08/04/2026
Everything on a homestead is an experiment.
Last year the back pasture was so thick in weeds and ticks- we had to pull the horses off of it in the spring because last summer, the pony caught Lyme disease.
So we had an idea: what if we ran the sheep on that pasture through the summer… and they could fertilize and maintain it until the horses could be rotated back there again in the fall.
Katahdin hair sheep are low maintenance, simple creatures. Rather than growing wool that needs to be sheared, they grow wool-like hair that sheds out all on its own. But the thickness of it is what’s really magical- because ticks can’t seem to burrow through it the same way they can latch onto a horse’s skin.
The result- the pasture grew back tenfold. The sheep ate the broad leaf weeds and the grass had room to spread and grow.
And my favorite part- Blazing Star spread all over the pasture.
Native Americans used Blazing Star to treat…just about everything. Sore throats, stomach cramps, its even a diuretic. Non toxic to farm animals and stunning to look at. It attracts all sorts of butterflies: Monarchs, Swallowtails, Painted Ladies.
I hadn’t walked back into this pasture much at all this summer- so this was a really beautiful surprise. Sometimes this place is so much work, I daydream about having fewer responsibilities… but then we get moments like this: where experiments actually work better than we imagined and we realize- it’s all gonna work out in the end 💜
