Holy (….) it is really happening!!!!

Well The barn is in the process of being built, Paulette’s house has sold, and we need to be out of there by the end of the month! It has been crazy to say the least. Paulette and I have been working hard to get all the pieces in a row so that we can start building the house as soon as possible and get all our belongings and loved ones packed up and ready to move by the end of the month. Our plan is to start building by mid July and be in the house by Christmas. In 2 weeks I need to move all the animals, sheep, horses and dogs, up onto the hill. Most likely the barn will be done and a well drilled by the end of July so I will only have to deal with hauling water for a little while. The animals will be in hoop shelters for the month – not a big issue since we have been using them in the pastures for a couple years now.
Here is the really great news: we are renting the house at the end of the driveway to the land. We will be about 1000’ from the animals. The people that own the house live in Florida and they are excited to have someone watch the house while they are gone. This is great news since 1. We found a great new neighbor 2. The house is in Poland so Mack can get on and off the bus, 3. It is close to the land 4. It is solar electric so we are going to be able to learn all about living with solar electricity before designing our system.
Oh and the grass is starting to come in patches. I think it is going work but I think I will have to use the animals to graze down the scrub and step in new seed before it is going to really take off.

Sorry for not posting in a while

I know I have not posted in a while. Spring time sure brings on a lot of work. Lately, at the end of the day, I have been more focused on getting to bed than getting on line.
Everyone is doing well. The horses are finally out on pasture full time and the lambs are all thriving. Here is a picture of that lamb that was born in March. She is doing really well. I am very impressed with her growth. She is a singe so she is getting all the milk she wants, it is said that 60% of the lambs growth is based on the amount of milk they get. I imagine this is giving her a big boost. I have decided to keep her and put her with the ewes this fall. She is a healthy ewe lamb and I do not have a lot of ewes to breed that are of the type I want to keep. Normally I would only keep ewe lambs that are twins but since my numbers are down and this lamb was born by herself at 20ºF (tough) I am making an exception. One of the criteria I am working toward is a 100% independent lambing flock. I have said it before, I want tough animals that require minimal input from me and that thrive in the environment I give them. This little girl is just that, tough, she is from a ewe that is doing a great job taking care of her, and by the looks of her she is going to mature at least as large as her mother.
The grass is growing. The weather has been pretty dry so it has been growing very slow. Most of the growth looks to be native species, not the timothy and clover I planted. I was afraid this would happen. Since I did not till the soil the seed bank --native seeds sitting in the soil waiting for sunlight – were ready to sprout and are doing much better than the seed I broadcasted. The seed I spread is not staying moist enough to sprout. All is not lost but I will have to try something different to get some better grasses growing.
I started digging a well for the animals, “man” those old timers most have either been worn out or muscled like steel. I am about ¼ of the way down and then I will have to start stoning up the sides. I am not sure how to set the stones so I will have to do some research.
I guess that is it for now. I really love this spot. It is so nice up there. I can not wait until we start building a house up there.

the clearing is seeded

Yesterday I seeded and fertilized the clear-cut. I can’t wait until the grass comes in so I can stop calling it a clear-cut and start calling it a pasture. It is supposed to rain in the next couple days which will work out perfectly. The rain will set the seed down onto the soil and start breaking down the fertilizer/lime so that it is accessible to the seedlings. The tractor broke down 3 times while trying to get it done. I sure need that old piece of junk and I sure am getting tired of spending as much time working on it as using it. I really wonder if the money I put into parts to keep it going would be as much as taking out a loan to get a good used one. Probably not but spending 3 hours in the truck running for parts, and then performing the repairs makes me wonder if I am not being stubborn about making this old machine work. I really do not want a farm that needs equipment to operate. My goal is to manage the pastures with the animals not mowers and fertilizer spreaders. I imagine in the end it will be a compromise of both.
Mack has been a big help. He hauled fertilized bags with his pickup – for those that didn’t know I got Mack an old Mazda 4x4 to use while he is working. He has been working hard hauling brush and getting the open area ready to seed. I am continually impressed with how well he just gets to work and doesn’t complain. I can give him a job and he just does it. I swear if I didn’t tell him “we are done” he would just keep working. I make sure I tell him to take plenty of breaks and I always make sure he has water and food. He is definitely a big help. He did have a little drivers ED experience the other day, notice the shadow UNDER the right froint tire.

Well I suppose that is it for now. The barn foundation is poured and we are backfilling it so the slab can be poured, a few lambs have come since the last post as well.

The Before Picture

I suppose with every endeavor their is a before. Well here is the before picture for the Foster farm. This past Sunday Mack and I went for a ride in our dentist’s airplane -- the dentist that Mack and I see has his pilot’s license and offered to fly us over the land. It was really great to see it from above. The world looks so much different from up there. From the air the clearing looks more like a gravel pit than a field but that is going to change soon. I will be getting about 5000lbs of lime and fertilizer delivered in the next couple weeks. After that goes on I will seed the whole thing. If all goes well I will be seeing the new growth by the beginning of June.

Spring has sprung and I am busy!!!

I just wanted to post some pictures to keep everyone up to date. The grass is just starting to grow and the pace of everything else is picking up. I have been working on the road and a friend of mine is digging the footings for the barn with his excavator. The concrete work is supposed to begin next week. I sheered the sheep this past Sunday. It is a lot of work but I am definitely getting better at it. I am not sure what I am going to do when the head count is over fifty. It is one of those things that depend so much on technique, I heard a sheerer say “it gets easy after the first one thousand”. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

They are sheep again!!!!
The pasture at Paulette’s is finally dry enough to put the sheep out. They have been in the barn all winter. I have vowed that this is the last year I am going to confine them to a barn. The more winters I raise sheep the more I realize that sheep belong outside. They just don’t seam to do well crammed into one spot for months at a time. The benefits for keeping them outside all winter far out weigh the slight benefit feeding them in a barn provides. On pasture the manure can be dispersed over the entire area since I can feed them in different areas throughout the winter. Sheep standing in their own waste all winter can cause big problems with their feet but on pasture they are moved around so that doesn’t happen. Disease is spread by an infected animal being in close proximity to another. Keeping the sheep inside is creating a great environment for the spread of disease. If one animal has some bug it is most likely going to be passed on to more of the flock. If they are dispersed outside on the pasture there sheep to sheep contact is greatly decreased and the air they breathe is not stale like in the barn.
I am sure people think they need shelter, and they do, but not like we would think. When I say I want the sheep outside all winter I am not trying something new. This is commonplace in many pasture based operations. I am not trying to reinvent the wheel but follow the example of some successful sheep operations. I am doing this for the better of the sheep not my convenience. Sheep have a great fleece that is so efficient when it snows they get a buildup of the white stuff on their backs, it doesn’t melt. All the sheep need is some place to get out of the wind. It could be as simple as a stone wall or being able to get into a wooded area. On the hill the wind does get blowing pretty good in the winter but there are a lot of places for them to take cover and the sheep I am breeding are what are considered a hill breed, they are bred to be tough and thrive in that type of environment.
Well winter is hopefully over and next year is a ways off. A lot has to happen before that hill will support a flock of sheep. This week (03-22-2010) an excavator is being mover up there to start digging the foundation for the barn. I have been working at cleaning up the ground so that May 1st, a safe date to plant grass by, I can spread some seed and begin the process of turning that “bomb site” into a pasture.

Better sooner than never.



Sorry I have not posted anything for a while. Like everyone I have been busy trying to get a head start on spring. I have been working at getting all the pieces for building the new barn together before the ground is ready for digging. I have been thinking that I should post something but didn’t think that anyone would be interested in the progress of my building permit or the meeting I had with the concrete “guy”. This morning I found something that I thought would interest people.



Right now my sheep are at Paulette’s place and when I went out to feed the sheep and horses I was greeted by this little girl. The surprise was that this is about 2 months early. I put the ram in with the ewes in the beginning of December. Sheep have an approximately 5 month gestation so I expect lambs around the begging of May, right about the same time the grass really starts to take off. I had bought a couple ewes this fall and put them in with the rest of the girls. After a couple cycles with the ram one of the new ewes did not get marked (the ram has a marking harness on his chest to mark the ewes he has bred. I called the farm where they were from and told them I got a dud. He said we will make things right in the spring. About a month ago Paulette noticed that the ewe looked like she was bagging up (udder developing). I gave the farmer a call and his response was “well a ram jumped the fence a while ago but it was only for a few minutes”. I guess that was all he needed. I thought that was impressive until I heard another shepherds story. She saw the ram jump the gate. It took her about 20 minutes to go back to the house and get the dog. In that 20 minutes she got 12 lambs!!!


I guess spring is finally coming. The snow is leaving fast and the wet ground is starting to dry up in places and their are new lambs.