Witiches, Gobblins and Breeding Sheep.......and rain!

As the end of the month approaches, the Halloween decorations are out, there are pumpkins everywhere and the breeding groups are all set with rams in with the ewes.  Somebody remind me in four months to get ready for lambing please.

The Big-E is over, Topsfield and Harrisburg are in the books, Louisville is just around the corner and we are off and running towards finishing up breeding for spring lambs.  I know, a lot of you finished some time ago, but us "old timers" don't like being in the barn that much in January.

For those of you who do not follow the Big-E results, you should go to thebige.com and under the agriculture drop down, find show results.  You will see the pictures of a lot of our members.  We are raising a good bunch of award winning stock here in Massachusetts. 

It is time to plan for attending the 2012 ASI convention in Scottsdale, AZ in January.  If you have never attended the annual convention, you are missing out on a great learning opportunity.  The schedule of events is crammed full of seminars, presentations and discussions about our sheep and their care.  You will have the opportunity to meet producers from all over the country and find out how they approach their profession and also find out how curious they are about how we approach the same issues.  My experience in the ASI organization is that while they have always known that our management challenges are different, they never really understood how to help us solve them.  The schedule should be posted on the ASI web site at sheepusa.org very soon. Come join us in Scottsdale!

Time to Meet

As Andrea and her sister clean and prepare the house for our first meeting of the season, I am sitting updating my blog.  I know, you want my job!  Today started early as I delivered a Merino Ram to one of our producers for breeding and promptly buried my truck and trailer in the mud.  It will remain there until it drys out this weekend!  Our schedule for this evening is a question and answer session with a Vet from Buck Hill Vets in Spencer, MA.  Bring your questions.

Tomorrow morning its "road trip" time as we are taking off for Harrisburg to attend the annual Merino Association meeting be held in conjunction with the Keystone International Livestock Exposition.  The Merino breeders have debated how to build interest, or at least stop the loss of interest, in our breed and I have a far out idea to pitch.  I'll let you know if it works.  If you have never attended KILE you should give a go sometime.  It is a very large farm animal exposition held in the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex just off I-81 in Harrisburg.  I enjoy the Draft Horse hitches, swine and sheep shows, but there is much more to see.  Unlike the Big-E, you do not have to wend your way around 125,000 of your closed friends to see things, however, there are a lot of "halls" to wend your way through.  From Massachusetts, you can visit Bucks County Fur Products in Quakertown, PA and a large Cabella's in Hamburg, PA enroute.  We always visit Dietrich's Meats in Krumville, PA just off I-78 on the way home.

I am sure most of you have already taken care of breeding, but I am just starting.  Lambed last year in March for the first time ever and found it to my liking.  If the current weather pattern persists, we are due for DEEP snow this winter.   Better that than the deep mud we have now.  Anybody want to invest with me in running a pipe to Texas for a place to sump pump some of our extra water?

Hope you all enjoyed the meeting tonight.