Number 9 – It is possible to back up a large truck with a sheep cage in the back down a very narrow dirt road without bringing harm on truck, person, animal or environment (you do end up with sweaty palms though).
 

 

Number 8 – Setting up electric fence in parched, rocky earth takes a long time, a mallet, a good hat and some personal fortitude.
 

 

Number 7 – A tired shepherd and a determined intern can lift a large, sick ewe up a hill and into a truck – just barely.

Number 6 – An unexpected ladybug colony at first appears creepy, but makes your heart smile when you realize they are gentle ladybugs and not giant, pinching ants.

 

Number 5 – Blackberry bush stalks continue to reach out to rip your skin and clothes to shreds, even after sheep have relieved them of their leaves.

Number 4 – Crowding sheep remind me of what it feels like at the Outside Lands concert.

 

 

More than one similarity to sheep

Number 3 – Very important – DON'T open the gate unless you know the plan or Dan the shepherd tells you it's ok.

Number 2 – If you open said gate without a plan or ok and sheep make a run for the hills, two clever border collies and a confident shepherd can fix your mistake pretty quick.

Number 1 – Farming is an incredibly difficult profession that at times offers very little reward.

This weekend felt like a dose of reality to mix in with my idealized farming ambitions. Farming is physically, mentally and emotionally taxing and doesn't always provide the financial return desired for time, effort and labor put in. I can't help wondering, am I cut out for this? Can I be successful at this? Should I scale down my aspirations?

By late summer most small farmers in this area are run ragged from a long, hot season of watering, feeding, protecting and harvesting whatever their farm is producing. We can show our support for them by buying from them at farmers markets, sure, but what are some more ways we can show support and appreciation for our local farmers? The Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op has a program to raise money for local producers and to preserve future farmland; it's called Once Farm at a Time. If any farmers are reading, what are some ways in which you would appreciate support from your community?

I feel like I started my shiny new GRIT blog without properly introducing myself. So, here is a bit of how a dirt-hating city dweller got to the point of writing about chasing sheep around the countryside on the weekends. 

I grew up at the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills, not exactly rural America but more country than city. I always was an “indoor girl” with the desire to avoid sweat and grimy hands. For many years my family had virtually no water to take care of our ¾ acre, so hauling heavy buckets from the house and weeding star-thistle were much avoided summer-time tasks.  

Like most little girls I eventually grew up, however reluctantly. I survived high school, went to college and landed in nearby Sacramento, the City of Trees, doing accounting work. I got my Certified Public Accountant license as soon as I could … and then realized staring into the cold glow of a computer screen for a living was not my idea of living. 

I spent a couple of vocationally discontented years treading water in my jobs until one day last December the mention of a goat hit me straight in the heart. My boyfriend kept talking about wanting goats; he even brought a book home from the city library. Out of the blue, a passion for all things agriculture and food related was awakened in me. 

As soon as this passion was exposed, I acted on it. I found a flexible internship with local shepherd, Dan of Flying Mule Farms, which I started in February 2011. At the time I figured sheep were close enough to goats; I just wanted to start getting comfortable working with livestock. I now spend most Saturdays working with Dan, the sheep and at the farmer’s market selling grass fed lamb and beef. The weirdest part – I am now proud of getting sweaty and dirty!  

I really enjoy working with sheep; they are the highlight of my week. I sit in an office during the week and daydream about farming. As of now I would like to open a sheep dairy … no easy task for someone with no land, no sheep and little money. My preferred bridge to having my own dairy is to intern at someone else’s dairy; plans and hopes for that are currently in the works. I am also recently engaged, so throw in a little wedding planning and you have a pretty good idea of my life today.

I have been blogging since March here, so if you would like to check out any of my previous posts, I invite you to it.  For the most part the two blogs will be identical from here on out.

Thanks for reading! I welcome feedback and advice.

Callie

Farming requires a great deal of flexibility as I have mentioned before. A farmer can't get too attached to a place, way of doing things or a particular outcome because inevitably something uncontrollable will change everything, and adjustments have to be made, sometimes very quickly.

I saw this illustrated again this weekend when I met up with Dan. We drove to Highland Farm, a tree farm in Colfax. Dan, along with Allen, the owner of the farm and Roger, the UC Davis livestock extension agent, assessed the property and vegetation to see if it would support 300 ewes through breeding season.

Dan had planned to have these ewes much closer to his home farm on an irrigated pasture. He discovered however, that the pasture was not going to be able to support his ewes, much less enable them to gain weight through breeding, so he had to find an alternative pretty quickly.

Highland Farm it was; Dan is friends with the owners and had previously been interested in grazing their property. After a bumpy tour up and down the ridge and about ten million 'begger's lice' later the three men decided there was enough vegetation and variety to support the ewes at least for a couple months though maybe not through the entire breeding season. I could see being forced to be flexible is not so bad if you have good friends who are willing to feed your sheep! Actually it works out well for Highland Farm as well. Instead of having to manually remove brush that is a fire hazard, the sheep will clean it up.

As I mentioned, we are preparing for breeding season. When breeding ewes, most producers want the animals to be on a rising plane of nutrition (gaining weight) because this increases the likelihood of twins. This management technique is called "flushing" and is the reason Dan keeps his ewes on rough feed (like star thistle) most of the summer. It is desirable for the ewes lose some weight during the summer because they are not producing milk for lambs and they are not breeding or pregnant. But in preparation for breeding, which will begin October 1st, they need to be on feed that will allow them to start putting weight back on (but not too much weight, a fat ewe doesn't breed well).

The management of the ewes is opposed to the lambs, who have been on lush pasture since they were weaned in May/June. For the lambs going to market, the idea is to get them gaining as much weight as possible as fast a possible, so they can be finished and sold at the market as they are a Dan's main source of income. It turns out to be a constant test of flexibility, keeping all the sheep on the right kind of feed during different times of the year, a difficult task for someone with nearly 500 sheep who only owns 3 acres of land!

And a final note, Matt's market lamb is doing well, he weighed 76 lbs at last weigh in and is gaining about a 1/4 lb per day!  And my ewe lamb has been separated from the market lambs, she gets to stick around and probably bred next year.