Susan Gibbs enjoys a bucolic life on her five-acre farm.

In 2001, Susan Gibbs's life dreams were still a bit fuzzy. She and her then-husband were preparing to move from Los Angeles, where Gibbs had worked as a producer at CBS, to New York City. The two were taking a relaxing vacation in Carmel, California, before their cross-country sojourn to settle east. At least Gibbs thought they were in the lovely coastal town for a vacation.

The Carmel getaway had taken Gibbs and her husband to a bookstore, where Gibbs's eyes landed on Storey's Guide to Raising Sheep. "My ex-husband was hurrying me along," she recalls. "I saw the book, and I said, 'I want this.' My husband asked why. I said, 'I can't explain it, but I think I want to raise sheep.'" Her befuddled husband reminded her that they were moving to New York the following week. But Gibbs's instinct was leading her to something very different. As she says succinctly, "I bought the book." Within a year, Gibbs had purchased her first four sheep--Daisy, Cosmo, Buster, and Ernie--and bought a farm in Catskill, New York. She still has the sheep (not the husband, however).

Today, seven years after picking up her first sheepherding book, Gibbs's dreams are still fuzzy, but strictly the warm-and-fuzzy type. Gibbs and her boyfriend, Patrick Manning, operate the Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm. Gibbs and Manning spend their summer days on their five-acre farm in Tisbury Meadows, close enough to Lambert's Cove to hear the arrivals of ferries. The life is a perfect fit for Gibbs, a Texas native and graduate of Texas A&M University, and Manning, a former New York state legislator and the executive director of the Island Affordable Housing Fund. The couple tend a flock of about 40 sheep and 60 goats on their Vineyard land, rented from the Martha's Vineyard Land Bank. Winters are spent at the Hudson Valley Fiber Farm in Hopewell Junction, New York--which the couple opened last fall--where they rent a 130-acre spread from Manning's family to raise bees and birth some of the babies for the Vineyard flock.

The life is as bucolic as it sounds, but the venture has had its moments of work and worry, most from the early days. Gibbs recalls the time two years ago when she and Manning first moved to the Vineyard. Neither was prepared for how much food the flock would need. "We were being eaten out of house and home by our animals," Gibbs says. "We have a rule: the animals eat first. When we moved to the Vineyard, we ate peanut butter and jelly for a week. We were going broke--hay is so expensive. The situation was getting really desperate, even though we were working our butts off all the time." Gibbs took jobs as membership director of the Martha's Vineyard Chamber of Commerce and news director at radio station WMVY. Life was a flurry of working, feeding animals, and family time spent with Manning's two sons.

To combat their financial worries, Gibbs and Manning began a yarn and fiber CSA (Community Supported Agriculture program), which has been an enormous hit.

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People also are attracted by the Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm's code of ethics. The couple is dedicated to raising their goats and sheep on a diet of pasture and hay as much as possible, and having the fleece processed at a small, family-owned mill in Canada. It is what Gibbs calls "extra attention to detail" and it costs more, but it is worth it.

Most people will understand the farm's appeal with one look at the Web site, www.fiberfarm.com. CSA members and other viewers are encouraged to get to know the farm animals through features such as a "LambCam," which follows the flock 24 hours a day, and Gibbs's blog, which is accompanied by photos of her tending the animals and shots of wool hand-dyed in stunning shades such as avocado, blueberry pie, and butterscotch.

With its good-hearted operation, a landscape of rolling green pasture, and a couple dedicated to making things work, the farm is finding a warm place with a lot of knitters, weavers, and others who are anxious for the comfort and emotional satisfaction that handcrafting and home-based activities bring. As Gibbs says, "It's a real renaissance."

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Mary Grauerholz is the communications manager at The Cape Cod Foundation and a freelance writer.