Reluctantly, I came to the decision that it was time to move a couple of the guard dogs to new homes. Chloe had never been properly bonded with sheep, so was always back and forth between the yard and the pasture. She just didn’t have the desire to stay with the sheep and because she was the dominant female she would often bring one or two males with her. I was frustrated and worried she was going to teach more dogs to come and go as well, so decided that I needed to find her a new home before it got to that stage. She has gone to a young family with 2 kids, a couple horses and pester-some deer around the yard. She will get to be around the yard and get lots of attention and hopefully will help them with their deer problem.

Charlie has always been a funny dog. He has shown moments of brilliance but is not a tight flock dog and is often sleeping somewhere where the sheep are not. He also has been showing up in the yard regularly. He is the low dog on the totem poll so it may be he just doesn’t have the confidence to do the job. Charlie has also gone to a family with a couple kids that are starting to feel the wary presence of coyotes getting close to the yard. Charlie loves kids and people so I think this will be perfect for him, room to run and work while being able to spend days sleeping in the shade and playing with kids.

It was hard to see these two go, they’ve been a presence on the farm for a few years and despite only seeing them once or twice a day, I’ve grown somewhat attached. I take comfort in knowing that they have gone to good homes and after the adjustment period we will all be a little happier.

In such a dry country, crossing water is something we don’t normally have to do. Usually sloughs dry up in the spring and we can go through them, or around in the case of larger, more permanent water bodies. But this year has been very wet and water is lying or flowing in areas where it rarely has before. This meant that to get to a good portion of our sheep pasture we had to cross some water. This slough is only about 6 inches deep and the deepest point, so no problem for sheep to cross – if they want to. ‘If they want to’ is the critical piece of this sentence, unfortunately for those of us who want to control our animals movement. The first time we crossed the slough, there was enough dirt sticking above the water to convince the first sheep they could make it, and the rest followed, as sheep do. The second time, we had just gotten through a rainy spell and the water was higher so it was much more of a challenge. It took us over an hour to convince them to cross- even though the lead sheep were standing in water most of the time! I even managed to grab a ewe and steer her across the water at one point, with hopes of the rest following. The rest of the ewes took no notice of this sheep making it through, and she promptly turned around and waded back over with the rest. Eventually, once man and dog were frustrated and tired, the sheep decided to take the chance and walk across.
The next time across, the sheep showed signs of balking again, so I grabbed the pail of dog food out of the side-by-side and shook it like a pail of grain. An old ewe sure liked the sound of that and followed me across, followed shortly by the rest.
Once more we had to cross this same slough (it separates some of the pasture from another, as well as from the yard, so it really is inconvenient!). This time the sheep had been in a pasture that the slough runs through, so some were on the right side, so I thought, they will see those other sheep and go straight over! So Jack and I gathered the sheep and steered them towards the shallowest part of the slough where there were some tracks. Well the sheep looked over at those other sheep as if completely stumped by how they could get over there.

It seemed that this was not going to be as easy as I thought. Then Alice the guard dog started to head across the slough.

And wouldn’t you know it, the sheep followed. They didn’t take the shortest or shallowest path through the slough but the one that Alice showed them was safe.

We came across an interesting discovery lately. It happened by accident one night when the sheep decided to bust through the electric fence keeping them in their pasture and out of our organic flax crop. I arrived on the scene in the morning to find, not surprising, a flock of contented sheep and, surprising, an essentially untouched flax crop. The sheep had spent their time selecting volunteer oats out of the crop. So, we decided to use this ‘biological herbicide’ to our advantage!

Sheep have this amazing ability to use their lips to sort through what they are eating. I watched a ewe the other day take a mouthful and push the flax plants back out before biting off the oats.

The sheep grazed on the flax crop for about 5 days, and there were very few flax plants actually eaten. There was some damage in a few places where the sheep rested, but this is likely offset by the advantage of having reduced competition for the crop as well as the weight gained by the lambs from the excellent feed source.
This is a great example of how organic cropping works best intertwined with livestock. It also makes you think about how we can quick people are to use chemicals to control weeds, when in some cases there might be another option!

Haying season is into full swing here, although you would hardly know it. Much of the grassland in the area has been broken up to make way for crops in the last few years. I write this post from the baling tractor, a sentence or two at a time while the baler wraps twine around the finished bale. So far the weather has been nearly perfect for making hay; warm breezy days mean the hay dries quickly and there has been no rain to weather and reduce the quality of the feed. The field I am working at now is on top of a hill, giving me a beautiful view of the countryside.

I used to view tractor work as a necessary evil of raising livestock (although some would disagree that it is necessary!) but I have warmed up to some of it over the past couple years. It provides a good opportunity to think and plan, and to enjoy whatever environment you might be in.

As promised, here are a few pictures of this years calves. They look great so far!

Snuggled up with mom

Time to kick up your heels

Found a dry spot

Dinner, then a show

Pretty heifer out of one of our best cows