Now that we’re not going anywhere, we’ve picked right back up on our micro-farming project.
You may remember posts from last summer and this past spring on our construction efforts on building the pig shelter and fencing in the yard. Well, they’re finally being put to use!
Except, we’ve gone from pigs to sheep!
Between Neil and I thinking we were moving, then my in-laws’ phone going down for a week or so (hazards of living at the edge of the grid), the pig thing fell through. Our original source sold all their piglets, and you’d be surprised at how hard it is to find piglets for sale!
Neil and I eventually went to the Fraser Valley Auctions to see if we could find any pigs that suppliers were unloading, but goats seemed to be the order of the day, along with a good assortment of sheep!
We left with a lovely lamb who lamented her way down the highway in the back of our car. And lamented in the ferry line. And lamented during the ferry ride. And lamented up the island highway (while she wasn’t busy nibbling on the poor dog’s tail). And lamented all the way into her pen, and all night, and most of the next morning until we put her with the neighbour’s sheep while my inlaws found her some friends.
The lamenting inspired her name: Agnes – short for Agnus Dei, the lamb of god. Also a movement in Mozart’s Requiem.
A few days later, Agnes was joined by two other lambs, Gloria and Miserere (have mercy), who were also known by their voices, raised to the heavens.
Thankfully (for my inlaws anyhow, I obviously can’t hear them from here), they have apparently quieted down and are now lovely little lawnmowers.
And come September (because we need to get them slaughtered before hunting season gets underway and any potential fall floods happen), we’ll have our own Requiem for a Lamb, and end up with a bunch of fleece and a freezer full of tasty sheep meat.
Besides, if you’re doing bio-dynamic farming anyhow, you really want to start off with ruminants, then follow with chickens, and finally end up with pigs. I think it might be a harder sell to convince my in-laws to go for the chickens, but we’ve got a year or so to work on them….
Is that some giant hogweed I see lurking in the corner? LOL
Could be. There’s giant everything in the overgrown brush at the side of the property.
I’m going to steal one of those lambs, the night before the slaughter. I’ll run away with it. I’d think if I could save just one, but… he’d be so heavy. So heavy…
Er, never mind. Carry on.