Mountain Lore and Sheep
September 23rd, 2005 by Northern FarmerWhat a surprise this early morning, frost! Well, it wasn’t to bad, didn’t even kill the tomatos, but it’s a wake up call for things to come. One thing about cool fresh fall air is that at the end of the day a person feels tired but content. And sleep is so good compared to the humid heat of summer. If this keeps up I’ll have to fire up the outdoor wood furnace soon to get the chill out of the house. The cattle are very comfortable now compared to the hot weather and did this area ever green up after the terrible dry spell it went through this past summer. One of the greatest things about this area that we live in is Fall.
In the evenings before I hit the hay I have a habit of reading books, it helps me fall asleep if nothing else, and reading on the computer just makes my eyes sore. One thing I can’t do is spend much time on this contraption. I’d be a wreck in a couple of hours. Easier on my health going into the bull pen with an ornery bull. Back to reading, currently out of my archives, which means that pile in the closet, I dug out a couple of Foxfire books that have been here for a couple of decades. For those not familiar with these books, they’re about the old timers in the mountains of the southeast. All sorts of mountain lore. Very interesting reading. One thing that caught my attention was a chapter about planting by the signs. Good chapter and good reading. Now I don’t know where I stand on this planting, harvesting, butchering, etc by the signs but one thing stuck in my mind. That if you dig a hole or a trench when the moon is heading towards full when you fill the hole back in you’ll have left over dirt. The opposite being the case when the moon is waining. Being an expert ditch digger I’ve been observing this on a current project. And I don’t know if it’s my imagination but them oldtimers in the mountains were right about the trenches I’ve been working on lately installing a outdoor woodburning furnace for my folks. It was dug when the moon was going full and I’m hauling dirt away there’s so much left over. Hmmm.
Another thing that’s worth repeating is the oldtimers talking about sheep, and how years ago the sheep they raised didn’t have parasite problems or get sick hardly ever. Well, I know something about sheep, up until 2001 our family had over four hundred woolies and in my humble opinion, man has almost destroyed them. They’re succeptable to anything and everything. They’re immune to almost nothing. I’m talking commercial sheep breeds here. One time I was at a sheep producers meeting, at the time I was a state director for the Lamb and Wool producers organization, and an “expert” was giving a presentation on all the things a producer has to do to keep his or her sheep alive. This elderly producer finally interrupted the talk and I have to admit I learned more from him that dozens and dozens of “experts”. He said he raised sheep by the thousands when he was young and they never wormed them and never treated them for all the things that are standard procedure today. And they had fewer loses than the operations that are up to snuff using the modern methods today. Plus no costs except for feed, and very little of that. That got me thinking back then, are we doing things wrong? Saving animals that have no business being saved as breeding stock. Forgeting about natural immunities and having the vaccine fridge full of every wonder vaccine on the market. Does make a person wonder how the animal populations even survived before the modern industrial culture started to take over God’s job. There’s several old fashion breeds that are being advertised as having natural immunities in some of the sheep magazines now. I think it’s time this farm starts to reconsider having them around here again. I truely love raising them and they’re kid friendly. Plus when I was a kid they were used for lawnmowers, (and lawn fertilizers). Well with the price of gas this is something that’s worth looking back into.
September 23rd, 2005 at 9:15 pm
The full moon thing, seemed a bit hoaky to me until recently. A customer of Native American decent explained some of it to me. There is actually reason to it. She told me there was going to be a late frost this year because the full moon had a ring around it. She explained the ring was the sun reflecting ice crystals. By jiggers, there was a late frost and it really made sense. She also talked about harvesting herbs on the full moon. The reason is the gravitational pull draws a lot of nutrients up in the leaves so you get the maximum benefit from the plant. I wonder if the nutrients are pulled to the top soil on the full moon plantings too. We have lost alot of the reasoning behind some of these techniques. I am fascinated to find out the why’s. It isn’t so hoaky after all. Next year we are going to plant by the moon…I think.
We do pay for our interference with livestock. I read once that cloning livestock actually produces an inferior animal as well. It is gets disease much soon and dies earlier. Good post!
September 24th, 2005 at 6:39 pm
I’ll bring it up again soon about the “signs”. Your dead right about cloning. The resistance goes down almost to nothing. By the way, I love your website, good job to all!!
September 26th, 2005 at 10:16 am
NF,
Why did you give up on sheep in 2001? A relative who is a farmer in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia told me he gave up on them because they have “no fight”. In his experience they were too fragile and gave up too quickly resulting in a high mortality rate. The reason for this may be the very thing you point to - that they have been hybridized/cloned or selectively bred such that a lot of unintended consequences (typical with Man’s wisdom) have resulted.
September 26th, 2005 at 11:08 am
WJG, That’s one of the main reasons I went out of sheep. Another is I was making the mistake of raising competing animals. Beef cows and sheep. They compete for the same acreage and foods. So I decided to cut back and just raise the cattle. And also to be very truthful, because of the modern sheep’s low immunities to everything, it was getting to the point where I couldn’t handle working the sheep so often, and no one else did either around here. Talk about sore back and legs, WOW!