Musicians Farming Sheep: The Need For Rest... And Balance

I received an email yesterday from a student/friend. She mentioned that the man who delivers her hay was looking to re-home a five year old sow named Tea Cup. Apparently Tea Cup could actually fit into one, at some point, but that time has long passed. It seems a fairly common story that people see an ad or read about the availability of piglets who are some kind of small breed who will never tip the scales at anything close to 200lbs...and then those piglets begin to grow and just keep on growing.

I believe I have mentioned my desire for swine. Probably a throw back to Wilbur from Charlotte's Web, or possibly Babe. In my mind's eye I see us walking down the dirt road together to gather sheep, my dogs quietly strolling behind us in perfect line. From time to time my pig looks up at me, adoringly, and gives a quiet snort. I understand. We are the perfect farm family.

Cut to what probably constitutes reality; I'm at a pretty fast jog chasing Tea Cup down the dirt road as he gallops, in all of his 300lb glory, after my puppy Muir, his un-trimmed teeth gnashing. It takes me, Paul, Josh and a tow truck to get Tea Cup back into his enclosure only to find that he has broken out again fifteen minutes later, with a not-so-quiet snort.

At dinner last night I broach the subject to Paul because I have the uncanny ability to ignore my own warning signals. We sit quietly eating steamed dumplings and I tell him about the email I have received about the pig. I like to think that the choking had nothing to do with the email...

At first he simply said “no”. But, with some gently reminding about being a team and making decisions together he said, “...probably not.” We were getting closer to the answer I thought I was looking for.

We spent a lot of time talking about the pros and cons of the situation. It remains important to us that everything on our small farm have a purpose; the dogs move our sheep, the sheep grow wool for blankets that we sell, the chickens provide dozen-boxed eggs, and we grow grass. What would Tea Cup's contribution be? If your first thought is bacon, you thought wrong. I mentioned having her birth a litter of piglets to sell. That made Paul tilt his head to the right a little, but not quite enough to overcome the dollar signs in his eyes over pig food, a new shelter to be built, and straw...always straw.

What we did talk about was the amount of time the work we already do takes up. There are morning and evening chores: rain, shine, or snow. We don't mind them, in fact we even enjoy them. But they do take up time. When we went on vacation for seven days we needed both a dog and farm sitter. Adding Tea Cup to the farm might require her own pig sitter! We talked about music and performances now that Covid restrictions are lighter, about things in our lives that are as important as the farm. We talked about the need for rest. We agreed to table the discussion in favor of ice cream cones.

Last night, sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up. It was one of those wake-ups where you aren't brain-foggy in the least, but completely awake almost immediately. And there it was. The answer.

I could see the issues represented in the figure of a mountain, and Tea Cup was balanced, precariously, on the top. It was obvious that adding a pig to our farm at this time would represent the tipping point.

Having a full life, a life full of purpose, is important. But if you stuff too many things into that life, you lose balance. When all is said and done, there needs to be time for ice cream, walks and swims. In other words, rest.

I closed my eyes again, feeling restful in the knowledge that this was the right decision....for now.

Musicians Farming Sheep: Naked & Afraid

Tuesday morning, late April, we wake up early: I should say earlier because we are already waking up early to the melodic cries of Muir each morning. We have a laundry list of chores to complete before Mary, our shearer, arrives at 8:00. I carry out a bag of blueberry muffins that I've made the night before as both bribe and thanks to the volunteers who begin to arrive with early morning half smiles. Sheep aren't supposed to eat on the morning of shearing but it seems I haven’t quite been able to cross that species language barrier and tell them that. So they begin to bellow the minute I come into sight. We have had to shut the gate between chicken coop and sheep paddock so now the chickens are angry and pacing the fence line like prison inmates out for morning exercise. My popularity is going nowhere but down.

We need to empty the barn so that it can act as headquarters central for Mary. We put a hook in the ceiling so that she can move freely while shearing. This year we switched things up and have sheep to begin. Then we set up fencing off the front of the barn so that they would be brought in from the back, shorn in the barn, then hustled out the front. I plant Sam outside of the fencing for good measure. At one point Paul mistakenly leaves part of the fencing open and one of the ewes turns left rather than right and pops right out of the enclosure. In reality, ewes are flock animals and, more importantly, prey animals. They want to stick together: she had no interest in wandering around without her friends. However, once she is out, Sam goes to work to be sure she knows she’s in his territory now and will be moving right along the way we planned, thank you very much.

Mary arrives, tanks up on a few muffins and we begin. As this is our third time shearing [now] with pretty much the same team: we have this. Josh (aka the tree) helps encourage sheep into the barn. I’m Mary's right hand- or left, depending. Paul opens the front door as the sheep exit and basically gets out of the way. Then he and Morgan, our young neighbor, gather the wool into bags. I grab the broom and am on clean up. Smooth.

Shearing is a beautiful thing to watch. By April the sheep are in full coats, and panting when the sun appears, essentially ready to be shorn. However, they are simultaneously not ready for this and so not really ready to come willingly. Josh helps Mary “coax” the sheep into the barn: there is a lot of backing up during this procedure. Finally Mary has them plopped on their butts and gets to work. It seems that the most docile of the ladies does the most bicycling with her legs. Mary is an expert in the art of sheep Akido and sidesteps many a close call of hoof to face. In less than five minutes they have been taken out of their wool sleeping bags and stand up, essentially naked. Months of wool, fringed with manure lies in a pile at their feet. Naked or not, they know the way out. Once out of the barn they stand for a moment and begin to bellow indignantly for their friends. As they rush around the corner to reach the holding pen it seems that they are bending over slightly, in a vain attempt to cover themselves.

In the middle of shearing Mary notices the radiant heat lamp that I have attached to the ceiling of the barn. I explain that I bought it so that if the temps dropped really low in the winter months there would be some warmth in the barn proper. Over the buzz of the shears I could hear the howl of her laughter.

We work together to vaccinate everyone and clean and clip hooves. The sheep equivalent of a shave and a haircut I guess. Finally the last ewe has been shorn and they all stand in the paddock somewhat self consciously. At this point they have lost about seven pounds of wool each: I don't recognize them and they don't recognize each other. They begin the arduous process of head butting to reestablish their pecking order. I make note that the hens line the fence watching this. Cackling.

We spend the next hour bagging wool, taking down fencing and putting straw bedding back onto the barn floor. Morgan grabs another muffin for fortification.

I feel relieved to have this rite of spring over. (Next step: pasture!) We hit the hay early that night and wake up in the morning to...snow. Three inches with more coming . The wind is howling from the north and I have a barn full of sheep who are naked. And afraid.

I push feet into muck boots, grab a barn coat from the hook and quickly head out. I open the guillotine door for the hens who peek their heads out, think better of it and stay put in the coop. I quietly open the barn door to find all the sheep nestled deep in fresh straw. They look up and continue to chew quietly and contentedly because they are all tucked under the radiant heat lamp that I had turned on before I went to bed!!

And. over the roar of the wind I can distinctly hear the howl of my own laughter.

Melissa Perley

Musicians Farming Sheep: Muir

If you use working dogs on your farm you have to realize that, at some point, the dog(s) that are working will, like all of us, slow down, break down and wear out. A lot of working-dog owners will begin looking for their next herder when the older dog is about three.

Our border collie, Sam, is now twelve and Bronte six. We are a bit behind. For several months we have been thinking about bringing a new pup onto the farm to help with our growing flock of sheep. The reason that we haven't done it yet is because both dogs, Sam especially, are so good at their job. Our dogs live to work. They have both done well in sheep dog trialing also but they love the challenges of farm work best of all. Each morning we gather the sheep in their upper paddock and take them down into the pasture for the day. Bronte is almost all black and has prick ears making her resemble a wolf. When she zips around the sheep to flank them toward the gate, they pay attention. Physically, Sam is the Border Collie on the dog food bags. He has the perfect black and white markings and his ears tip slightly which makes him appear friendly and gentle...which he is. To a point. When a ewe decides she would rather go left than right, Sam slows drops into a low crouch and simply looks at her: asking, in his Sam way, to continue after the shepherdess down the hill. If the ewe still resists, he asks bit more forcefully, adding just enough pressure to change her mind. Most of this is done simply with his eye.

They are invaluable to what we do. They take only a few minutes minutes to do an hour job. Based on this, and the fact that training a border collie to herd takes a good couple of years, we began looking around. We spoke with several people about their litters but, nothing felt quite right. So we did what we often do. We procrastinated.

About four months ago a friend told me about some people at a nearby farm who were expecting a litter of Border Collies. Both parents were on sight which was very appealing. I tentatively made another call. Gwyneth and I had several long conversations about what we were looking for, and how they were proceeding with this, their first litter. We began to get a little excited.

Come early February, as the snow blew drifts across the roads and icicles decorated our roof line, we got word that seven pups had been born. In the following weeks we made two trips to their farm. The first time the pups were crawling, army-style around the pen, eyes barely opened and squeaking more like Guinea Pigs than puppies. The second time, full on running in that pot-bellied drunken wobble of a new canine. I had first pick of the litter and now was the time. I steeled myself against all adorableness and kept my mind clear about what I was looking for. I wanted the pup to be curious, forward, bright and attentive to his siblings but to have some independence as well. I also wanted a female who had a rough coat.

Then my father’s health began to fail . He was hospitalized for three weeks during which, due to Covid restrictions, we could not visit him and I began to question the timing of our decision. Having a new puppy had seemed wonderful and exciting, but now it seemed crazy and overwhelming in the face of everything going on. Paul reminded me of the motto by which we try to live our lives, “As hard as you can, for as long as you can.” And so, even in the face of my father dying, I took that step forward into the unknown: the start of any real adventure.

I walked over to the pen in the barn: one of the pups looked right at me, trotted over to the fence, promptly sat down and wagged its tail. Very bright, clearly curious and obviously independent. Something in my stomach flipped. However, I stayed steady, chose the top three that interested me and brought them outside. Two spent much of their time using their new growling technique and wrestling with each other but the one who had come over to me at the fence looked around and promptly wandered off in search of some other happiness. Suddenly one of the chickens scooted past and everything stopped. First “my” dog began to walk slowly and deliberately toward the chicken, a bit of a crouch and clear purpose in his step: more telling was that as the chicken made note of him and began to move, he dropped to the ground and stayed perfectly still. The papers were signed.

I was going to be the new guardian of a curious, bright, independent puppy who was a male and the only smooth coat in the bunch. Go figure.

Last weekend we gathered up our Muir. All of the traits that I saw in him have remained true and obvious. Just as my older kids were when I brought home a sweet new baby that stole all the attention, Sam and Bronte are a bit rumpled by the addition. I tried having a sit-down with them, reminding them of their indelible positions on our team (Sam being flock manager). He patiently stood and let me talk with him but I was only getting one eye, and that one was full of disdain.

So here we are. Lying in bed, listening to our newly crated pup swear at us, getting up before the sun (like farmers!!) and disengaging needle-like teeth from our clothes and hair.

Spring is the time of new life on the farm. Sam remains top dog and it is time for him, and for us, to impart some of our hard-earned wisdom on a youngster.

And so it goes.

Melissa Perley

Musicians Farming Sheep: March-ing

I'm driving past the pond on my way home and watching the icy wind lift swirls of snow into the air. They skitter across the frozen surface of the water, lift and dance like mini-tornados. creating white-outs as they blow across the road in front of my car. To me, they are the embodiment of pure winter.

In like a lion comes the month of March. We accept cold in February as part of our winter package: The grocery stores don't even think about having colored pots of daffodils lining the plant display aisle. But, once the calendar page turns to March so too our thoughts turn to spring and I don't leave the grocery store without a purple narcissus or a paper coned package of white tulips tucked in among my food to help me weather the war between winter and spring.

On a farm, spring reveals itself without much melting. There can be five foot snowbank remnants from February but the sun remembers that it is now March. Even on the coldest days you can feel the new warmth in the sunshine beginning to melt the icy ground of animal paddocks. This winter we were resolute about daily scraping and manure shoveling. We were determined to avoid the seven hour day we put in last year, with a tractor, to get back to ground zero. However, even as we stand leaning on our shovels, breathing heavy, the ground grows soggy with melting sheep poop.

March is the month in which we need to begin thinking about new life on the farm. We decide that we would like to have more hens for laying and spend hours talking about various brooding box designs. Baby chicks become hens in a matter of weeks so we also talk about adding on to our chicken coop. One condo for the first flight of ladies and a second for the youngsters, seems like the perfect human ski trip accommodations. We mull over the breed of chicks to order. Our first year we had helpful suggestions from a friend, but this year we are flying solo. Turns out the color of tail feathers is not as important to us as some assurance that they are low-maintenance birds who lean away from the tendency to kill their friends. We decide to order ten Buff Orpingtons - the golden retriever of chickens. We don't really need ten more but unfortunately we understand attrition much better this year than we did last.

Each evening we drag our metal ladder across the barn and climb up into the hay loft to drop a dinner bale down. I stand and breathe in the green smell of fresh hay and kneel to gather hay bale leftovers to stuff into hen's nests and begin to count. In March we need to begin to figure the number of bales we have left. We have emptied our other hay storage space already so this is the only feed we have left until we turn the sheep out to pasture in May. Prices are close to double if you have to purchase hay in the winter so you want to calculate correctly when you order in late summer.

It is also time to begin calling the shearer. This is a task that needs to begin early because, even as repeat clients, it will take several phone calls to get through and schedule a time. Our sheep are heavy with wool. These coats are wonderful insulation from the north wind, but the spring sunshine now pushes the flock into the barn mid day to escape the heat and take a nap. It is time for a shave and a haircut.

Thursday it was almost sixty degrees at noon. All day I listened to the thunderous rush of snow sliding off the metal roofs and landing on the ground below with a satisfied thud. The icicles that the winter winds had bent toward our front windows until they looked like demonic teeth badly in need of orthodontic work, began to drip steadily. But, as early evening brought darkness, it also brought back the cold. I woke in the night to the roar of the wind coming down the mountain: at its height it sounded almost like a growl in its intensity. Laying in the dark I was both fascinated and frightened. When we went out to feed animals the next morning in the returned cold, there was a tree lying across the paddock. It had blown down from outside the fencing and broken part of one of the gates. The sheep looked at us chewing and unblinking as though having a tree smash into their winter space was an every day occurrence. We finished our daily scrape and dragged out the chainsaw. Paul had difficulty hiding his delight at having to use his beloved Stihl. We have come to understand spring as the time of repairs, and of Paul using his chainsaw.

We are coming into the middle of March this week. Time for corned beef and cabbage. As we head toward April the smell of promise is in the air as more people become vaccinated and Covid restrictions slowly begin to lift. Perhaps this lion will, indeed, go out like a lamb. If so, I'm really hoping that doesn't mean more sheep manure to shovel.

Melissa Perley

Musicians Farming Sheep: January

The holidays have come and gone. We have made the numerous trips up and down the ladder to the upper storage space in our garage with box after box of decorations. The sparkle of December has left [us] and January has arrived.

In Vermont, January is traditionally one of, if not the coldest month of the year. It is the month when we are most likely to see the thermostat plummet below zero, sometimes for a stretch of frozen days. We don't see much of anyone, Covid or not, because we are hibernating. The rule in our house is that nobody comes in the door without an armload of wood. When returning from an evening walk the final holler is always “everybody grab an armload.” I want to kick the threshold and thunk snow off my boots as I enter the house and run into a wall of heat coming off the stove. There is something wonderfully comforting about the tick of the metal expanding in the stovepipe as things heat up. I quickly pull a chair up and prop my chilly feet on the footrests so kindly designed into our hundred year old wood stove.

This afternoon Paul, Josh and I spent a few hours stuffing wool to be made into blankets into shipping boxes I relished the opportunity to plunge my bare hands into the pile of mitten material. We stacked two wooden planks on top of the wool and labeled all boxes for shipment: my hands, colder by the second, fumbling with the markers that too, did not seem to like working in the cold. Once finished I piled some thawed blueberries into a bowl to feed to the chickens. I stood outside the hen house and did my best chicken impression, calling the ladies in for an afternoon treat. I watched them come running, not out of the coop, of course, but out of the sheep barn. Wings tucked back, they reminded me, somewhat, of Batman racing to the Bat-mobile. I sat down on the milk crate which acts as a step into their laying boxes and began handing out the cold blueberries. It didn't take long as they are pigs as well as chickens, but my hands were now truly blue, in every sense of the word.

I noticed the handle of the barn door mysteriously (or not) bobbing, so I ducked under the door to the hay storage barn to grab a handful of grain for Mrs. Chubbers. Sam followed on my heels because Border Collies find sheep grain a great treat. I'm not sure that Sam likes the treat quite as much as he enjoys taking those treats from the proverbial mouths of the sheep, but either way he was staring me down...and won. The buckets that hold all grain, etc. are of course, metal and not helping the cold of my own paws.

Finally, wool boxed, chickens, sheep and Border pigs sated, I crunch up the road to the house. I sneak in without an armload because I'm afraid my hands are too cold to hold the logs anyway. I open the front door, feel the heat in front of me while the cold pushes from behind and smell food cooking in the oven.

Normally we are all looking for outdoor things to do on our days off. But in January we are content to be still. Paul reads in the living room while Josh works on editing photos from the couch, a fire coming to life in the fireplace. The dogs stretch out with their backs against the warm stones near the stove, understanding that for now, herding is on hold.

The pandemic has heightened our consciousness of living according to the season. January being the time to curl up into our corners. The chaos of the past weeks making us realize the importance of taking this quiet time to think about defining who we are and what is important, or at least acceptable, to each of us. There is something metaphoric about the frozen landscape and the need for patience as we wait for the thaw and the revelation of change.