05-21-2023 Harford Magazine - Flipbook - Page 30
BY ABIGAIL GRUSKIN Harford Magazine
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KENNETH K. LAM
his summer, for the third year,
Abigail “Abby” Stewart, 10, will give
her cows baths, cut their hair into
mohawks and lead them around a
ring, for judging. She’ll lift up the cows’ heads
and hold back the flap of loose skin, called
dewlap, under their necks at the Harford County
Farm Fair, the Maryland State Fair and Pennsylvania’s Mason Dixon Fair with 4-H, a national
youth development organization.
“It’s kind of like a beauty pageant for cows,”
Abby’s mother, Mary Stewart, explained. “There’s
a heck of a lot of parents that, when they go in the
ring, they want [the cow] to look amazing” and
will pay for a professional to prep and show the
animals, she said.
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But in the Stewart clan that job belongs to
the kids. “They’ll never learn if they don’t do it
now,” Mary Stewart said. “So sometimes that’s
really painful to watch, because it’s not always
beautiful.”
Her husband, Greg Stewart, agreed.
“It leads to a lot of stress — a lot of tired, short
tempers,” said Greg Stewart, the father of Abby
and her four siblings.
The Stewarts are at the helm of Fawn View
Farm in Pylesville. Both grew up on family
farms; Fawn View Manor Farms, run by Mary’s
parents, is across Onion Road from their own.
The couple, who married in 2011, live in
Pennsylvania but tend to what now totals around
1,000 acres, with most of the land rented from
nearby farmers, in Harford County. Their latest
venture, The Cow Crossing — where they sell
ice cream, milkshakes and cheeses from a trailer
stationed on the side of Onion Road — came to
fruition last spring, a burst of innovation sparked
by the coronavirus pandemic.
In everything they do, their five children —
Abby, Bradley, Zachary, Thomas and Taylor, ages
4 to 10 — are along for the ride. “It’s a great place
for the kids,” Greg said of the farm.
Some of the family’s most pivotal responsibilities are dictated not by the parents’ schedule,
but by a greater force: the weather. Planting typically falls between April and May, depending on
factors like rainfall and temperature. “You have
a window to plant,” Greg said. “You don’t get it