Care Of Land

My favorite thing about working with my sheep is their incredible ability to positively impact the land around them.   They love eating invasive species like wild parsnip, honeysuckle, garlic mustard and buckthorn. Plus, both what they eat and what they trample into the soil helps cycle nutrients and build soil health.  It is up to me to make good decisions about where they eat and when but as long as I do my job well, they are incredible forces for building habitat riches!

Along with daily decisions about how to move the sheep across the land, the flock and I also get to tackle bigger projects!

In 2024, I wrote a proposal for an innovative Vegetated Waterway project.  The goal was to thin the downed trees and brush within eight feet of an erosion gully that has been forming to carry water from the neighbor's field to the trout stream.  With all that shade gone, the sheep and I are working to restore grasses with deep root systems that will hold the soil and filter nutrients from the runoff.  A Good Idea Grant made the project possible with support from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and Walton Family Foundation.