Welcome Everyone to our Farm’s Website.

We are Chris and Danielle Bove.

Both of us are natives of Maryland. Chris grew up in Bay Ridge, a community on the Chesapeake Bay and Severn River in Annapolis-- Maryland’s state capital and the Home of the U.S. Naval Academy. He received his bachelor's degree from Mount Saint Mary's College in Emmitsburg, MD and later attended graduate school at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. Danielle spent her childhood in and around Baltimore, with a brief stint in Florida with her Mom, and later she returned to Maryland and called Pasadena home. She attended Essex Community College and Chesapeake College.

 We met in 1999 and started dating in December of that year.

A couple of years later while visiting New Orleans, Louisiana for the Annual Jazz and Heritage Festival (a perennial trip for Chris), Chris popped the question in a popular French Quarter eatery (Mr. B’s Bistro), Danielle said “Yes!” and we were married in May of 2004. We moved from Annapolis to Maryland’s Eastern Shore in September of 2001. We bought a small farm (the real estate company called it a mini-estate!) and we’ve been enjoying the “simple life” ever since.

Chris, a master gardener since the age of eight, thanks to the influence of two talented and knowledgeable great-grandfathers, took to the farm and began in our first year to plant a small 40’x60’ vegetable garden. Eight years later, the garden is more than 1/2 an acre, and he has grown up to 17 varieties of tomatoes, along with over a dozen varieties of peppers, sweet corn, salad greens, asparagus, squashes, melons, beans, cucumbers, herbs and the list goes on and on. The garden is fertilized with manure from our horses, goats, and poultry-- and as such does not rely upon chemical fertilizers. Once the garden's produce is ready for the table, Chris also demonstrates his culinary prowess in the kitchen preparing sumptuous and seasonally inspired meals for friends and family alike. He learned the "art" of cooking around the age of eight with the help of his Italian great-grandmother, and learned the "science" of baking from his mother. He has worked in nearly a dozen restaurants over the years. In addition to taking to gardening and cooking, he enjoyed countless hours with his father on the Chesapeake Bay fishing, crabbing, boating and water skiing. When time permits, Chris enjoys designing and assembling stained glass windows and art glass projects, playing the piano, and sitting behind his drum set. He also enjoys buying "fixer-upper" properties and rehabilitating them.

Danielle, a big-time animal lover since her early youth, had her sights set on raising domestic and farm animals on the property. She adopted a few dogs, some cats, gained a quarter horse, (then another), and eventually we’ve had everything from horses, hogs, and goats, to bunnies, peafowl, chickens and turkeys. She has even rehabilitated wildlife back to health after injury or separation from parents and successfully reintroduced them into the wild. Danielle was inspired to investigate Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats, and eventually made the choice to sell our pygmy and boer goats so that we could concentrate solely on the Nigerian Dwarf breed. She enjoys caring for all our animals, making homemade soaps and candles, as well as riding her horse, Twig.

Chris and Danielle formerly operated a small, popular restaurant and country store in Sudlersville, Maryland. Danielle is a Certified Veterinarian Assistant and has worked in the Veterinary field for more than a decade and oversees the health care of all of our critters. We are also Authorized Distributors for the Udderly EZ Milker™ and numerous other livestock equipment through Stone Manufacturing, Inc. Chris manages the farm, as well as our investment rental properties. We are both Certified Open Water Scuba Divers and enjoy diving when we can pull ourselves away from the farm. (We are working on a web page for our website that will highlight our involvement in Scuba Diving, seek to educate our website's visitors about the current problems that are facing our planet's oceans and undersea environments, and most importantly offer advice on how everyone can make a difference in the recovery of these crucial habitats.)

Finally, Chris has spent years researching and is currently writing a book on the history and herdbook of the Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goat Breed.

May, 2009

It has been a while since we have updated this page with any news from around our farm. As is usually the case, it was a l-o-n-g winter and has been a busy year so far around the farm! We've had a very rainy spring, which has made daily chores "interesting" to say the least- and which has caused us to temporarily postpone a few projects around the farm. Happily, our vegetable garden is in the process of being planted so we ought to have a summertime filled with tasty, homegrown produce. We've boarded our beloved mare, Twig, at a friend's farm so we can repeat the rehabilitation and improvement of our pastures that we did last year. Unfortunately, the 2008 drought in our region erased the progress we made by aerating, liming, and seeding our pastures last spring. We've had an incredible kidding season so far with some really outstanding kids born. Avolino Farm goats now reside in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Colorado.

July, 2009

A few months ago we were so pleased to announce that I was expecting our first child. Tragically, on Monday, July 27, 2009 we learned at a routine pregnancy check-up that my baby had died at 21 weeks in the middle of my second trimester. On July 28, 2009 I was admitted to the hospital and after being induced into labor, delivered our stillborn son. I named him after my husband Chris. Charles Christopher Bove, Jr. weighed just 9.2oz. The cause of his demise was clear upon his delivery: umbilical entanglement. Chris and I are both heart-broken and beside ourselves with grief at this loss. We have received lots of support from our families, friends, fellow goat breeders, and customers for which we cannot express enough hear-felt appreciation and gratitude.

Having learned of my pregnancy, we had made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our herd to prepare for the arrival of our baby. Even in light of our recent loss, we are going to continue on our previous course and are offering up approximately one third of our breeding stock as well as the majority of our kids from this year's kidding season. In addition, if there are any goats in our herd that you may be interested in that we have not posted for sale, feel free to contact me (daniellebove@avolinofarm.com) as we may be willing to entertain offers on other members of our herd. WE ARE NOT DISPERSING OUR HERD. Rather, we've decided that reducing the size of our herd will provide us more time to recover and heal from our recent loss, as well as allow us to move forward with less to manage as we continue toward our goal of starting a family.

Thanks again to everyone for your emails, letters, flowers, thoughts and prayers in the aftermath of our loss.

So long 2009…

With the events of the last year, we decided to celebrate the Holidays and welcome in the New Year by taking a well-deserved vacation. Three weeks of sunshine, warm weather (temperatures in the upper 80's!), crystal-clear, turquoise blue water and Caribbean vistas were "just what the Doctor ordered." We flew into Barbados in early December staying at a gorgeous boutique hotel in Christ Church Parish. After a few days acclimating to "island time" and scuba diving, we boarded the "Sea Princess" in Bridgetown to embark on a wonderfully relaxing 14 night cruise. Ports of call during our cruise took us from Barbados to St. Lucia, to Grenada, then Bonaire and Curacao, followed by Grand Cayman, Montego Bay, Jamaica, and Samana, Dominican Republic… continuing on to Tortola, British Virgin Islands, St. Kitts, Antigua and Dominica. We logged more than a dozen scuba dives in half a dozen locales. From wrecks in Barbados and St. Lucia to pristine coral reefs and walls in Bonaire, Curacao, Grenada, Jamaica and Dominica we enjoyed every minute of our "bottom time" and saw some amazing marine life and dive sites. After the cruise, we returned to Barbados and spent some more time there enjoying Bajan hospitality and cuisine before returning home.

We are truly looking forward to 2010, our upcoming kidding season, and all the opportunities this New Year promises…

Well, January 2010 was relatively un-eventful here- seasonally cold temperatures with a couple of small snow events with around 6"+ accumulations.

February has started off with a history making snow storm (over the 5th & 6th) blanketing us with nearly of 3 feet of snow! We shoveled paths all around the farm to grant us access to our out buildings as well as providing clear passage to the goats to reach their heated water trough and get out of the barn to stretch their legs a little! With more snow forecasted, Spring cannot come soon enough!

A second major east coast blizzard hit us just a week after the first snow event, dropping another 2+ feet of the white stuff! We've been told that during "El Niño" years, we can expect increased snow fall here in the mid-Atlantic… but this winter has been one for the record books!

Luckily March has arrived and with it, we've welcomed warmer temperatures which erased the snow… Kidding Season has begun as well and so far (knock on wood) we are starting things off as a "doe" year! J

-Danielle

Ó Copyright Avolino Farm, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010