We have reached the point of desperation here at Peeper Hollow Farm. We have many, many mouths to feed and our pastures are exhausted. We have had so little rain for such a long period of time that there is nothing green left in our many pastures. Even if we got rain now, it would take literally weeks to rejuvenate our acreage for grazing - and I still have nearly one hundred sheep needing to eat each and every day. The only word that seems to fit is "desperation."

I called my 'hay guy' in hopes that he could save us. There is still hope, but even he can't do anything until tomorrow, at the soonest. Perhaps tomorrow, he can bring me three big round bales of hay to feed my sheep for a while. It isn't high quality hay, but at this point, I'm no longer fussy - I will take what he can bring. The problem, he told me, is that even his first cutting of hay this year was only half what he usually cuts. He was already behind projections then. Those harvested fields have not grown at all, so the next cutting isn't looking promising. He has already suggested I might want to look elsewhere for this winter's hay - he will likely not have enough for us. So now, not only do I worry about what to feed my sheep in the near future - I also worry about where I will get hay for the winter. Great.

So, keeping all this in mind, you can likely understand my brainstorm on Saturday morning when I looked at my list of things to do; topping the list was to mow the lawn. I hadn't mowed the lawn in quite some time because I was afraid that driving the heavy mower over the dry and crispy sections of grass would kill it off permanently. On the other hand, there are many areas in which weeds and crabgrass are the primary species - and they do pretty well in a drought. Our lawn is a country lawn - a poor distant-cousin of those lovely manicured lawns in town. Sections of our lawn are now dormant, but others really needed to be cut. And that's when I got my idea.

My lambs really need good feed right now, but they are getting very little. They need variety and pretty much anything green - and lots of it. On the other hand, I had a lawn full of crabgrass and weeds that needed to be trimmed. I also have lots of other tasty plants like raspberries, grapes, and such that are currently very lush and green. I suddenly realized that perhaps I could take care of two issues with one swift movement. I could open a gate and allow my hungry lambs to do some of the work for me in cutting the lawn - and they might even prune the other growth at the same time!

It was that decision that created the marauding bands of sheep who are currently invading my lawns and flower beds.They have been out there since Saturday, finding what they can to curb their hunger. They were timid at first, but once they realized that the dogs weren't going to chase them out, they came, large and small, gregarious and timid; they flowed out onto the green sections of lawn to fill the emptiness within.

Lisa is currently the only dog at home, since the boys left on Friday for further training. Needless to say, she is not happy with the current arrangement. Sheep are supposed to stay in their pastures, according to her, and she would like nothing better than to put them there herself - but I will not currently allow it. She sulks from window to window, hoping to catch the eye of some poor hungry little lamb and send it back to its home - but the lambs don't look at the windows; they are too busy tearing and gulping greenery as quickly as they can. They don't know how long they have before they no longer have access to such good feed. They make the most of every bite and focus on the task at hand.

The lambs run as groups of friends, exploring this new world that we've opened to them. Some love the raspberry plants; we find these often caught in the many overlapping thorny vines at the side of the house. Others much prefer standing on their rear legs to reach the bottom branches of the pine trees. As I watch them graze and forage, I see them dart in their small groups from place to place, hardly believing their good luck; so much abundance after having had so little for so long.

I sit in the kitchen and watch the groups move from one place to the next, and I smile. I am happy to see them eat. When my sheep hunger, I ache. In opening our lawns to these pint-sized marauders, gobbling up my ornamental plants and pruning my low-hanging branches, I am feeding my flock - really feeding my flock - and that feels good. The lambs need to grow, and for this, they need high-quality food - something that has been missing from our fields for a while now. With these two opened gates, I have found a way to temporarily provide them with what they need. For me, there is nothing better.

So, I sit and I watch and I hope for rain while lambs eat and eat more. Lisa stares out the windows in frustration, waiting for the day that sheep return to their rightful place and once again predictably stay there. I wait for that day, too - not because the lambs will once again be "put away" in their pastures, but because I will have figured out a way to provide them with better feed there, back where they belong. Until then, not much will change, and we will all have to learn to deal with the marauding bands of lambs.

It has been dry for a very long time here in eastern Iowa. With little snow cover over the winter to slowly seep into our soil as it melts and with very few spring rains, the soil is now very dry - too dry. Looking at only these past couple of weeks, we are already now two inches behind in average rainfall for the month of June - and that doesn't say anything about the rains in April and May that didn't come. Sure, I have a well, and I have lots of hose, but that doesn't solve my problems. My problems are not here around the house - my problems are out there, in the thirteen or so acres of fields where my sheep live.

Sheep are herbivores: they eat grass and other green plants. Actually, they eat lots of plant material: the average ewe will eat about 12.5 pounds of fresh vegetation each day. I currently have fifty-one adult sheep grazing my pastures (since  I've sold a good number of adults this year that have not yet gone to their new farms). Doing the math, those fifty-one sheep eat about six-hundred forty pounds of grass each day - not including what the forty-five remaining lambs are packing away (about three hundred pounds a day, total)! The bottom line is that nearly 1000 pounds of grass is disappearing out of my pastures each day - and currently very little is growing back. These days, as the sheep leave a pasture, what is left is brown and dry - basically, there is nothing nutritive left.

I know that pastures shouldn't be eaten down so far. I know the sheep should be moved when there is still about three inches of residual growth; that way, the pasture recovers more quickly and the sheep can come back within a few weeks and graze again. Unfortunately, I have nowhere else to send them - the next pasture hasn't regrown from the last grazing, so all they have to eat is what remained when they left that pasture the last time. This is not a good situation - not for the sheep, not for the pastures and, in the end, not for me.

Summer is normally a time during which both my work load and my worry load are lessened. The way it is supposed to work is that our flock is at its largest in the spring when the grass is normally most plentiful. By the time July and August roll around, the grass slows down its growth, but most of our lambs and sold sheep have been delivered, so the demand for grazing is also down. I don't have to buy or haul hay, since our pastures keep up fairly well with the needs of the flock - and I am left to do other things like travel or get to those many projects I put off during spring lambing.

This year is different, though. Much different. For the first time since we started our flock, I am watching my pastures literally dry up in June. Our pond is lower than I have ever seen it this time of year (see photo - the trees you see normally stand in the water!). We aren't ready for this yet - we still have a big flock of sheep who need to eat their one-thousand pounds of vegetation each day. If this were August, I would not be so concerned, but now ... this is only June and this is a big problem.

The weather report each day is a tease: each forecast predicts rain sometime within the next seven days. The next day, the rain has moved one or two days farther out - and the same the day after that. It is always there, but just out of reach. When I walk in my crunching pastures, I look to the sky, hoping to see one or two dark clouds. Heck, I'd even take white clouds at this point - maybe the evaporation from the soil would slow a bit if it were cloudy. But no, each day is sunny, warm (or hot), cloudless, and often breezy: a perfect day for most people, but for me, it's only perfect for drying the soil in my pastures even more.

So, I sit and worry. I can't do anything about it. I wish there were some rain dance or chant that would bring the rains, but there isn't. If we get to the last pasture and have no more grass, I will need to buy hay and begin feeding hundreds of pounds of hay each day to our sheep. There is no other choice - our sheep must eat, and without pasture, we are left with feeding hay. This time of year, when I feed out a bale of hay, I feel like I am pouring money into the hay feeder for them to consume. Feeding hay this time of year when we have seven lovely pastures fenced around our acreage seems like such a waste - yet, this year, it may come to that. The sheep must eat, and hay may be our only alternative.

I still watch and pray for rain.

As in much of the country, Iowa's summer can get pretty hot - and often steamy. It isn't technically summer yet, but we have seen our share of hot weather already. And, unfortunately, little rain.

In general, the sheep manage fairly well in the heat. They graze in the early morning and late evening when the temperatures tend to be a little more comfortable. They spend much of their day in what shade they can find - even if that shade is cast by a fencepost! I have never figured out how a fencepost can keep them any cooler, but evidently it does, because when it gets hot, I will inevitably see one or more sheep lying in its shadow!

The lambs figure out how to deal with the heat early on. They are usually weaned long before our temperatures get very hot, but they are genetically programmed for survival so they figure it out on their own. 

At the end of last week, as our temperatures climbed to the mid-nineties, our lambs found themselves in the Pond Pasture, with several large trees and many areas of shade. I have a good view of this pasture from the house and could see them lazing in the shade and cudding what they had grazed earlier. I was suprised, that first morning, when it didn't seem as though they were all there. I began to wonder where the rest of the lambs had gone.

As a result, I headed out on my daily check of the pastures, determined to figure out where all my lambs were. I had visions of coyote attacks and holes in the fence as I made my way to the pasture gate. Unlike my usual routine, which is to call all the sheep to me as I approach, this time I moved with stealth, hoping to find the lambs wherever they might be. If they were hiding, I wanted to know where, so I moved quickly and quietly, latching the gate behind me and moving quickly across the dewy grass.

It didn't take long before I came across my missing lambs. They gave away their position as they heard me move across the bridge that spans "the swamp" - a normally wet and mucky area that feeds our pond, now nearly dry from lack of rain. As I stepped onto the bridge, first one and then several more lambs darted out from underneath, obviously thinking there was an attack on their hideaway.

I hopped off the bridge and looked underneath. There in the dark, I saw them - twenty or more lambs in all: an assortment of ears and noses and legs and shiny eyes reflecting the light around me. I could make out the white lambs and light coats in the deep shadows beneath, but by the time I took my photo, most of them had scampered off, their hideout no longer as safe after having been discovered. Those that remained obviously were debating whether they should stay or go - enjoy the cool here and risk capture, or run into the heat and hope to find other shade elsewhere.

I quickly retreated, leaving them in their cool oasis. They had claimed prime territory to escape the heat and there was no reason to evict them - they deserved their little spot in the shade as a reward for their resourcefulness. As for me, I too found a cool place: I returned to my air-conditioned house, happy to observe my sheep from the cool comfort of my own kitchen through the big front window. 

A number of our lambs leave this weekend for their new homes, and tonight we'll load up over a dozen sheep and lambs for an early departure tomorrow morning. This time of year is always somewhat of a tug-of-war. On the one hand, this is a great opportunity for them, but on the other hand, I will miss them.

It is a great thing to sell our lambs for breeding - I know that they have every chance of leading long and productive lives on their new farms, usually grazing on lush pastures and frolicking in open fields. They will breed and eventually deliver their own lambs. For a sheep, there is no better life, whether they're breeders, pets, or fiber animals. 

On the other hand, in many cases I've helped to bring these lambs into the world. I helped dry them off in the shivering cold of early morning. I made sure they were healthy and well-fed. I've fought their internal parasites and kept them safe from predators. I guess what I'm saying is that once again, like in every year before this, I've gotten attached.

When I walk into the lamb pasture, even if I don't say one word, my lambs come to me. I am enveloped by fuzzy faces, floppy ears, and prancing hooves - eager lamby faces looking to see what I have or who I will pat. These lambs, who only weeks ago looked to their mothers for nearly everything, now look to me. I am their shepherd and the trust that has been built between us is a sacred thing to me. And now, many of them are leaving.

I tell myself that this is a very good thing. I do not have space for all of these sheep in my own flock - they must find other homes. There is not enough grass - not enough space. The sale of these lambs will pay for feed this winter that will keep the remaining flock alive and well-fed. Selling our lambs is a very, very good thing. If our lambs didn't sell, our flock wouldn't survive: only if we sell lambs and fiber can we continue to do what we do.

I know all of this. My brain repeats the mantra to my heart, over and over, "This is a very good thing you are doing for these lambs. This is a very good thing...." My brain knows this and the other blatant facts well. My brain engages in the realities of finance nearly every day, and the lesson has been well-learned. Lambs must be sold. We must move on.

And yet, in spite of all of this firm knowledge, my heart is a bit saddened today. Two of our adult ewes are also leaving in this load: Genoa and Hartley will both go to another farm to breed. Both were born here; Genoa was the first Romeldale lamb born on our farm, and Hartley's birth on Valentine's Day so many years ago marked the birth of our first CVM. They've given us lovely fleeces each year and many lovely lambs who are now part of our flock. It will be hard to let them go - but I know their genetics will be appreciated elsewhere, and that is good.

Yes, I've gone through my activities today a bit torn. I know that dispersing our lambs is a good thing. I know this is how it must be. After all, I run a business, and businesses sell their products to others in order to survive. It is the way of the world. That is how it works.

In my business, however, my primary products are lambs and sheep. They have personalities, likes and dislikes. We have built a relationship, they and I, whether over weeks or years. And most of them must eventually go, so that the others may remain. That is how it is. I know this. But I am allowed to feel the hurt of their leaving - to work with a heavy heart as I do today. I honestly don't think I could do this any other way with a clean conscience - so for today I go about my work, and because of my affection for them, I feel the loss.

I am not usually very busy this time of year, but my summers are filled with moving sheep. Every few days, I spend an hour or two moving the lambs to fresh pasture, the ewes into the pasture the lambs left, and the rams into the pasture the ewes left. Then I mow the pasture the rams just vacated - down to about 3" to set back the weeds the sheep don't eat. This task is one of the routines of summertime on our farm, and becomes as integrated into my week as picking up the mail or running the dogs.

The sheep have come to the point, over the years, that they move quite easily. Usually the only encouragement Zoe needs is my opening the gate and calling to her and the lambs in my usual, "Hey sheep! Let's go, sheep!" and they come - quickly! I stand behind the gate and they run for the next open pasture. Within minutes, my lambs have moved to their new pasture, with Zoe and llama, Martin (and for the time being, Howie) leading the way.

The adult ewes are nearly as easy to move. They rush the fence when I call, and move easily into their new pasture, knowing the grazing will be much better than the place they leave. Orbit, the llama with the ewes, is less eager to leave - not because he doesn't look forward to his new pasture, but because if he resists, I bring out the bucket of grain. He knows that he is allowed to nibble at the kernels if he walks slowly behind me as I lead him to his new grazing, so there is no need to run there with the sheep: he  essentially has his own escort.

The rams typically need more assistance in the move, but that is why I have working dogs. I bring out either Coda or Chance and move the rams without issue - they happily run into their new pasture when the alternative is eviction by the dog if they don't move willingly. Within seconds, they decide it is time to graze in a new place and make their way past the gate where I stand.

All of this sounds very efficient, except that I have left out the biggest problem we have with moving sheep: Summer. Summer is the llama we keep with the rams. She is big and she is bad - seriously bad. If she wasn't such a good guard, she would long ago have been returned to the farm where we got her. She is an excellent guard, though, so she stays - nasty attitude and all!

Summer never wants to move. Never. It isn't that she doesn't want the new pasture - she does. She just enjoys the distraction of playing with us. Her refusal to move gives her something to do for an hour on a hot and boring summer day. To her, "I refuse to go" is the best game of all.

To me, on the other hand, Summer's refusal has been a big annoyance. I have better things to do with my time than chase Summer around the pasture. The only way I have moved her in the past is by chasing her on foot until she gets bored and gives in. She can obviously outrun me with her long legs, so it wasn't a matter of speed - in that department, she would win. My weapon of choice has been patience: I continue to walk toward her, pushing her with my presence toward the open gate. After about an hour of continual walking toward her as she turned and ran way, she would get bored and I would win. Always. In the end, she'd look me straight in the face and flick her mane as she turned and walked - slowly - into the waiting pasture. She seemed to let me know she wasn't going because I forced her - she was going because she had won, although she could have gone on forever. I always lost.

That brings us to the present day and my Summer solution. I now own a red ATV. I am now as fast as Summer, if I want to be. The rules to our game have changed, and rather than walk at a snail's pace to outwit my opponent, I can now fly across the pasture as quickly as she can. It's a new game.

When I moved the sheep yesterday, it all went according to previous moves - except for the last step: Summer. As she began her run around the pasture, I mounted my ATV. I zipped across the pasture and caught up with her as she stood looking at me. She dodged the other direction, but I kept up with her. We both stopped mid-pasture and looked at each other - at my perch on the ATV, our eyes were level, looking squarely eye-to-eye.

Summer dodged one more time in the other direction, but once again I kept up with her and stopped dead in front of her when she came to a stop. Again, we gazed into each other's eyes, and I noticed that she was a bit winded, catching her breath as we stood, staring. I was ready for her next move. I waited and I watched.

And it was then that she surprised me: Summer tossed her head and sulkily walked away towards the open gate, headed to the rams already grazing in their pasture. Obviously, the game was over and, for the first time in years, I had won.

It is clear that the game has changed. First of all, I now enjoy the game - more than Summer, I think. Not having walked for an hour, I came back to the barn refreshed and ready for my next task. Without realizing it, this new toy of mine has turned out to be the Summer solution I have been looking for! It actually makes me look forward to the next move of our sheep - how crazy is that?!

Skirting update: I will be releasing a handful of ram fleeces for sale tomorrow afternoon to our e-mail notification list - most likely late in the afternoon.

As of last Friday, we still had one big job ahead of us before we could consider this lambing year finished: trimming hooves. Of all the tasks I have throughout the year, I think this is the one I dread the most - for various reasons.

Trimming hooves is one of those jobs we've found are best done after the lambs are weaned. But that also means that the weather is usually warm, and getting hot. Since we don't have a tilt-table (to tilt the ewe and raise her legs to table height), it means that we have to get down on the ground where the hooves are - and that is also where the manure is!

Trimming hooves is a physically demanding, dirty job that no one enjoys - yet it is a necessary part of raising sheep. If we don't trim their hooves at least annually, the hooves will grow out and change the way the sheep stand and walk, creating skeletal issues that will impact health. Also, that over-grown hoof is perfectly placed to trap bacteria and harbor infection, which can then spread. All in all, we have to trim hooves, whether we like it or not!

I found last year that it was a much easier task to accomplish if I called for some help. We used to trim all the hooves of our flock by ourselves: Rick would help "tip" the sheep onto its side, and I would trim with our hoof shears (much like pruning shears). By the time I finished the hooves of nearly fifty sheep, my hands were full of blisters and neither of us could move our arms. Last year, I got a friend to come and trim and several others to help tip the sheep, and I only had to trim half a flock: a dramatic improvement!

So, building on our success of last year, I called even more friends this year, and believe it or not, they came! We had three people trimming and five others catching and tipping the sheep (see some of us at work in photo above). We trimmed the hooves of all the ewes - currently forty-seven in all - in about two-and-a-half hours; not bad at all!

We also made another improvement: trimming in the field, rather than in the barn. Each sheep produces an average of about five-and-a-half pounds of manure a day, and we typically have forty or so adult ewes. After two to four hours of standing around on the concrete pad of the barn last year, we were working on an accumulation of about eighteen pounds of new manure spread over about a 12x20 foot area - much too messy for anyone's preference! In the field, we could continually move over a bit to avoid the worst of it, and the job was much cleaner.

So the last big job is now finished. Our adults are ready to summer in our pastures, filling out on the grass and forbes they much prefer to hay. Our breeding lambs are beginning to leave for their new homes, and the others are gaining and growing by the day. Each day brings me closer and closer to our "slow" time of year: the lazy, hazy days of summer. It won't be long now!

We have had some crazy weather so far this year. All of our lambs are now weaned and many of them have already been sold to other farms. For the time being, it is up to me to make sure they stay healthy and happy until they are picked up or delivered to their new homes - much as I do with the rest of our flock. The weather has not been helping me in that part of my work, however.

Last weekend it was exceptionally hot in Iowa. Temperatures here on the farm climbed to over ninety-five degrees on Saturday. Whether you are human or ovine - whether you wear clothing or wool - ninety-five degrees is hot!

Then yesterday - only five days later - the temperatures were unable to climb over fifty degrees - a cold front had come through, finally bringing rain but also chilly temperatures. Although we desperately needed the rain for our pastures, the cold temperatures after the heat of the weekend created problems.

Occasionally as I walk my pastures, I will hear a lamb cough. This is not necessarily reason for alarm, but I do immediately look in that direction to see which lamb or sheep is coughing. Sometimes lambs cough because - like us - they eat too quickly and swallow incorrectly. At other times, they get their coats caught on a shrub or nail and when they pull loose, it temporarily blocks their airway and they let out a cough. They can inhale a bug or a seed. There are many reasons besides illness for a lamb to let out one little cough - but I still look. Once I know which lamb coughed, I watch to see if this was one random cough or whether there are more coming from the same lamb. One cough can be explained away - more can signal problems.

Temperature fluctuations such as those of this week are the perfect storm for pneumonia. A lamb can often fight off pneumonia on its own under normal stable weather conditions. It is when the temperatures fluctuate as they have that lambs and sheep sometimes find themselves under attack by bacteria that mean them harm - and under these conditions, I join their battle with my arsenal of meds.

My medicine of choice for summer pneumonia - the illness we are discussing - is Excenel. Normal treatment involves one injection daily for three days. If the lamb is still showing any signs of illness on the last day, I treat for two more. Very rarely do I still see signs of illness after five days of treatment, but if I do, my vet gets a call and we continue treatment with another antibiotic. I have learned from experience that summer pneumonia is nothing to fool around with - it can bring death to a bouncing, happy lamb in literally hours.

This morning, Lucy (shown here) - who I had been watching all week with an on-and-off cough - had finally been overrun by the pneumonia she had been fighting. The sudden drop in temperatures obviously had worked against her, and when I caught her, she had a fever in addition to a pretty steady cough. I treated her as usual, and I'm hoping that by tomorrow she'll be as good as new. Hopefully, there aren't any more sick lambs that I missed.

I am usually a fan of cooler temperatures (my theory is that I can always put on more clothes to keep warm), but in light of this issue with pneumonia, I have to admit, I'm ready for the lazy, hazy - healthy - days of summer!