The winter has been surprisingly quick and mild this year. Lambing season is almost upon us and we decided to shear before it happens. This will allow us to keep the sheep cleaner and prevent the lambs from nibbling on any manure wool “tags”. Our shearer is an awesome guy from southern Vt named Andy Rice. He was patient and helpful with advice about our fledgling farming operation and now we have three huge bags of wool to process!!
We should also say that we did not keep Nemo the ram. He became too much to handle- head butting the ewes constantly and being generally threatening to anyone that wasn’t Jo or I upon stepping into the pasture. We had thought about processing lamb someday in the future and he had been destined for the slaughterhouse before we bought him so we figure we gave him a few extra happy months breeding and generally causing the madness that Rams cause before we took him to the butcher this February. We now have a freezer full of lamb and will be posting cooking experiments periodically. So far, we’ve tried-with great success- lamb kabobs, 2 stews, and shepherds pie.
We also kept his pelt which we hope to tan this summer at a local startup Vermont tannery specializing in environmentally friendly techniques.