Category: Food Sources

By February 28, there was still no snow on the ground. We’d had only only a few light skiffs of snow thus far in the winter, the ground was bare almost all of the time. We had never had our driveway plowed! By this time the previous year, we had been plowed out a total of nine times! It may have been a relief not having to battle the snow all winter, but according to my journals of that year, we were quite depressed with all the monotony…

Once again, we ride out the storm, it’s a rough ride, but I stay in the saddle, the sheep stay on the farm, and all is not lost! The rams, however, are locked in the ram pen in the lower barn, pending their sale within a month or so.

Nothing strikes fear into the heart of a shepherd like having your sheep disappear! My mind immediately went into overdrive, with all sorts of questions and possibilities… “How could they get out of this pasture?” or “Maybe they’re lying down in the long grass at the end, and I can’t see them from here.” These mental gymnastics went on as I made my way to the end of the pasture, once there, I saw why they escaped!

I suddenly realized it was just a bit too quiet, and went to check the north pasture. There was not a sheep in sight. They were not there. They were gone!

It did not take us long after bringing Charlie home, to discover “Charlie” was a female, and we rather suspected she was probably pregnant… Which, of course, would explain why the dairy was so happy to give her to us. That was okay, we were glad to add her to our menagerie!

Late one evening at the beginning of January, a big storm with strong winds and freezing rain was moving in. I suddenly realized Cricket was not around. At last, in a brief lull in the velocity of the wind, I heard a faint tiny meow coming from the big cottonwood tree just above the house.

Little did I suspect, at that early date, that not too many years hence, I would be pasturing nearly 300 sheep. However, there would be lots of changes in store before that could happen!

In May we had our sheep sheared, not a real big deal, as we only had 3 sheep to shear – Mama, Sure to Go, and Hercules. Since we had so few sheep, it was not worth hiring a professional shearer, instead we hired a neighbor who had a small flock and sheared his own sheep. He was not an expert by any means, and it was quite an ordeal, not only for the sheep, but also the shearer, and the onlookers.