Moving On

Well, the sheep are gone. Not from here, but from the farm.

I have had them offered on Craigslist. Sold a few ram lambs to be butchered by an African guy, some Bhutanese and some Bosnian fellows. A couple of people offered to buy the whole lot to butcher them all, but I had been holding out.

It is hard the think about slaughtering heritage breed sheep who are valuable ewes with many more lamb-bearing years ahead of them. Seems like a poor economy.

So when the gal emailed me last week, telling me she and her son want to get the Jacobs registered and raise them, I was delighted. Ophelia will get to live on a new farm with her dear ewe friends and the wethers. So she, Freda, Esther, Amos and Andy and Easter Bunny, Sissy, Willow, and the remaining lambs from the spring crop went to live in West Virginia.

You know how I cried every time we had to sell off another farm animal? This time I didn't cry. I am merely grateful to have them gone to a good new home. Now Ribeye, the steer, is the only one left, besides a handful of chickens and a few baby chicks who hatched out early this fall.

And Malt O Meal, the barn cat who still patrols the farm for rodents.

Today I don't miss the farm.

I am sitting outside in the backyard watching the blackening trees stir in the cool evening breeze. The air smells brisk, like November. I don't see the crowds of Monarch butterflies today, but we did a week ago. I wonder if they have made it down to Mexico yet. Before you know it the temperatures will rise and we will be sweating again, even if it becomes November. We are in Texas, you know. But this cool spell is refreshing to my senses. I want to drink it up! Must find time to take a hike this weekend.