Welcome to the Friday Farm Fix, a new series on Farmgirl Fare where I share a random sampling of what's been happening around the farm during the past week. Just joining us? You'll find all the Friday Farm Fix posts here.
Heading up the driveway.
This past week was hot, dry, and disappointing. On Tuesday we sold half of our sheep at a monthly sheep and goat auction, including 27 of
this year's 34 lambs and our four-year-old Katahdin ram,
Edward (we still have two rams left). It's not something we've done very often.
For the past two years we've sold most of our lambs in late summer to the friend of a friend who kept them on his farm for a few months and then butchered them himself for an out of state, ethnic niche market he has.
For many years we've been trying to build up a business selling our whole, naturally raised, grass fed, custom butchered lambs directly to customers (for less than the cost of inferior, supermarket lamb), but there is simply no local market for it.
We tried delivering lamb to city buyers 200 miles away, but that didn't work out. And shipping frozen packages of lamb to customers across the country is impractical and cost prohibitive (and goes against the whole local thing).
Last fall, an opportunity came up that looked like it could become a local ethnic niche market for us, and I agreed to specifically breed several purebred Katahdin lambs—which we don't like to do because they're so much smaller than our Katahdin/Suffolk crosses—for someone who was to pick them up here on the farm at the end of this month. She backed out of the deal last week.
Many people have told us that our lamb is the best they've ever tasted.
Livestock prices vary—that's just the nature of the business—and, around here at least, sheep and goat prices usually fluctuate a lot more than cattle prices do. For the past few months, lamb and sheep prices have been high, but our lambs weren't big enough to sell yet.
Unfortunately lamb prices dropped about 40% between last month's sale and this month's. After paying the hauling and commission fees, what we ended up with doesn't even cover the cost of feeding the flock and their two big guard dogs (
Daisy and
Marta) for the past year, let alone all the other expenses involved.
Not very good for a year's worth of hard work.
We decided a few months ago that we would try selling our lambs early this year, mostly in an effort to cut down on our summer workload—and hoping the prices would stay high. At the time, we were getting some rain and were hopeful the grazing pastures and hayfield would soon be lush. Instead they're sparse and burning up from heat and drought.
Today when Joe hauled water out to the donkeys
(Yes! After nearly four weeks, my hunky farmguy is back outside on limited duty!) he called me on the
two-way radio (we love these and carry them constantly) as he was driving through
Donkeyland checking on the field.
"How does it look?" I asked.
"Not too bad—for July."
So even though the auction prices were heartbreaking, it's a good thing we went ahead and reduced the flock because there isn't a whole lot to eat out there.
As I walked back through the front field on Tuesday after opening the gate for the guy who was hauling off half of our flock, feeling tired and sore, anxious and hopeful and a little sad, I looked down and saw a big beautiful
heart rock, embedded right there in the driveway.
This is my 17th year raising sheep. We didn't lose a single lamb this year.
We've been doing a lot of talking these past few days. Plotting and planning, dreaming and scheming. Prioritizing. As Joe often says, "We'll figure something out; we always do."
21 more farm photos below . . .
