Tending to what matters most.
Tending is where the How of Providence Lane Homestead is laid out clearly and concretely. Here you’ll find specific information about adaptive multi-paddock grazing, animal care and handling, welfare standards and accountability, the characteristics of this place, and how wool and fibre move from land and flock into the world. This is the practical spine of the work — the decisions, frameworks, and methods that guide day-to-day care.
If you’re looking for how grazing is planned, how animals are managed, what standards shape welfare and accountability, or how fibre is produced and made available, this is the place to start. The focus here is on clarity and transparency — what is done, how it’s done, and the structures that hold the work steady over time.
Yes, there’s some overlap with Living and that’s intentional. Practice and experience can’t be entirely separate on a working homestead. But the emphasis here is different: this isn’t the place for values discussions — that happens in Living. Instead, this section gathers the practical elements once they’ve settled enough to be named and shared. Living is the foundation, Tending is the house.
From time to time, fibre or related products from the homestead are made available here. They’re always an outcome of tending rather than its purpose, so availability is seasonal and finite — products may appear once and then disappear. Two years ago, one of our ewes gave us an abundance of milk and I spent weeks making soap. Unless that happens again, we may not have soap for the foreseeable future. If you’re looking for something specific but I’m not the right fit directly, I have a community of trusted local retail and small-business partners and I’m glad to help make connections. Just ask me!
If you’re interested in the grounded details of how this place is cared for, then you’re in the right spot — just you go and pull up a chair.
“Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Notes from Tending
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Everybody, OUT.
It’s July. The sun is shining, the grass is green. . . why is the flerd eating hay?? They don’t like it, not at all, but for right now, deferring our grazing is the wisest choice. On July 1st, we did something that maybe seems a little odd. I pulled all the sheep off pasture,…
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Grazing Glossary
You may have heard of terms like “rotational grazing” or “continuous grazing” or even “adaptive grazing.” A lot of the time, these labels get used interchangeably but, as in most things, the devil is in the details. They are not the same. So what do I do here? What kind of grazing is the “right…
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The Geometry of Grazing
I try my best to lay out our grazing pods so that we can get an even impact across the area. I’m also — not gonna lie — trying to minimize the amount of work I have to do. . . “Work smarter, not harder” amiright? But what makes sense to me – and is…
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Maude and the Open Bar
I am in the midst of a very unusual problem – for me. Since I got sheep, I’ve always been dealing with “not enough.” Not enough grass, not enough moisture. This year though, the weather gods are sending us all the water we’ve been missing. All at once. And my pastures have never looked this…
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Weather, Avengers-style
We are in the middle of a system here, a system that’s going to dump more than a month’s worth of rain on us in a little less than a weekend. For this SW Ontario swamp girl, Alberta weather — always baffling — is officially taking things too far. So what exactly is going on?…
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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…
Providence Lane Homestead 