On June 10, Francis Chester will mark his 50th anniversary as a Virginia shepherd.

In 1968, he and his wife, Diane, relocated from Long Island, N.Y., to Augusta County in Virginia's Alleghany Mountains to tend sheep.

Chester began his career as a famer at age 10 in 1946. He started with a vegetable garden, three dairy goats and a dozen chickens and began selling his farm products door-to-door. He opened a successful farm stand in Roslyn Heights. He then acquired sheep and his love for sheep farming was born.

He sold his Long Island farm in 1968 because urban sprawl from New York was taking away much of the farmland. The Chesters decided Virginia was a better place to raise a family and tend sheep.

Chester, Diane and son, Francis Scott, also run Cestari Sheep and Wool Company, where they make and market yarn and other products from their wool and wool from other shepherds across the country. Eight years ago, the Chesters also began making cotton yarn and cotton and wool and linen blended yarn. All the cotton they use is grown in Virginia.

The Chesters are working to expand their wool and cotton business. They are building a new mill adjacent to their farm on Little Calf Pasture Highway in Augusta Springs.  Chester hopes the facility will be up and running by this fall.