Coffee! Lemons! Sheep!

Friday was a mellow day. Phil spent much of the afternoon bringing the cats to the vet. (I am so thankful that he runs those wretched errands! I got to make another garden bed, so when my garlic shows up, I’ll be ready. So I was in the beautiful fresh air, while he was dealing with paperwork and stressed out cats.) Abraham sweetly helped me with spreading hay around the bare spots on our land. We have six large round bales of spoiled hay, probably close to a ton of the stuff, and he happily volunteered and served with me. He is such a helpful little guy—he’s at the perfect age to begin farming. The older boys are, I think, a little more set in their ways, a little less enthusiastic about farming. At some point, I will help them get a niche, but for now, survival continues to be the order of the day.

While Phil was away, I was preparing another garden bed, when I felt a little sharp pain on my neck, a bit more than a sweat bee, but not much. Intuition or something made me head to the truck to look at my neck. Sure enough, there was a wasp, crawling around.

After I shrieked and ran around and spun in circles, I decided it was not flying away based on my actions, so I settled in and fed the goats. Still there. Periodically, it would crawl around, which is a funny tickly feeling. Bleah. I finally even went back to gardening, being careful not to tip my head too far in that direction, and it did eventually fly away.

See how in tune with nature I am now?

Today we went to a local farmer’s market. Michelle sells there (breads and cinnamon rolls), and she is only doing it this week and next. The row of sales booths was not terribly long, but contained a variety of vegetables, a few stalls with apples, herbal tinctures, bouquets, wool products, and soaps. We talked for some time to one of the apple sellers, and bought a bag (maybe 10 pounds of apples?) for $5. I don’t know how these little places stay in business. I used the apples for another apple crisp this evening, because they weren’t my favorite.

Then we headed on to find Edible Landscaping, a specialty nursery that I’ve been eager to see for several years (they come up in many books on fruit). I had seen their sign when driving in last October, so we set out to find them. Well, we had to go a long ways around, because their sign is only on one side of the road—not the side we were driving in on initially.

They were having a special event, with tours and talks. I would have liked to attended—had I not been there with four boys, who were not, I am sad to say, on their best behavior. We wanted to buy a lemon tree and a coffee bush, both of which were eventually successful. But, oh, to get to browse the grounds and the high tunnels—what a delight that will be eventually. They have figs growing all around, and a type of mulberry that looked like little brains.

I have tried twice to order their catalog off the internet, but they have yet to send me one. And today, when I went in person to get one, they were out. Argh!

Back home, Phil worked on the giant erector set that is our 10’x24’ shed. I held supports for him for some time. It is not yet finished, but the frustration level, overall, has not been too bad.

Then we returned Bubby the Buck to the Besettes. His job is done, so we think. The first week of October will tell us whether the ladies are still cycling, but I think they are bred. Then on to meet Tony, the manager of Edgemont Farm (where Lottie Moon lived as a girl). He and his son Dakota had sheep for sale, left from Dakota’s 4H project.

Let me say that sheep in person are not at all like lambs. These sheep weigh probably well over 100 pounds, and look even heavier because of their wool (which hasn’t been shorn since the spring, I suspect). They are about waist high, both three years old, both, presumably, bred, hopefully carrying twins. One is a pure-bred Dorset (“second-tier” in both meat and fiber, which means it is decent in both categories, but not stellar). One is a Dorset-Rambouillet cross. And they are both carrying lambs bred with the Rambouillet. (Rambouillets are second-tier in meat, but top tier in fiber. Since I rather like fiber arts, I am pleased about that.)

Anyway, back to the sheep description. They really, really want to be with their flock, and if one is separated, it will do its best to return to the others. At one point, I was talking to Diane, when her son brought two sheep between us. The other two sheep tried to dive between us, too. It was a bit silly to see.

I think of sheep as slow-moving, half-asleep. This is completely inaccurate. They are more like large rabbits, almost, and shrewd in their ability to escape from people. People, of course, have the forward-facing eyes of a predator, and they would prefer to escape from such a threat. Once their front legs are off the ground, though, they are docile; I think they assume they are dead, and give up.

To catch a sheep, you should preferably get a hind leg. However, if all else fails, grab the fleece and hang on.

To load a sheep into the back of a pickup, find a strong man and pick the animal up. Then make sure that there is some sort of enclosure on all sides. Tony told of a time when he was driving 60 cattle to market down a four-lane highway, when a bull burst through the back of his trailer and started running away. He almost got a ticket for leaving an animal alone, but was simply unable to find it (as were the police). When he got to the processing facility with the remaining 59 cattle, the plant’s manager said something like, “Oh, that happens weekly.”

The sheep and the goats are together in their pen. They more or less ignore each other. I can see how sheep escape from an electric fence: they are large and strong, and their fleece, I assume, shields them from the initial shock.

By the way, these sheep are celebrity sheep. Famous author Jan Karon (author of the Mitford series) gave them (or their ancestors—I’m not quite sure) to Dakota.

On a more tragic note, the eldest son of the woman we got the goats from lost his fiancé in a car accident basically at the top of our road earlier this week. When first driving around rural Virginia, I thought the roads seemed more slender and curvy. It certainly seemed less safe than driving around Boulder, but more relaxing, too, because the surroundings were so beautiful. Then this year, I lost all my fear of driving, after seeing how the locals do it: straight down the center of the one-lane roads, swerving sharply when an oncoming vehicle approaches.

After hearing of this death, and then remembering that our neighbor’s cousin broke his neck and killed his passenger the first week we were out last October, reminds me that getting in the car is not risk-free. It reminds me to continue to pray daily for protection for my family, as well as my animals and possessions.