Shalom Farms

It began in the spring of 2020, when Jeffrey's parents gave them a miniature donkey called Alvin and the couple built a house on his parents' 23 acre place southwest of Lincoln so they could farm and help care for them. A pair of miniature horses followed, then goats and sheep in 2021. The farm ran as Penner Mini Farms as a hobby until 2024, when the Penners made it a business and renamed it Shalom Farms. Jeffrey grew up on a dairy farm in southwest Nebraska and still works as a computer programmer; Lorraine, who moved to Nebraska from California as a teenager, had no farm experience at all before 2020 and writes about learning it all as she goes.

They milk Nubian, Alpine Nubian cross and Mini Nubian dairy goats, plus a registered LaMancha, in a small milking parlour in the barn, and sell the raw goat milk through a herdshare and a direct sales waiting list. Milking season runs from roughly April or May to October rather than all year, because it follows the kids. The same milk goes into their hand made goat milk soap. They keep American Blackbelly hair sheep for 100 percent grass fed lamb, sold whole on a waitlist, and they say they were the first registered breeders of Pineywoods cattle in Nebraska, a small hardy heritage breed they chose because it finishes on grass and hay with no grain. Beef is sold by the half or the whole on hanging weight, processed between 18 and 30 months. Farm fresh eggs are on the list too, and the hay the animals eat, a mixture of grass and legumes, is grown on the farm. Orders are collected at the farm or at a pick up point at 70th and Highway 2.