Sheep – Page 13 – Wool Stone & Prairie

Seasonal Transitions

Sheep / October 4, 2019 October 4, 2019 / By admin

The seasonal transition of diminishing daylight / encroaching darkness accompanies the movement of market lambs off the place and gives me a measure of comfort.

Morning and evening pasture checks are quiet now without the near constant calling between ewes and lambs as they travel about grazing. Only 15 replacement ewe lambs stayed here this year. The winter feed situation is not going to support more. I culled 45 ewes plus we had an unusual number of unexplained ewe deaths this summer which means the flock has shrunk in size, albeit not the way we intended it too by any stretch. A few more ewes will leave via private sale.

We have just come through an early winter storm that dropped several inches of wet snow. Usually untroubled by off weather the ewes took to shelter in the bush in the early evening and remained there throughout most of the next day before venturing out to dig for greens in the heavy, wet snow. Cold weather in the days that followed allowed for a slow melt and seepage of moisture into the soil. While the crop farmers in the area are ripe with stress over the situation, this is wonderful for the pastures as we head into the dormant season.

There have been a number of challenges this Summer and Fall beginning with guardian dogs and concluding with very poor market prices that will make the upcoming year a tight one. So I’m okay with the shortening daylight because even though we are not at the end of the linear calendar year the transition to fall seems to offer a sense of closure on a tough year with weather and flock. It is what it is and once again we shall adjust and find our way to go with the flow of life and livelihood.

When I sat down to write this post I randomly clicked on an older journal entry, the start of a blog post created on March 19 – near last winters end. These are the first few words of that entry.

“The daylight length is growing and with it the pace of work is shifting. Mornings are becoming shorter and with the earlier sunrise I find myself feeling slightly panicked at the thought of keeping up with artwork without a solid block of time first thing in the morning.”

I did commit to diving deeper into artwork and that commitment stayed on track. It has been a successful try of making a lot of artwork, and, taking first steps toward putting the artwork out into the world. As a result my current spare time is full with commission requests for the Christmas season. I still struggle to keep up to posting to online spaces because computers feel like the furthest thing from the nature out here I love. I still treat being at the computer as a low priority activity even though online spaces are increasingly necessary for continued sharing. I’m sure Mother Nature’s advice for this dilemma would be summed up with one word: balance. Lucky for me I live among this prairie land where balance is found in spades.

wool painting of dog and sheep — Commission work (made with wool by needle felting).

A Move With the Flock

Sheep / August 24, 2019 August 24, 2019 / 2 Comments / By admin

We are receiving a fair share of swings in the weather. From brittle dry to rain received. from sizzling hot to breaking a weather record for cold in August. Overnight temperatures dipped below one degree but not quite to zero. A week later hot weather brought a thunderstorm that dropped two inches of rain in one stint.

The flock has been moved to the far south east pasture. The same pasture they were in when I wrote the second post of this Wool Stone & Prairie blog. I’m enamoured by the notion that sheep like particular places more than others. It leads into my thought that places have a purpose; that land creates intangible connections to animals and to humans.

It was a long move to get the flock to the new pasture spot. The Kelpies, who have not been worked nearly as often this year as in previous years, were keen to take on the work load. Their retained ability for the work is amazing and makes me feel deep gratitude that they are here. How would I get on without them?

Beginning of the move. Clearing out first back corner.

Black Jack prevents lambs from going back the way they came.

Moving the flock is pretty commonplace for me now. It used to be a task I approached with great anticipation. Now familiarity has brought on a slight sense of annoyance about the job. Blessedly, this always disappears when I get out there and it’s just me, the dogs, and the sheep, in this landscape of prairie with all its itchy grasses, birds and bugs. I do enjoy pasture moves with this flock, the ewes knowing the land better than I and sometimes challenging the notion that they should go where being sent to – until they get there – then they’re all eager for it.

Heading toward second gate, two Kelpies working the flock.

Some moves are more challenging than others due to difficulties in terrain or fence lines. And on occasion the livestock guardian dogs provide a challenge as well. At a halfway point during this move Coyote Mic and BJ were moving the flock toward a second gate. I moved up ahead to control flow through the gate. The front of the flock was just approaching the gate when our young guardian dog ran in front of the sheep, alerting to something suspicious up ahead (it was Allen coming to see if I needed a hand). All movement at the front end of the flock stopped as the sheep slowed up to check in with the white dog.

Young guardian dog alerts and flow stops.

The stock dogs were still bringing sheep along, however, their job just got a whole lot harder as sheep began to stall. The young guardian realized the perceived threat was non-existent. Once he settled I was able to coax him through the gate and the flow of sheep resumed.

As a general rule, guardian dogs don’t show eye, or stalking presence. They don’t herd livestock like stock dogs do, they live with sheep. And by some intangible token of trust the guardian dogs are able to stop and resume the movement of a thousand animals. In this case stopping the flow was a minor hiccup but at other times stopping the flow of a large number of animals can cause great frustration for the shepherd.

But whether the moment is one of ease or of great frustration, of a win or a loss; whether in a moment of trust or a moment of wariness and danger, witnessing such linchpins of nature is a very fortunate experience indeed. Each time it taps into my own senses of intuition and natural intelligence. I feel very strongly that to witness this on such a frequent basis is to live a very rich life.

The remainder of the move was across a weedy patch with new growth alfalfa and I was glad Allen showed up to help. We seeded this area with alfalfa and the lack of moisture in the spring resulted in a flourish of opportunistic weeds but little else. The sheep love grazing this patch of weeds but when rain came mid June the seeded alfalfa began to grow. The ewes were eager to dine on the young legumes and it was an effort and a half to keep them moving across this piece to a safer one. Allen kept the ewes in the lead from dispersing in all directions and I put two fresh Kelpies onto the ground which provided the moment forward to the next gate and the final destination.

Ewes dispersing in final destination (Also one of my favorite places).

The ewes have ample space in this pasture. It’s open grassland with tame forage, slough bottoms and marshy flats with juicy weeds, mixed prairie scrubland, plus several areas of bush and an abandoned yard sight to camp out in. The ewes are not bored, something I think happens when they stay in same spaces for too long. One of the hidden blessings of even moderate rotational grazing is the natural stimulus of going to different places, for us and for them. It’s a rich life indeed.

A Few Words About Wool

Sheep / June 14, 2019 June 14, 2019 / By admin

Yep still here.
Holding down the fort on my own as Allen has been away for most of this month so far with still a week to go. I’m just keeping up with all things sheep and dog related – and a wee bit of wool work too. And cows and horses as well. Just keeping water to the ewes is a regular chore in this dry year.

I moved the ewes to the South pasture which is considerably larger than the lambing pastures they have been in. They are very content there for now. They ewes have pastures they like better than others and the South pasture is one of them. Plenty of variety in tame forage and native, open grazing plus good bush stands that are expansive enough for sheep to settle in on hot days.

This happened as well and it just makes me smile.

This batch of wool was processed at a new mill in the province (we haven’t had a fibre mill in our province for years). I am thrilled to be the first customer to use the services. I am also pleased that this wool batting will now head to a store in Saskatoon, our nearest city. It may seem like small potatoes as it really isn’t that much wool (yet) but it is so satisfying to keep this product within province and to reduce the footsteps of wool traveling around the world as so much of it does when that need not be the case.

I recently attended a fibre fair as a vendor and while a day of talking about did me in, it was a solid day and I made some great connections. I was, however, surprised to discover how much wool is bought from overseas and sold here, completely skipping the connection to the sheep and to the farmer. Fibre is much like food in this regard and we are a nation a people who want what we want, when we want it. It’s my wish to turn the tide on this a little bit. We have good wool in this province, including coarse wools, mediums wools and yep, the long wools and the fine wools too. We have Corriedale, Targhee, Romney, Leicester, and Rambouillet is just next door in Manitoba. What we don’t have is the producer connected to the fibre enthusiast who seeks it.

The other surprise discovery was the number of people who popped by my booth and said how much they enjoy the photography on Instagram or Facebook. Wool Stone Prairie isn’t even a blip in the social media scale of popularity but no matter, there are plenty of you out there who are tagging along and that makes my heart swell. I’ll keep taking and sharing photos of this sheepish life.

… and p.s. if you aren’t getting enough photos in these sporadic posts, do check out Instagram or Facebook as I seem to be able to manage posting photos there on a more regular basis.