Blog
Teaching Deer to Jump
April 14, 2023
There is a section of electric fencing around our sheep pasture that keeps getting knocked offline by deer snapping the top wire. Just a few lazy inches of hoof drag breaks the wire and shorts out the entire fence, leaving our animals unprotected until morning. I could see the telltale hoof prints where the deer would land inside our pasture and where they would travel across to the other side. There, I could see where they jumped to get out - hitting the wire once again. Every night they would
Spring Migrations
April 7, 2023
Lambing season is definitely upon us. We welcomed 8 more lambs to our flock this week, bringing the total number of lambs, so far, to 18. We trailered some of the yearlings (last year’s lambs) to our Mountain Spring Road pasture for summer grazing. We’ll trailer them back to Hill-Stead in the fall.
We moved one of our sows to what will hopefully be her farrowing spot, and we’ll move the other sow to her own spot soon. We are 2 weeks away from finding out how our first venture into A.I. worked.
Shearing with Siri
March 31, 2023
Well, that was pretty amazing - we had 2,000 people come to our shearing event, including lots and lots of kids.
As I said to our shearer – “Thank you! That was a whole lot of people who got to see firsthand how completely unfazed the sheep were by being shorn.”
I heard comments from the crowd like;
“The one being shorn is falling asleep!”
“It’s like a day at the spa.”
“They are calmer than my dog is when it’s getting groomed.”
And so on.
As if trying to keep track of the 5 newborn lambs while
Out Like a Lamb
March 24, 2023
Our first lambs of the season arrived this week. The twins were born early Saturday morning and were already standing and happily nursing by the time we got to the barn. All our lambs this year will have names that start with the letter “W” (it’s 2023 and “w” is the 23rd letter of the alphabet). We named these two Willow and Wilma.
The ram, for whatever reason, was being completely obnoxious. More obnoxious than his usual obnoxious self. I don’t know if it was enthusiasm for the chilly spring-
Pulling the Taps
March 17, 2023
We pulled the taps on our sugar maples this week, bringing to an end the shortest, least productive, maple sugaring season we’ve ever had. We only had a couple good runs and the rest of the season it was either too cold, or too warm, for days on end. The temperature needs to fluctuate between freezing and thawing, but it never really did. The nights that froze, the temperatures barely warmed up during the day, and the days that did warm, it didn’t freeze at night. It’s the freeze thaw differenti
In Search of a Queen
March 10, 2023
I miss our bees! Our ransacked hive should be waking up just about now. It’s not though. It stands completely empty and silent - devoid of everything but our very best intentions. We cleaned up the mess the bear left behind, put all the pieces back together and are in the process of building a bear proof electric fence.
We could purchase “replacement bees,” and have them shipped from some faraway place – but what’s the fun in that? Somewhere nearby, there’s another honeybee colony that’s just w
In Defense of Wool
March 3, 2023
Last week we received an email from a woman who was thoroughly distraught that we were making a celebration of our sheep shearing. The atrocities that she attributed to the wool industry in general were absolutely horrific, and to my knowledge completely unfounded. I can’t imagine how painful it must be to be her and believe there is so much evil all around. I know it exists, but I also know for certain that it is not the norm, and that alone is reason enough to celebrate.
A Little Too Long and a Little Too Short
February 24, 2023
After a yearlong hiatus, we finally had the wool collection day for the CT Blanket Project. The mill in Rhode Island that had been making our blankets for years closed, and it’s taken this long to find a replacement. Saturday, though, we collected 1,800 pounds of wool, all of it grown on CT sheep farms. Yay!
Each participating farm brings their wool to be inspected - and each farmer spends time inspecting another’s. One by one every fleece is laid out on the “skirting table” and everyone around
Kraken!
February 17, 2023
We unexpectedly adopted another Border Collie last week. It was nowhere on my list of things I wanted to get done that day - it just sort of happened. My cousin, who trains dogs in Virginia, contacted me about a friend’s dog “Kraken”. The 6-year-old pup had spent her life living on a thriving dog training facility/ horse farm. Like most Border Collies she’s introverted, focused, and task oriented to the point of obsession. She enthusiastically trained daily and competed in long distance dock di
The Morally Superior Maple
February 10, 2023
We tapped our sugar maples this week, and that to me is the beginning of spring. The sap will run as long as the temperatures are below freezing at night and well above freezing during the day. The “sugaring” season usually lasts about 6 weeks, or until the trees start to bud.
Maple Syrup was a dietary staple for the Native Americans that lived in New England. When little else was available in early spring, they relied heavily on maple syrup for sustenance. It takes at least 40 gallons of sap
