It has been some time since I last wrote. All my sentences feel full of hiccups because what words are the right words after a long absence?
I have all sorts of reasons / excuses for the lapse in posting but the more honest reason is that for a period of time I just didn’t have fresh words to share. Everything I put down seemed to be one long repeat of everything already shared. Life, this ranch life in particular, seemed to be on a rinse and repeat cycle. Breeding, shearing, vaccinating, lambing, grazing, sorting, selling and repeat. And for a time I stopped appreciating the marvels within the ordinary wash of life. Doing anything about it felt dangerous and stalling felt safe.
But stalling also feels very empty. So I find myself back at the computer, staring at a blank white MacJournal screen and wondering, what are the right words to begin with after a long absence?
When I’m fumbling for the words it’s photography that most often salvages what I can’t seem to. It is photos that fill space and time and thought, and it is photos that often speak more vividly about this life than I can write. And so I’ll let some photos be the finish of this post – photos to say it’s still pretty much life as usual over here and from this place of ordinary nature I’ll begin once again to look for, and share, the marvel and the miracle in this land and livestock life.
We brought the ewe flock in this weekend for a pre-breeding check and crutching (clipping wool around the tail). We have a lot of Cicer Milk Vetch in our pastures and while it is good, protein rich feed that holds its green well into winter it does cause some animals to pass very loose stools and if that happens to collect on the wool it’s a mess for the ewe. Crutching is not a nice job for us but a necessary one this year. Fortunately it doesn’t occur across the board but only on some animals.
Kelpie dogs BJ and Coyote Mic had the honors of doing the flock work this weekend. With the two dogs and the cold weather incentive the flock was gathered and moved in sweet and sure fashion. Since crutching is a job that takes time the dogs were put up once the flock was in. There were half a dozen ewes too thin to go back out. The bulk of the flock though is in fine shape and have returned to grazing stockpiled forage. The rams were let out yesterday to join them.
Given the extremely dry spring and early summer we’re so fortunate to have stockpiled forage this year and to be grazing it this late considering the ewes came on to it about a month earlier than usual. Adjacent to the stockpiled forage is a wide strip of mixed prairie and bush. Between the two plots of grazing land the ewes are doing well. We’ve been running this flock on a grass-based basis for well over a decade now and every year it amazes me that the prairie came through yet again.
Land is not to be taken for granted and truly this year was rough and to have come out of it in decent shape is a wee bit of a miracle and a forgiveness of nature. I was speaking about land and animals to a fellow this weekend and I told him this year was the first time I felt as though I had failed this land. And I do feel that. Not in a laying blame/self judgement way but in a way of knowing that I was beat by the weather and I was lost over how to manage for the land and the animal at the same time. I’m not sure if that weather has shifted and we’re out of the woods or not, but one blessing about a northern winter that shuts plant life down is that it provides a measure of reprieve. A time out if you will, and hence time for reflection about what to do differently.
The area the flock is grazing is not fenced on one end and there isn’t enough snow cover to prevent the ewes from traveling further afield. This means some shepherding is required. And that means I won’t be going too far from home base for the next while which is not unusual. Since it also turned cold and windy I’ll take advantage of the situation to work on our house build and do some felting projects I’m aiming to wrap up before the new year.
Also, I seem to have settled on regular posting of photographs on my instagram account. if you’re wishing to see more sheep and dogs photos than you get here please drop on by and check it out.
There was a hefty dump of snow overnight and for some reason in my mind the snow automatically equated to deeper cold. And between rising from bed and slipping back and forth between the shop house and the real house, since we live in both places right now, I never took a moment to feel what the day really held.
When I dressed for exercising the Kelpies I dressed warm and tight. Hiking boots were replaced by tall boots better suited to keeping snow out. Layers of clothes, thick socks, tuque with hood of the bunny hug pulled over-top, insulted overalls, heavy overcoat, good gloves – that sort of dressed.
So attired the dogs and I headed out just before the first crack of light entered the day. We headed southward, cutting through the paddock where the cows and horses reside before entering the large hilly pasture space beyond. I love walking this prairie land. I often wonder how much of the collective agricultural perspective would shift if individual farmers and ranchers walked their land every day. Not for the purpose of testing it and recording its yield and production but for the sake of getting to know it. For the sake of asking the land questions.
There is enough fresh snow that the effort of walking in the powdered fluff is real. I expect the ewes would be late to rise today. The tall boots were needed but by quarter of a mile in I am sufficiently warm to chuckle at all the clothes. It is a gorgeous winter morning. The skies have been winter grey nearly all month long, and today’s skies were par for the course. The light is flat. The barest breath of wind and several inches of fresh, powdery, quiet snow made me feel enveloped by the open prairie space, which seems a bit contradictory.
The dogs and I do a second walk each evening, just as the last crack of light is fading from the day. But we go down the grid road since unlike the am walk where more light comes along as we go, on the evening walk more darkness will come along as we go, and I prefer to have an easy route to follow back home in the dark. On these dark walks the black coated Kelpies disappear into the darkness beyond the pale natural light there is to see by. The initial tension of trying to follow where they go fades as my eyes adjust to the darkness. Often I don’t see the Kelpies as they crisscross the road, or leave it and cross the fence line into the pasture, but I hear them. Wren, the guardian-dog-drop-out who now accompanies us is the easiest to spot given her all white coat.
A couple nights ago on our evening walk the temperature was beautiful like it was this morning. Sitting a couple degrees below zero with no wind. There was the same enveloping feeling experienced on this morning’s walk. There is such stillness and calm in the dark just as there can be in the daylight. Although there is less light to see by there is just as much to see.
When I walk my mind swings back and forth between thinking so hard I don’t notice where I am, to not thinking at all and just absorbing the immense splendor of the place. The last year has been wrought with change and change always brings a peculiar amount of unsettlement.
Change with things in our life, like building a home, but also greater changes that are altering the perspective of agriculture. I’m in a province where big agriculture is king and the regenerative, grass-based type agriculture is still the underground agriculture. But there is the beginning of a shift happening and this makes me feel hopeful. On the other hand, the pendulum has started its swing and so there are also many misguided stories on agriculture being shared and touted as truth by folks who have never been on the land. And I don’t know what that means for those of us who are giving it a good go but getting lumped into the bad flow. I love this prairie land too much and I know I’ve shied away from taking a stand, and now it seems the time is short.
