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.