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You Shall NOT PASS!
How do you get sheep from Point A to Point B? What happens when you move from a set-it-and-forget-it approach to grazing to something based on an Adaptive Multi-Paddock philosophy? When I was but a baby shepherd (as opposed to the strapping toddler I am now), I used to spend hours a day tearing down…
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Go-Go-Graze!
With apologies to Inspector Gadget, today I thought I’d walk you through what I need to get the flerd ready for grazing season – my grazing gadgets. I mean, I could just turn ’em loose. But I don’t. This is what I do instead. The Lay of the Land Before I ever think about setting…
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Demon of Screamin’
Shearing alpacas is very different from shearing sheep. Most of my alpacas take their haircuts in stride – Baby Sundae in particular is an absolute angel – but there is one alpaca who takes it personally. And Holy Mary on a Breadstick, does she ever let us know! Alpacas, like their sheepy brethren, need an…
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Mentors!
Mentors are those folks who’ve already made the mistakes you’re thinking about making. The number of people I speak to who want mentors – but don’t want to listen to those same mentors – never fails to astonish me. So let’s talk about mentors. Do you really want a mentor? If you do, how do…
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Snootch Watch 2026
“Hey.” That was the opening, the first line in the text message beamed directly to Alex the Shearer. While most people are pouring themselves a civilized second coffee, I was crouched behind Fat Amy with my phone pointed at her nether regions. I knew Alex would be up, I just thought it was my duty…
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The Quality of the Question
The Quality of the Question determines the Quality of the Answer. . . So whether you’re talking to your veterinarian or typing with AI, how do you make sure you’re collecting and sharing the information you’ve got in a way that will actually be useful for the care decisions that must come next? DISCLAIMER: The…
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Wither the Weather?
For years I have been collecting as much data as I could about the land I’m on. If it could be eyeballed, I eyeballed it. I’ve crawled on my hands-and-knees, dug holes, fought my way through thickets and learned (at the most basic level possible) to ID plants. But my grazing reports had a major…
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Winter With Better Lighting
Counter-cultural opinion!! Spring Sucks. When the temperatures are bouncing all over the thermometer and the snow is pounding, how to keep all the newly-naked sheep comfortable? What exactly am I managing here? Don’t you think that there’s something about crossing that time change line — losing the hour, God help us — that, once you’ve…
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Don’t You Trust Me?
Call them Sales Agreements or Sales Contracts, is it time to move past the “handshake deal”? What does paperwork have to do with livestock farming? There’s a quiet discomfort around sales agreements in agriculture. Sometimes, I can feel it when I bring them up. There’s a pause, something in the air changes and I detect…
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The Story of the Q-Pen
Is quarantine always necessary? Quarantine was a process I built from the ground up and with some great advice. I didn’t think much about it, until I had to. This is our quarantine story. In 2020, I was excited about all things sheep. I had just gotten myself a few cross-bred ewes, a single purebred…
Providence Lane Homestead 