YA BUSINESS MENTORSHIP NETWORK – Cozy Homestead Essentials

Posted by Tori Ames on August 26, 2024

Young Agrarians is celebrating the tenth year of the Business Mentorship Network (BMN) program in BC and the second year of the program in the Prairies! If you are a new farmer or the next generation to take on your family farm and need support to figure out the business aspects of your farm consider applying for the 2024/2025 cohort. The BMN offers business mentorships to a diverse array of new and young farmers/ranchers/producers. Through one-on-one mentorship, peer networks and online workshops new farmers develop the skills necessary to operate ecologically sustainable and financially viable farm businesses.

Apply for the 2024/2025 program here – applications processed in October .

Check out the Business Mentorship Network page for more information!

We want to introduce you to each of the new farmers in the 2024 cohort to hear about the arc of their farming journey, what their hopes are for the season ahead and what inspired them to reach out for business mentorship. To access more of these stories head over to our blog here.


Meet a Mentee: Carrie Wiwcharuk of Cozy Homestead Essentials

My name is Carrie Wiwcharuk and my farm and fibre business is called Cozy Homestead Essentials. I am grateful to be working with my mentor, Anna Hunter from Longway Homestead. If you don’t know who Anna is, please look her up. She is working within the Canadian Wool Industry to bring awareness around creating a more resilient and vibrant wool industry. She is a farmer, teacher and published author.

I farm in Didsbury, Alberta. One hour from Calgary and ninety minutes from the Rocky Mountains. 

Rooted in the Land

Having fantastic memories of being a kid, jumping from hay bale to hay bale, swimming in the dug out, riding horses and quads, being tired and happy on trips to a family farm in Warsaw, New York was the beginning to my dreams of living in the country.

Then, having four kids and wanting them to grow up outside, free and dirty and learn to work hard was my next push to move to the acreage from Cochrane, Alberta. We sold our house and lived in a camping trailer for 5 months through the Alberta winter until we moved into our property on April 28th, 2015.

From there it has been a journey of learning about our property and trying new things. Being a knitter, I was interested in fibre and started to investigate Alpaca’s first before I landed on sheep.

Spinning the Thread

Everything we did, we learned from our neighbours, friends, community as well as YouTube videos and books. I have an amazing community, who I call my sheep people, that I talk to, ask questions and share with regularly.

My business is a sole proprietorship, and I use over an acre of our property to take care of my sheep and to produce my products, mainly fibre products and lambs.

I have been building my business slowly, over the last two years, spacing out the set up, allowing me to not get any financing. Part of this approach aligns with my ecological farm practices of recycling, reusing and reducing. The structures I have needed have been built by us, a lot of the materials we are reusing, which also cuts down the costs.

Core Values

Taking care of the property, the soil, our world, is important to me and I naturally move that way and make the best decisions I can on the homestead to align with that thinking. From working to take care of the soil with fertilizer from the sheep, using the wool to mulch the gardens, moving the sheep every two days to new grazing pods, not using big equipment like tractors, unless for specific projects, using every part of the lambs that go, keeping the bones for bone broth and tanning the skins to sell, as well as milking the dairy ewe, Cocoa, and using her milk for soap. I’m always learning and adding in new practices. Not only do I see worthwhile outcomes, but it feels good.

Clarity Through Mentorship

I applied for the business mentorship because doing all the things, as an entrepreneur, I felt overwhelmed and was seeking some clarity on how to manage the business aspect along side the farming and fibre studio. I believed talking to someone with experience in this specific business of fibre, would be so important for me to absorb and take with me as I make decisions and plan the future of Cozy Homestead Essentials.

I am wanting to work on having a clear picture of where I want to go with my business. Having a good handle on the planning and organization of the day-to-day operations to the yearly and five year goals.

Challenges and Opportunities

I believe one of the biggest challenges I face in being new to farming is inexperience. There is so much to farming, I believe so much of what I need to know is not in the books or on the internet. I am grateful for the community around farming and this mentorship program, which is helping me bridge that gap, as much as it can. I enjoy the constant learning of being a Shepherd and look forward to being years in, still learning and hopefully being able to share from my own experience.

What’s Next

My primary business goals for this season are to create product and marketing goals for six months and a year out and continue to run that way. To open my online shop and attend four to five markets in or outside of Calgary. I’m adding my own ram, increasing my breeding program and expanding space for more lamb jugs. I am working to keep better records, keeping and working more consistent hours, with purpose and with my work aligned with my vision.

One of the business tools I cannot live without is my phone. Having a way to document things like my flock’s health, to be able to look up information on the spot or call a friend, when I’m out on the property for feedback is super important. I use pictures to help me fix or build, for marketing purposes and so much more.

There are many days, where I ask myself how I got here. Originally from Southern Ontario, growing up in the city, but always outside. Venturing out west to see the Rockies and settling in rural Alberta, to raise my family and living in such a connected way, to the land, the weather, the animals and the people.

You can follow my adventures and learn more about my business, Cozy Homestead Essentials, on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/cozyhomesteadessentials?mibextid=LQQJ4d.

Also on Instagram @cozyhomesteadessentials.