My Own Little Farm

Life has been very busy lately.  In the past my husband and I have talked about getting some kind of livestock to eat down the grass in our orchard.  We've never decided on anything though.   Well, that decision kind of fell in our lap.  A friend of mine raises dairy sheep and it is lambing time for her.  Her life decided to get very busy and she was not wanting to have to bottle feed babies this year and was looking to find homes for those babies.  To make a long story short, we have 11 baby lambs and 1 ewe now.  I am so grateful for the ewe because she is kind to all of the babies and as a bonus, one of the babies is hers and the other babies are able to steal some of her milk so our milk replacer goes just a little bit farther.  She also helps to keep them warm at night and watches over them.  Once they get a little bigger we can put them out in the orchard to eat the grass.  I am excited for that aspect, but I have to admit, I really don't know much about livestock.  I am so glad that my friend lives fairly close and is willing to help mentor us and we get into this.  She has also been telling us about many of the cool things you can do with sheep. 

Of course there is the eating of them.  You can make lamb chops and rack of lamb or whatever.  I'm not a big fan of lamb meat, but my husband likes it.  Also, since these are dairy sheep you can milk them.  The milk is supposed to be quite sweet and very rich.  They told me that it makes excellent ice cream and fudge.  I know you can also drink it plain and make cheese out of it.  Then there is the wool.  My mom has a spinning wheel that she told me I can have so I could make yarn, once I learn how to.  You can also weave the yarn for cloth, or felt the wool.  I have a lot of learning to do.

I told my husband that we are just going to have our own little farm here.  With all that we can do with the sheep, plus our chickens, our orchard, and the really great garden that I'm going to someday have, we are set, as long as we have water.  In a way I'm excited for all of this.  It feels good to think that you can take care of your family.  At the same time, it's a lot of work, and it's work that I've never really done before.  Seriously, I grew up with cats, dogs, and fish.  We had a garden that was mostly tomatoes, a few peppers, and corn, no fruit trees.  My mom didn't can when I was growing up, so I'm learning to do that now.  I did learn to sew and crochet, though.  I think I'm going to go back and read all of the Little House On the Prairie books, they really knew how to take care of themselves.  I'm just really glad I have electricity.