Living with the sheep

No, I'm not really living with the sheep but I have been spending a lot of time out in the barn. My wife and daughter come down with the flu around the middle of last week and my two sons have it now. So far I've been spared and I hope to keep it that way.

Pictured here is Bunny, one of our (almost) three year old ewes - three winter ewes as the Icelanders would say. She is our only ewe that will let me pet her. In fact, she's rather like a dog in that she comes up and nuzzles and pushes her head under my hand when I go to the barn or pasture. The kids named her bunny because when she was a lamb she hopped around the pasture.

I took this photo today. It's been "spittin' snow" on and off here all day. The ground is mostly white now.

weather yesterday: 14°F/27°F partly sunny
weather today: 13°F/33°F snow flurries

tags: sheep, iceland, flu, pasture, snow

Productive Day

Today I took advantage of the nice weather and got some work done. It was sunny and breezy today but we're in for a drastic weather change with some snow flurries in the forecast.

I rewired the lighting in one of our barns. All of the fixtures were controlled by one switch and sometimes there was not enough light (to shear sheep for example) and other times there was more light than necessary so I added a couple fixtures in the sheep pen and put pull-chain switches on each of those so they could be operated independently. Now if I want to go in at night when we begin lambing, I can flip the switch and just turn on one low wattage bulb and check on the ewes without causing a big disturbance.

When the previous owners of this property moved out, they left an old disc harrow in the pasture. I finally got around to moving that today as well. And I started cleaning out the old greenhouse on the property in preparation for starting seeds.

weather yesterday: 19°F/40°F mostly sunny
weather today: 23°F/43°F sunny, breezy

What is a Farm?

Earlier today, my friend Polly, wrote a post with this same title on her blog and I thought I would borrow the theme and give my perspective, with apologies to the original author. If you're still reading you may want to jump over and look at the photo she's posted.

One of my favorite authors, Gene Logsdon (who is my neighbor one county up and one county over) wrote in one of his books that some people are born to be farmers and he equated a farmer with a nurturer - a nurturer of the soil for sure and in many cases a nurturer of animals. I apologize for not being able to quote which book this was written in as I've read them all (in most cases more than once).

In modern America, there are two distinct types of farmers. Agribusinesspeople run factory farms according to an industrial model of food production and distribution. I live on the eastern edge of the corn belt (where Round-Up is considered a vital soil nutrient). While most farmers in my area (and the USDA) would consider themselves small to medium sized family farmers, they are full participants in the industrial, factory-farming model. For example, under this model, a calf may be born in Ohio. Upon weaning at around 6 months old, this calf may go to Kansas and spend 6 months on pasture as a stocker. When he reaches a year old, this steer may go to a feedlot in Texas to be fattened on grain and then shipped to Iowa to be processed and packaged for sale in Florida. Not much nurturing going on here.

The other type of farmer operates according to a pastoral model of food production and distribution (borrowing from Gene Logsdon again here - see The Contrary Farmer). I believe it was Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm (another favorite author) who wrote about bio-regional economics. According to this pastoral, bio-regional model, food is produced, processed (minimally), sold and consumed locally - using natural, ecological, grass-based practices. Whole lotta nurturing going on here.

The first type of farming (industrial agribusiness) is petroleum-based and has been steadily depleting soil fertility and, through erosion, soil itself for for over a century. Not nurturing.

The second type of farming (pastoral, bio-regional) builds soil fertility and is sustainable over the long term. Nurturing.

Which if these two models do you consider a farm?

Weather today: 25°F/48°F partlycloudy

tags: farm, farmer, nurture, Logsdon, soil, livestock, agribusiness, factory farm, corn belt, USDA, pastoral, bio-regional, Salatin, ecological, grass, sustainable, Polyface

Healthy Sheep Naturally

Last week I wrote that some of our sheep had begun shedding their fleeces. Here is a photo of our ram, Joash. You can see his fleece peeling back around his neck. I don't plan to shear until the first Saturday in March so I'll be pulling off some of this loose fleece by hand.

I also wrote last week about our mineral supplementation and mentioned Pat Coleby, the Austalian expert on natural animal care. Acres USA has published several of her books in the U.S. including Natural Horse Care, Natural Goat Care, and Natural Cattle Care.

Unfortunately, the book I wanted the most, Healthy Sheep Naturally hasn't been published in the U.S. I found a used copy on Amazon but the price was awfully high so I ordered two copies from a bookseller in Australia. They were supposedly backordered until June but I received an email shipment confirmation earlier this week.

I will be writing more about this book after it arrives.

Weather yesterday: 19°F/38°F sunny
Weather today: 17°F/47°F cloudy

tags: sheep, fleece, ram, mineral, Coleby, natural, healthy

I'm Liking This Blogging Thing

I've only been at this for a little over a week and to be honest I wasn't sure how it would go. In that time, though, I've gotten to interact with some really cool people and learned from things that others have done.

One example is the series of posts over at Boulder Belt Farm on building hoophouses. Lucy has written a great guide with photos and it's been a help to me.

Things like this are what make the internet in general and blogging in particular worthwhile.

Weather today: 10°F/28°F sunny

tags:hoophouse, blogging

National Animal Identificaton System

The National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is the latest move by Big Brother to exert control over the citizenry. If you don't know the details of the proposal, read it here.

Contrary to what they would like us to believe, NAIS will not prevent disease or make the US food supply safer in any way. For up to date info and news on NAIS click on the picture to the left or the link in the list at the right

I honestly believe that the US government will not rest until it controls the entire US food supply from barnyard to supermarket. Farmers like me make them nervous because we don't bend to the knee to corporate agribusiness. NAIS will put us out of business.

Weather today: 5°F/10°F sunny, breezy

tags: NAIS, national, animal, identification, food supply, USDA, agribusiness

Time Marches On

Late winter continues here in central Ohio. Today, I put my seed order together and started working on plans for a hoop house. We moved here too late for a garden last summer so this will be our first at this property. I'm excited to start from scratch and build the garden I want from the beginning. We've had lots of trial and error over the past decade at two other properties.

We're ordering all our seeds from Bountiful Gardens - all open-pollinated and untreated.

Weather today: 38°F/61°F late rain

tags: winter, ohio, seed, garden, hoop house