Category: Tending

  • Don’t You Trust Me?

    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…

  • The Story of the Q-Pen

    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…

  • Rewilding vs. Restoration

    Rewilding vs. Restoration

    Rewilding is making a lot of noise in land stewardship circles. What is it? Will it work in Alberta? How different is rewilding from restoration? In recent years, the word rewilding has become popular in conversations about land care. It carries a hopeful feeling — the idea that if we simply step back and let…

  • Care and Handling

    Care and Handling

    Sheep and humans have been interacting for thousands of years but it’s only relatively recently that humans began using “systems” to manage the regular tasks that are part of sheep care. For those of us without them — no chutes, no crowding tubs, no panels — how can we handle sheep the “olde-fashioned” way? What…

  • How to Buy A “Good” Fleece

    How to Buy A “Good” Fleece

    Fleeces at the homestead! From top left — Banjo on the boards with Alex; Castor’s first fleece, cut-side up; Amy, looking a little fuzzy; Banjo on the left beside Levon, two distinct fleece “styles” in my flock; needle felting locks and figures from Erin Davis at Hawthorn Studios; weaving samples from Traceable Textiles in Edmonton…

  • Maps!! I love a good map

    Maps!! I love a good map

    Is there any tool more useful when it comes to land stewardship than a good map? Maps come in all kinds of formats and answer all kinds of questions. Chances are, if you’re wondering about something, there’s a map for that. Land stewardship sits somewhere between science and story. As a child, I loved the…

  • Always Come Down the Mountain – Let’s Try Something Fun.

    Always Come Down the Mountain – Let’s Try Something Fun.

    In the most recent season of Clarkson’s Farm, Farmer Harriet told Jeremy “Always come down the mountain.” What was she talking about? When it comes to sheep, does the mountain matter? There is nothing fashionable about the stratified hill system. It was born when British farmers were trying hard to find ways to grow food…

  • What Hay Can Tell You (with just your eyeballs)

    What Hay Can Tell You (with just your eyeballs)

    There is a lot of knowledge to be gained by looking at hay. When you start to pull it apart, what story is hiding in your bales and how might it change or impact the way you use them? You don’t need to know the Latin names, you don’t need a forage analysis, you don’t…

  • Poor Man’s Fertilizer

    Poor Man’s Fertilizer

    If the ground is frozen anyway, do trees, shelterbelts and partial canopy really matter when it comes to soil moisture? There’s an old prairie saying that snow is the “poor man’s fertilizer.” On the surface it sounds quaint — but there’s real science behind it, especially in Alberta’s cold, semi-arid landscape. However, in order to…