What do sheep say?

"Hey! Look she is opening the gate to the big pasture."

"Come on everyone follow me."

"This way Ladies."

"Left, right, left.... single line Ladies."

"Look at all this beautiful grass"

"Wait, wait, wait...what is that that she has in her hand...back, back!"

"It's OK...over here."

"Go right....ah, no."

"Go Left."

                                                   "And everyone Eat."

I would love to hear from you as to what you think the sheep are saying. Please feel free to comment with your captions. 

The Shepherdess.

Photo oops or is it Ops?

I go to the Sheep Camp and after I arrive I think to myself, "Why don't I ever remember to bring the camera with me so when I blog about the things I have seen that way the readers can see it too?"

So....I made a great effort the other day to make sure and have my camera with me and this is what I saw.

                                   The start of my day...

Pasture grasses laced with webs 

Sheep grazing as the sun rose over the valley mist

The end of my day... 

The side of the sheep I see as I herd them back into their smaller pasture for the night.

 At the gate the camera stops working. I took the wrong batteries as I struggled to get it to work right this is what happened ....

A nosy ram

...getting even nosier 

and I look up to see behind the ram is his girls trying to see what's up.

Close up Ladies?

Hearty Lamb & Barley Soup

The title of this post was not my first choice in titles. The dish we will make will have meat balls in it made from ground lamb. I have to admit the first title that came to mind was,

"Lamb Ball Soup".

 After some serious thought to that title I figured I would loose you before I ever got started. Admit it you were not thinking meat balls when you read that, were you?

So many people when I ask if they like lamb, respond by saying they have never tasted lamb or say they do not like it. Well for those people I always come back with,

 "You need to tasted my lamb before passing judgement."

Since I can not cook for everyone the best I can do is give you advice about how to properly purchase, prepare, cook, and serve lamb. Before jumping in with both feet and making you all experts on the art of lamb cooking, a little history lesson is needed. Both on myself and on lamb.

The first time I was ever served lamb was at my Granddad Hampton's. I was not very old but the memory of that meal is still with me to this day. We were up very early in the morning, see Granddad had a farm and dairy in Eastern Oregon. On top of that it was Summer and that meant hay had to be put up.


Food has always been a very important part of our family gatherings. Granddad believed in feeding the work crew well and the work crew was family, friends and neighbors. That is the way it was on traditional family farms.

This is Granddad Hampton
holding one of my brothers. He loved children.

My young feet awoke at the first touch of the cold wooden floors, as the rest of my body was awaken to the smell of corn meal mush served with fresh rich sweet cream and Granddad's home canned peaches. Fried home grown and raised lamb chops sitting along side baby red potatoes grown in his own garden. Boiled eggs that had been gathered from the hen house that very morning was smothered in sweet butter that us younger children had churned the night before at the foot of Granddad's chair while he read Bible stories to us.

OH how I digress......back to the recipe.

The first key to cooking lamb is to remember is you do not eat the fat of lamb. This does not mean you do not cook the lamb with out it's fat. That would dry the meat out. BUT... the exception to this rule is if you are going to combine the lamb meat with other ingredients such as we are going to do today.

So you will need:

Meat Balls
1 pound lean ground lamb (no fat at all!)
2 T. yellow corn meal
1 large egg
4 oz. finely grated Romano cheese
1 t. salt
1 t. pepper
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. onion powder
1 t. Italian seasoning mix

Work together in bowl by hand till well combined. Using a teaspoon size measuring spoon form small round meat balls. Place in glass baking dish, cover and bake in oven at 375 degrees till done, (about 30 min).

Soup base
2 Lg cans chicken broth
2 cups cooked barley
1/2 C sliced carrots 
3 C chopped fresh spinach
1 t salt
1 t pepper
1 t garlic powder
1 1 onion powder
1 T Italian seasoning

In large kettle put chicken broth, barley, carrots, and seasoning bring to boil. Turn down to simmer, cook till carrots are tender. Add meat balls and spinach continue to cook till spinach is tender (spinach cooks fast, matter of seconds). This is a hearty soup and a full meal onto its self so I usually only add a side dish of warm bread. This is a great introduction to lamb if you have never tasted it before.But... the meat balls can be made with other kinds of meat as well. I enjoy using ground turkey in this recipe. Enjoy!!

Day Light Savings....the true meaning

When the rest of the country is trying to remember to change their clocks either a head an hour or back a hour and pondering the meaning of the act ( OK, maybe no one is pondering except me. Just go with it, writers creativity rights),

Here on the Farm,

Day Light Savings means - you found away to get your work done before it got dark.

Fall back means - the damn thing wouldn't stay where you put it.

Spring forward - that's what you do to catch the lamb.

Cows have to be milked every 12 hours and they don't wear watches. Crops still have to be harvested and harvesters have headlights. Chores have to be done dark or not. Farm kids are driving tractors by the age of 8, they can operate a flash lights too.

Do what to the clock? Oh no, another chore.

Just to clarify all the boys are over the age of 8 but they do know how to operate a flash light. We don't have cows or a harvester......just a little more writers creativity rights. But the sheep don't care about Day Light Savings either.

When Good is Not Good enough

My sister-in-law Debbie came to visit us a week or so ago . Debbie lives in Canada with her husband Lawrence on a cattle ranch. As most families do we gave her the tour of my newest project "Sheep Camp". 

Polled and Horned Dorset ewes

With her experienced eye for livestock Debbie right away noticed the difference between the horned Dorset ewes and the polled Dorset ewes. Both nice looking but the horned ewes stand out as more stout, squared, nicer looking ewes. When Debbie asked why I thought that was my first and foremost opinion on the matter is "Hybrids"  

Some where along the way someone decided that the Dorset ewes should not have horns. Maybe it was for safety reason, maybe they were harder to take care of, I don't know the true reason, but I do know that the horns were breed out of them. I believe when they did this they lost in other areas. Like bone structure, the ability to maintain body weight as well as their horned counterparts.

Charolais cow and calf

Debbie said, "That Lawrence felt the same way about his Charolais. That no one wanted the horned Charolais so ranchers breed the horns out and when they did the cattle lost other good treats".

Maybe ranchers / farmers should focus more on improving the the good things and less worry about something like horns when it comes to the quality of the product. The 4-H motto is "Make the Best Better" not "Take the Best and Deplete it".

If horns are a safety issue, teach those who need it how to deal with livestock that have horns. Hybrid, when it comes to animals or plants even, are not always an improvement.

I read an article just the other day about  research done on a hybrid wheat. It seems that the wheat can resist diseases and pest, grows bigger and stronger than that of its ancestor. BUT! it turns out that the wheat causes spikes in blood sugar, throws off our internal temperature causing our bodies to not process it correctly and gaining more belly fat. Healthier wheat or healthier us????

For those of you who want to get back to heritage foods and not raised on additives we have it for you. Whether you like horns or not, we have it. All our sheep will be grass fed - back to basics - produced, product.
SHshshsh...don't tell the ewes I have favorites.

The Must Haves

Ok, Ok, back to the must haves to get this adventure going.
Well I know what you're thinking the first thing is sheep.

No it's not, unless you thought I could keep them in my bathroom.

We needed land. Not just any land either, it had to support the amount of sheep we decided we needed......ah, how many sheep do we need? It seemed like every time we found an answer to one question another would arise.

 We're back to the sheep again.

I'm going to save you the headaches we went through trying to figure all this out and let you know what we came up with.

grass lots of grass

Sheep Camp is a beautiful location near the city limits. It has a lush grazing pasture, that is big enough to not only feed the sheep but allow us to get several cuttings of grass hay off it during the growing season. It has a smaller pasture with several old growth trees and fresh water. The lady next door is allowing us to use her barn for lambing season (my favorite and busiest time of the year).

FYI: Lambing season will be around the middle of February at the Sheep Camp.

Now we're back to the sheep again.

We have 6 polled Dorset ewes ( polled for you who do not know, means without horns.) breed to a Hampshire ram. We also have 6 horned Dorset ewes  breed to a horned Dorset ram (those are the rams with the big curly horns). I think these are my favorite out of the bunch.

The ewe on the right is polled,
the two next to her on the left is horned

This is our Spring Ram

We also have purchased 2 North Country Cheviot rams for our next breeding session. These boys are a hardy Scottish breed built just right for our damp coastal climate. They also have booty ;) this means more muscle on the back side. More muscle more meat.

This is our Fall Ram

If you saw the movie "Babe", these are the same kind used in it. NO, you will not see me out herding the sheep with a pig....I hope.

BaaRamEwe! BaaRamEwe!... no it doesn't work I still can't talk with the sheep. I talk to them but I'm sure that's a post for a psychology blog somewhere.      

Wish List and Must Haves

When Owner asked me to tell him what I had to have to start up the Sheep Camp, it was easy....at first.

Like a kid in a candy shop or one looking through a Christmas catalog it did not take long for my list of must have turned into a wish list. Things I really did not need but, boy! I would really like to have.

Wish List
Sheepherder's wagon used for hundreds of years.
Still used today.
Modern wagons come ready to be polled by truck or horse, in field or freeway.

Wagons come with antique wood or electric cook stoves.

Wish List
My own Aussies!

Isn't that how most of us get into trouble with our credit cards? or Life itself? So I tore up the wish list and went back to the must haves.

Must Have
Sheep tilt table, tips sheep on their side so you can trim hooves, doctor, or vaccinate.
This saves your back and undue stress to the animal.

After all who are we really doing this for...the kids, the community, or ourselves?

Keeping the operation cost down keeps the price down. I think someone needs to remind America's heads of industry and finances of this the next time they want to take a corporate vacation to Maui after receiving a bailout. 

Beginning an Adventure

My name is Cyndie (I'm the Shepherdess) and a while back a local businessman and friend approached me about going on an adventure. See he has a dog, a Boarder Collie by the name of Duke, whom he had been training to trial. Trial for those of you who may not know is herding a flock of something, in Duke's case sheep for  competition

This is me on a good day

BUT, my friend (we'll refer to him as the Owner from now on) did not have a flock of sheep to practice with nor did he know much about sheep. That is where I came in to the picture. See I am a local livestock 4-H leader and have been raising and handling market sheep for quite a few years on a very small scale. That is about to change.

The start of our flock

See Owner has a vision, not only to bring a flock of sheep into our county which does not have many flocks or known for being sheep country,





but to provide lambs for local 4-H and FFA members to purchase for their projects for the county fair (one of the best county fairs in the Pacific Northwest).

The vision goes on. He would like the whole adventure to be a learning opportunity for our local kids.

The vision does not stop there. He also hopes to be able to provide local grass fed lambs to our community.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any bigger it does! He also hopes that someday that dog trials could be held in our area bring another much needed business opportunity to our small rural community.


I keep saying he but it is both our dream. So how does this work?  Add one Owner + one Shepherdess + two understanding families + a lot of hard work + a lot of trial and error = 

Adventure at the Sheep Camp!!