Our sheep and lambs prospered this year on the very good grass this land likes to grow. Maine is moist and warm in summer, but not overly hot. Grass grows well and abundently from late April or early May through late September. Farmers typically take two and even three cuts of hay. In season, square baled hay can be bought "off the field" for a dollar-fifty, round bales for $25. Sheep do well in this country, where the only natural enemies are coyotes and other predators. The only reason there are not more sheep in Maine is the lack of a good market for wool and lamb. Americans, it seems, prefer beef and synthetics. Our sheep cut all the grass on the homeplace, and clear a lot of the brush too. Soon they'll started clearing the brush on the leased land too. We let our chickens wander during the day now that they're grown. We raised them on pasture, in a so-called chicken tractor, which you can see in one of these shots. Another shows the finished barn in October, after it was all closed in, and full of hay.
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Welcome to our Farm Blog.
The purpose of this blog is for Aimee and I to communicate with friends and family, with those of our students, and other folks in general who are interested in homesteading and farming activities.
The earliest posts, at the very end of the blog, tell the story of the Great Farm, our purchase of a fragment of that farm, the renovation of the homestead and its populating with people and animals. Go all the way to the last post in the archive and read backwards from there to get it in chronological order.
After getting tired of spam comments (up to a dozen or more per day), I required commentators to be Google "registered users". You can write me at mwomersley@unity.edu if you have a serious comment or question and are not a registered user.
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