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Prairie Winter Priorities

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Yesterday morning arrived with cold temps, stiff winds and snow. I chose to feed hay right where the ewes were bedded so they could remain where they were, snug and protected from the winds. The wind keep at it all day long creating drifts wherever the landscape allowed; drifts that had to be cleared the next morning in order to feed at all.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”2669″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In the evening I did not bother getting the side by side vehicle out to drive out to the flock but instead I loaded dog food and bowls into a zippered grocery bag and went out on foot. The flock had not moved; the guardian dogs barked a warning at my unusual approach on foot. I dropped down into the hollow to feed them and sat for a spell in the stillness of the prairie cold but where the wind couldn’t reach. The snuffling noises of ewes and the nudges of a dog nose now and again provided small comforts at the close of another day.

Every winter there is a stretch that draws out the pure simplicity of what needs to be done. A prairie winter simplifies your priorities in a manner that a prairie summer can never do. The chief priority of every day is getting food to animals and getting them to shelter if needed. Each morning is an assessment of where to feed that day and how. It probably bears noting here that I don’t rear sheep with any intention of mass production and therefore do not lamb in the winter. I rear sheep with the intention of having grazers on the land and wool in my hands. This minimalist approach allows some leeway in the winter workload and means I do not spend my winter in a barn. It also means that while I use a tractor to feed nowadays (this was not always the case), I’m not running numerous pieces of equipment or heating barns during the coldest months of the year.

In a season when weather can present all manner of extra steps, like clearing snow so you can access the hay feed or the route to pasture, it’s getting the work done that matters. And wether it is a calm day or an ugly one, the feeling of relief and gratitude upon getting hay feed rolled out for the ewes is present all winter long but particularly when working on one’s own.

This is only our second year of feeding using a tractor with a cab on it. As I drive out with a hay bale for the ewes, sitting in the relative comfort of a tractor cab, I am baffled that prior to this we managed feeding with an open cab tractor for eight + years, and prior to that, we managed with no tractor at all. We arrived to this place with just the two of us, no left over equipment or livestock infrastructure to start us off. When crop farming proved a dismal failure (and thank god it did) we made it work because we had to, but from my seat in the cab today, being able to warm my hands and my face for a few moments, I can not believe we did so. Feeding a large flock without a tractor feels like a distant, forgotten life; like a story I told once a long time ago. And if I take into account the farms around us, each with three/four or more tractors parked in the yard, it seems more outlandish that in the twenty first century we went without one for as long as we did.

Not having equipment, and not able to go into more debt so we could have it, is one of the many occurrences that lead us down the road of getting where we are today. And I suppose the doing of it is what gives me the perspective of knowing that the efficiency promised us by way of using equipment doesn’t really add up. And of knowing there is always a way and sometimes not getting on the industry bandwagon in the first place is the only way.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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The Art of Sitting with a dog

livestock guardian dog

Sitting with a dog who is keeping company with his surroundings rather than with us as we so often expect dogs to do. (Why is it that we make every occurrence be about us anyway – particularly where dogs are concerned)? Sitting with a dog who is making his time be about whatever he has going on, rather than making his time be about us.

Leaving them alone to do so; not making demands on them to do otherwise or calls to insist they come over and keep you company or to show you reverence by obeying you.

Not making demands on yourself to be with dogs in a particular fashion arising from the latest training guru.

There you sit in the same time and place, each observing deeply but differently; not needing to be each other’s company but by being there becoming each other’s company, and by doing that connecting to the nature you both live and breath.

Do they know they are my wonder and my world?

Wool artwork, each piece 28″ square

Along the journey of being an artist I have been drawn time and again to neutral tones, to pieces made with the natural colors of wool. I have often questioned what the fascination is and with these two pieces a little nugget fell into place. Working with only three of four shades of natural wool takes me to the moments of lived simplicity. Moments of making no demands on another being, but just sitting in the same time and space with them. In a similar vein working with natural colors of wool makes no demands on the fibre to be other than what it is.

The above artwork is two seperate pieces. I realized upon making this blog post that the photo of both of them together looks like one piece was cut in two. Not the case. Each piece is 28″ square and made entirely from wool. I’ll take proper photos yet and each one will go up for sale but meanwhile they will hang as a headboard above my bed where they will be the guardian of my sleep.

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Winter Grazing Sheep

January. A new calendar year is upon us. The longest night has passed, the daylight slowly lengthens and, on the prairie, the cold winter continues.

Speaking of grass based sheep in a place where winter reigns for 5 months of the year seems a little ill matched. Thoughts of grass blow out with the first wind swept snow and are replaced with more immediate thoughts of where to shelter and feed the flock. But even though grass is not first in our thoughts during winter the decision to keep the flock out on pasture is made with the prairie land in mind and the natural inclinations of livestock.

When people hear of sheep reared on grass in a cold climate place like the prairie there is curiosity with how well they do with foraging in the snow. I think sheep posses an exceptional will to forage from the land, and if I possessed half as much will as these ewes my life might be in a very different place. If there is morsels of grass where hay is being fed they will forage. Heavy snow, ice crust and bitter cold will stop them, but once these pass, exploration and grazing resumes. The tough part is stopping them if you do not want them to keep picking at the grass.

The ewes grazed on stockpiled forage up until Christmas when we moved them to a pasture that could use more hay residue and natural fertilizer that results in areas of hay feeding. However, the ewes are showing signs that they are not as content on this pasture and it took a couple days before they quit trying to return to the previous bed ground in the evening and use the new one.

Once snow load builds up and serious cold sets in one’s choices about where to feed become limited by the inability to get around out on the pasture. Then you balance what you can get done in extreme conditions with what you want to see happen. In this fashion winter provides a reprieve from obsessing about grass and grazing. I welcome this reprieve. I can shelf the worry and let Mother Nature hold on to it for the winter.

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