Category: Farmers

Voices From the Farm – Shearing, Lambing, Pastures, and Scrabble with Mom

After a hard day’s shearing was accomplished, all the beautiful fleeces were stacked under a window near the front of the barn. The price of wool was very low, due to the prevalence of polyester clothing, and also to a large influx of imported wool from Australia. At a price of thirty three cents a pound, I did not intend to sell the wool at that time, but would add it to the last year’s clip, which was stored in my sister Merle’s dry basement. Hopefully, the price of wool would rise to a decent level before her basement overflowed, so the wool was awaiting transport to her farm the next morning. Mother Nature however, had other ideas!

Voices From the Farm – More About Pastures and One More Crisis

After the traumatic episode of the bloated sheep we began penning them in the barnyard overnight, and in the morning we gave them a good feed of hay before turning them back into the alfalfa pasture. We did not leave them in the alfalfa too long at each grazing session.

Voices From the Farm: Greener Pastures?

For some time I had been considering how to improve my pastures, and where to start. The native grass pastures had been adequate up to now, but the sheep flock was growing and the pastures were not producing much growth after the first spring flush.

Voices From the Farm: And Then Came Spring!

Late March, 1973 – It was indeed a long winter, and before I was ready for it, along came spring. It was icy, and I was lambing on crutches, so safe to say, it was not one of my happier lambing seasons!

Amaltheia Dairy – Closing the Circle by Putting Waste to Good Use

Sue Brown, cheese maker, goat herder, and owner with her husband Mel of Amaltheia Dairy in Belgrade MT, describes how her farm and dairy are “closing the circle” by finding ways to profit from waste products like whey and manure. Sue answers the “unspoken” question: What to do with those male baby goats since they aren’t likely to earn their keep?

Voices From the Farm: A Winter to Remember and A Challenging Summer

What a winter that was! Five days after Sean’s birth, when we were about to be released from the hospital, we’d had another blizzard. This time, we were “snowed out!” We had to delay our departure until Jerry could get the Highway Department’s big snow blower out to open our driveway. It was drifted in and packed so hard that even the big grader and plow could not get through.