Finicky Farm

05/19/2026

These last few hot sunny days make us all the more grateful to be solar grazing and able to provide our sheep with ample shade!

05/12/2026

April🌱🌱🌱

April concluded lambing season and jumped us right into the grazing season. We staggered the start to the grazing season over 2 weeks.
The small group of rams moved out first, then the main group of ewes who lambed in March, then almost a week later the yearling ewes and their lambs went out. Then the goats moved out to pasture and began learning how to navigate .
We’re settling in to the grazing routine of constantly moving and excited for more kids to arrive throughout May and then potentially more lambs in June as well! 🌱🌞

04/02/2026

March❄️🌱

A month of transition and growth. Started with cold snowy days and 2 January lambs to ending with sunny 70° days and well over 200 lambs. With more on the way!

March is always lambing heavy and this year is no different. We’re 3 weeks in and most of the way done, only 40-50 ewes left to lamb! And for the most part it’s been going extremely well, lambs have all been big and super strong, ewes have been great mothers and we’ve needed to intervene very little. The main challenge this year was battling several cases of pregnancy toxemia before lambing started. It was a heartbreaking week. We’ve experienced pregnancy toxemia occasionally over the years but never this much and never with this little success at recovery. We learned a lot and it just added another reason that we are excited to start making all our own hay.

Now that we can see the end of lambing we’re looking at our pastures and getting super excited to get this rambunctious crew out to solar fields! They’re feeling excited too, the still pregnant crew decided to take a run around the garden and yard the other day, it definitely jostled some ewes right into labor😂

Of course we can’t forget to mention Eclipse had her twins Eclair and Boots and they can be found in the most random places around the farm. Most often next to the best hay stack.

And last but definitely not least, we welcomed 2 new crew members for the season. Kai and Silas joined us early March and have been amazing through lambing and we’re excited for the grazing season with them!

This update was a bit all over the place, but that feels very fitting for March.

03/01/2026

February❄️❄️❄️

A month of a LOT of snow, cozy straw filled barns, big mommas, flock health days, and snuggles with the best dogs.

The sheep are pulled back from the field now and no longer bale grazing as our hills turn to slick ice and getting the tractor up and down to bring bales out isn’t possible. We also want them nicely in for lambing, dragging lambs out of 12+” of snow isn’t my fav. Everyone got their pre-lambing vaccinations, health checks, and the pregnant ewe lambs got sorted into their own group so they don’t have to compete with mature ewes for hay. We have 2 weeks still to go and a lot of prep work but we’re starting to feel excited!

Are you excited for all the baby lamb content???🐑🐑🐑🐑

02/04/2026

January❄️
A month of frozen fingers, breaking ice, new babies, widening ewes and lots of snow.

Next up: lambing prep, maybe a couple more kids🤔, hopefully less snow and limited mud, please be kind February!

01/22/2026

01/20/2026

This winter we’re doing our own little experiment on bale grazing techniques.

On the north half of this field we fed whole bales out in rows across the field(photo2). We typically placed enough bales for 4-5 days. We also placed them fairly close together meaning the animal impact was pretty high and residual hay is fairly thick.

Now we’ve moved into the south half of the field and are unrolling the bales. We’re unrolling 2 at a time which gives everyone plenty of eating space and last a day to a day and half. This is a much lighter impact as they are spread out over a larger area for less time. There is also less residual hay left over in any given area. Not less waste overall but just more spread out.
It’ll be interesting to see how each half evolves throughout the growing season, which picks up and recovers fastest, which has higher production, and then longer term which has better production. My guess is the north side will be a little slower to recover at first but longer term will have higher production as a result of the sheer amount of organic matter and fertility it got. We’ll also do soil tests to compare organic matter levels.
I’m also curious to see if areas that we fed bales out on top of snow have faster recovery rates since established vegetation was protected during time of animal impact. We’ll see and share as the year progresses! 🌞❄️🌱

01/06/2026

Meet Archura(dark) and Oakley(light)!
They’re Anatolian/Great Pyrenees brothers who joined us just after Christmas. They’ve been settling and adjusting well to our routines and animals. We started them off in the goat herd because it’s the most secure location, and they had more goat experience at their previous farm. And over the next couple weeks, we’ll slowly start introducing them to the sheep since that’s mostly who they’ll be guarding🐑🐕

01/04/2026

Mini winter kidding season is all done! Mommas did great, and kids are doing well. We may also have a few more go sporadically throughout the winter but the majority will wait until the warmth of may🌞

12/25/2025

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
It’s time to start thinking about what you’ll do with your tree when it’s done lighting up your home, and what better purpose than to be a yummy goat snack!

TREES CAN BE DROPPED OFF NEXT TO THE FARM SIGN

🌲If your tree has been sprayed with paint, fake snow, fire retardant etc. we can’t feed them so we ask that you dispose of them in some other way.

🌲Please do not feed the goats, they cannot eat everything and lots of things can make them sick! This includes your trees, we will feed them once we have inspected and ensured they are safe for them to eat.

🌲You may encounter Eclipse, who free ranges the farm with her collar, feel free to give her a pet if she comes says hi while you’re dropping off! Please do not enter barns or animal enclosures😁