We bought Sheep!

the weekend was full of many things but clearly the main highlight was … we bought sheep!

after that i went home to finish making dinner. only to come home to open the door to…. burnt meat. yes. i have burnt the first meal in my entire life. i would like to blame the crock pot but i am the one who forgot the most important component…. liquid. yes this is the FIRST meal i’ve ever burnt to a crisp. i’ve under cooked, i’ve over cooked but i’ve never turned something in to a straight up hockey puck. so we went out. we headed to kalamazoo to go to food dance. ironically i had a delicious braised lamb with goat cheese spaetzle which was absolutely heavenly. we stocked up on a few essentials (the yogurt from matawan creamery) and headed home because we are boring.

saturday morning we woke up bright and early and made a nice quiche together with some of the left overs we had in the fridge and the beautiful blue eggs that i picked up from the farmers market. after that we went to home depot and tractor supply because we needed some fence panels to mend one of the pastures (sounds so legit doesn’t it) and then some extra mulch and peat for the garden. after that we had a date with some people we met on craigslist to look at some icelandic lambs.

i have been emailing back and forth with a few different farmers/breeders and this looked like an amazing breed. good for both wool and meat so you sheer the ones you keep and you can sheer the ones you eat. win win right. i have to say farm people on craigslist is a bit ridiculous. it’s like blind dating. one guy gave me the whole run down of his flock/herd? and at the bottom of his email i swear, “ps: i feel  i need to be upfront this herd has had a history of chlamydia, it is gone now but it has happened in the past”

wtf. don’t you think that is a little more “before we go further” rather than a “ps”? needless to say i did not email that guy back. i don’t need a herd of stds running crazing in my backyard.

ok so back on track. we headed to zeeland and met with a lady named laura and her husband. they had the coolest 4 acre hobby farm. silver turkeys, guinea hens, rabbits, ducks and more  along with a herd of 4 sheep and their babies. we spent an hour talking to them and looking at the sheep. lets be honest we didn’t know what the heck we were looking for. we said we would think about it and went and got some lunch up the road. we then headed to blue door to pick up a cabinet i had bought for our bathroom. went back and picked up the sheep….in our explorer. omg i know i know ok. but how the heck were we supposed to move four babies in that heat with no vented trailer? the explorer worked great. except for the lamb part. we first lined the entire thing with cardboard and then threw a tarp in all the way up to the walls. so it didn’t get in to the carpet our actually on the wall of the car but holy moly did it stink! we could barely drive we were laughing so hard or dying from stink. the worst/funniest part was that at every stop sign or red light people were pointing and laughing at the 4 lambs baaing their heads off in the back of the car.

we looked like IDIOTS but honestly i almost peed myself i was laughing so hard. I couldn’t believe we bought sheep and put them into the back of the explorer.

we got home and put them right in to the pasture which they LOVE. it’s full of uncut long hay grass and they have been going to town mowing it down.

we are kind of jumping in to this head first. we have to go to TSC to get some medicine for them this week because sheep are highly susceptible to worms (i got worms that’s what were going to call it) soooo i’m going to figure out how to give lambs medicine. we have been putting them in one of the barn stalls at night because we have been hearing coyotes the past couple of weeks. creepy because it’s usually when the moon is full or almost full. and the thought of coyotes getting my baby sheep… not on my watch. so sunday night joe and i literally spent an hour catching them and carrying them into the stall. the odd thing was we caught 3 of the 4 and once the 4th noticed her buddies were in the stall she just went it. well, joe had to leave last night for a work golf outing today in detroit so i had to herd them in to the barn solo last night. here is the thing. i went to the pasture behind them and they seriously walked straight in to the stall and laid down. boom. call me lead shepard.  i’d also be lying if I said i didn’t have a favorite. the smallest (who is a twin with the brown one) is totally my favorite. she has white fleece with brown polka dots. here are their names.

grey with horns (female) betty
white with brown spots (female) bebe or bae for short
black (female) barbara or babs for short
brown/red (male) stanly, baby daddy

so after the sheep pick up we got them all settled. took a shower because we stunk and we made a dinner fresh from the garden (beans and squash) and meat from my dad. it was the perfect end to an adventurous day. I still can’t believe we bought sheep! Our farm is really coming together.