’s fun to see how proud he is coming in with a basket full of eggs.

And if you’ve ever had fresh eggs, I’m sure you’d agree they are much tastier than store bought eggs!

 

THE RABBITS

Our rabbits are a fun part of the farm.  They reproduce like well…rabbits, which means we have baby bunnies all the time.  Our boys decided that they wanted to do an experiment to see if our domestic rabbits would reproduce in the wild, so they let a few out of their cages.  The experiment proved to be a success, and we now have lots of white and gray rabbits hopping around The Grantham House property.  People always get a kick out of seeing a white rabbit hop across the lawn.  But they’ve started eating our garden, so we’re in the process of trapping all of the “wild” rabbits.

 

THE DUCKS

Six little yellow ducklings have become the newest members of the family. Our son, Justice has been wanting ducks, so he did a little research and determined the best kind to get. He used his own money to buy them.  They are the cutest little things, and it’s going to be fun to have them waddling around the yard!

 

THE ALPACAS

 

Meet Carlos and Veronica.

These two Suri Alpacas are my favorite of all of our animals.  I had been wanting alpacas for awhile, so Daniel had been on the look out.  It came time to sell our pony and the man who purchased her sold alpacas.  We were able to work out a trade, and I finally got my alpacas.

They are funny! Recently, Daniel and the boys were trimming their hooves, and Carlos took off and jumped through a little 2×2 square opening into the chicken coop! How he fit that fluffy body through that hole, we have NO idea.  The boys could not get over how funny that was.

 

THE DOGS

Caesar is a Hairless Chinese Crested that Daniel bought for me the first Christmas we were married.  He looked all over North Carolina to find a breeder.  I don’t think I had ever been so surprised or excited as I was when I first saw him! People are always a little confused when they see him, which is very understandable.

Our other dog, Copper came with some goats that we bought.  She’s a beautiful Blue Tick Hound. She is so loyal to Daniel.  If he’s ever sitting on the porch, she’ll come darting through the yard, onto the porch, and straight into his lap! She’s a daddy’s girl for sure!

If you’re from Grantham, you probably know Copper.  She’s an explorer and loves to hang out at the Dollar General.

 

That sums up the animals at The Grantham House.  They’re a really fun addition for a rustic wedding venue. Sheep grazing in the pasture make for a unique backdrop and add lots of character to an outdoor wedding.