With the arrival of fall comes fall work. Farmers are hard at work (whenever the rain doesn’t stop them) combining grain and getting stuck, and unstuck. Sheep are starting to move off the pasture, and this week we brought the flock home to wean lambs and vaccinate ewes. Because they were more than 2 miles away, I decided to move them over the course of the day, moving about a mile and a half in the morning to a patch that was cut for hay in July with good alfalfa regrowth.

As they spread out over the field, I took some time to enjoy the blend of fall colours of leaves on trees, ripened grain crops and still green grass to the harmony of the sheep munching away on the tasty morsels of grass and alfalfa. These moments, surrounded by nature, livestock and dogs are wonderful reminders of why it is we choose to do what we do.

The sheep were obviously quite happy here, but as their natural tendency is, they began to drift towards the yard later in the afternoon. With some help from the dogs they came in at sundown.