Enjoying sheep
Finding joy in keeping sheep.
Yesterday I put an ice-fishing fold-out seat across my shoulders and took a seat with my tiny flock. We have two older Siremax ewes (one is 1/2 Shetland), three Shetland ewes, a Shetland lamb and two Siremax-Shetland cross ewes. Seven by my count. The Shetland-Jacob cross ram went to the processor, so he’s no longer harassing me or them (and we had lamb chops in rosemary butter this evening on the cast-iron skillet).
Lately I’ve been dreaming about renting extra land up our dirt road to expand what we can support (go full “Greg Judy” on it), but Sara is tapping the brakes on that idea. we Have a small-farm improvement grant application in with the local USDA office and if approved this year, we’d have money for fencing and water lines. It’s easy to overextend but it would be fun to make more of this.
Tonight I took two of my grandchildren out to the barn for some sheep time. The sheep are getting picky with the grass hay — only eating the leafy parts and not the stems. So they baa like they’re hungry but they have half a feeder full of leftovers. Needless to say, we dropped them a fresh bale.
Sara’s helping me with the sheep calendar and by her figures in the next couple weeks I’ll need to buy some alfalfa from our local “actual” farmer and some grain, too, for our pregnant ewes.
