I walk every day. Every day I walk. And I am always in the company of dogs when walking. This time spent walking is a spiritual fitness and it does make me wonder what changes might naturally come about if farmers and ranchers walked their land on a regular basis.
Winter walks may be on the cold side but they are gloriously peaceful. I enjoy the prairie as much in the quiet of winter as in the warmth of summer. Any sense of needing to hurry dissipates for so much of daily ranch work that is present in the warm season is now on hold. The pace of winter has settled upon us and the routine work is feeding hay to the flock in the morning and then returning to do a second check and feed of guardian dogs in the evening.
In a northern hemisphere winter is a season of testing; when a sound and healthy flock is needed to get you through without a lot of extra work. To see animals and the land still in sync through the winter and to know, that even in a season of such harshness, everything you need is here, is a marvel that is lost in modern agriculture.
This year marks our first year of having a tractor with a cab and I must say it is wonderful to have a cab on a tractor when doing winter feeding. We never set out to be such minimalist farmers but working with so little for so many years resulted in the realization that we need very little to operate this place. This tractor came along because this was the year we could afford to purchase it. Taking such a minimalist approach also means we tend to keep operations rather simple which gives us some down time in the winter months. This downtime is when I settle most deeply into my studio space and figure out how to continue giving the world glimpses of this remarkable prairie life with sheep and a few dogs.
