Going to Work

We listen to a great radio station here in “The Happy Valley” called WRSI. This morning, the D.J., Monte asked a caller what she was doing today. She said she worked nights as a waitress but during the day today she was going to be collecting compost and food for her worms to eat. The Farmer and I just looked at each other and grinned. Only here…..

Last weekend was the big “Winter Fare Farmer’s Market” in Greenfield. We didn’t have enough lamb to bother exhibiting and selling but we went anyway. Julia and I and 1500 others! What a huge turnout and a massive good time. I saw lots of farmer friends – including Jeanette at Chase Hill Farm, Warren of Our Family Farms Milk Coop, Kyle from Bostrom Farm, Gloria and Ervin from Coyote Hill Farm, and talked to many other farmers who I was just meeting. I bought fingerling potatoes, carrots, parsnips, green house raised lettuce and some wonderful cheese called Dutch Gold cheese. Do you have a Winter Farmer’s Market in your area? If you do, go – it’s a great time.

Here’s the scene this morning as The Farmer and No. 84 head off “to work.”

No. 84 is learning to be a sheep. It’s not easy and he doesn’t like it. He started going to the barn for an hour a day early in the week. Now he and The Farmer head off every morning and he spends the day at the farm with the rest of the sheep. He comes home at night and sits by the woodstove just hoping we will forget that he is supposed to be a sheep and not a sheep dog. That’s the problem with some bottle lambs. You need to get them right outside or they quickly become dog and cat-like. The other scary thing is they don’t have the instincts to run away from a predator. A little hard to teach a lamb that. We can only do so much – that’s why it is best to get the bottle lambs back with the flock quickly.

Sorry about the glare in the photo but at least the sun was out and shining and spring seems closer with every day. We got only an inch of snow during the past storm. I guess all of you down south are getting what we usually get. Good luck digging out. My advice to all of you is to do a lot of knitting!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.