This summer has been a rough one for farmers all over the country and I am certainly no exception. The unrelenting heat and lack of rain has been so brutal. It’s also been expensive. I’ve had to spend a small fortune on fans, additional wormer, electrolytes and vet visits; money I was expecting to have to spend and hadn’t budgeted for.

But the worst part has been losing animals. In addition to losing Nan, a couple of weeks ago Daisy, my Babydoll Southdown ewe, one of the very first sheep I ever bought passed away. Daisy was suffering so much in the heat. She was big girl and I lost her during a week when the heat index reach 116 degrees day after day.

I was with Daisy when she died and I think I went in to shock for a few days. I was just numb. You have to understand that Daisy had been with me for 7 years and she had such a big personality. She had a big everything, actually. One of our friends dubbed her the Sheepapotomous. Daisy was always the first to scold me if- God forbid- I was ten minutes late feeding.

She was a good ewe and I will miss her mightily. I am so grateful to have Alabama and Willoughby and Bennett. Although Alabama was wethered (castrated) Willoughby and Bennett will be bred next year, and in that way, a piece of Daisy will always exist at Juniper Moon Farm.

I wanted to share some of my favorite Daisy photographs with you.

This is the classic Daisy pose. I wish this were video so you could hear how loud she was.

Daisy and Alabama. He was her first lamb and she was crazy about him.

Daisy and Bama.

Daisy and Alabama.

Daisy and newborn Willoughby

Willoughby and Bennett nursing.

A few days after Daisy died the heat broke for a few days and I was looking forward to a few easy days of peace. Unfortunately, it was not to be. After returning from taking a friend to the airport in Richmond one afternoon, I found that Miss Linda, our beloved, ancient nanny goat, had passed away.  In all honesty, Linda’s death was not a surprise. She was so very old and every morning when I went out to feed a braced myself for the fact that she could be dead.

I really want to honor both of these animals that meant so much to me, so I will do a longer post tomorrow about Linda, but I want you to now that Linda died peacefully of old age in one of her favorite sunny spots on the farm. Even though I expected to lose Linda, her death hit me kind of hard. I miss her every single day.

In happier news, Ethel has gone brooding again and is sitting on eight eggs. Michelle re-started the countdown to the hatch up in the left-hand column.

It is stupidly, insanely, brutally hot in Central Virginia. Yesterday the high was 102. Today is expected to get up to 103 and tomorrow will also top 100.

The sheep are suffering mightily.

The goats on marginally less so.

The flock spends most of the day seeking shade and drinking water. We’re going through 150 gallons or so a day and we have to top off the tanks every hour or so with fresh, cool water to keep them drinking it. We’re adding electrolytes and apple cider vinegar as well.

Everyone has a very spot that they return to each day. Colorado and Buster share one of the run-in sheds.

Cosmo takes up a whole shed by himself.

Miss Linda and the rest of the goats stay in the back pasture where the shade of the trees and the slight breeze keep them cool.

Hannah

Jasmine

Waldorf and Statler

Ernie is the one I’m most concerned about. He’s just so big. He’s panting like crazy, but he’s hanging in there.

Even the chickens are suffering. They spend their afternoons in the landscaping, only coming out when I call them to come over for cool treats like watermelon and peaches.

The forecast is calling for cooler temps (92!) starting Monday. Till then we’ll just keep encouraging everyone to hydrate and keep the barn fans running.

I have to say that I think the weather in Central Virginia is out to get me. Twice this winter, Juniper Moon Farm was snowed in with crazy, record-breaking blizzards. Now we are facing a heat wave with temps 10 degrees above average. It was 97 degrees in Palymra today, with about a million percent humidity.

The Angora goats are completely fine in this crazy heat- most Angoras are raised in Southern Texas and South Africa, after all- but my poor, sweet sheep are suffering. They would have fared better if the heat had ramped up in an orderly fashion, but a 10 degree spike is brutal for them. Of course I provide them with plenty of shade and a continuous stream of cool water throughout the day, but I worry.

Sheep cool themselves through respiration, and continual panting all day long can lead to mechanical pneumonia. Mechanical pneumonia provides the perfect breeding grounds for opportunistic bacterial to get into the animal’s lungs. In these conditions, bacterial pneumonia can be fatal in a matter of hours.

I’ve spent the weekend adding blocks ice to the water tank, checking and re-checking the flock for signs of distress. This afternoon, Sicily, one of my original Cormo ewes, started showing signs of heat stress. Labored breathing, snotty nose, listlessness- she had them all. I quickly mixed up some electrolyte solution and got it into her, and dosed her with antibiotics. Then Maggie helped me move Sicily and her lamb, Fairfax, into a stall in the barn where we can have a fan blowing on her and keep an eye on her tonight.

Sicily is already looking better, but she’s not out of danger yet. Even if she seems 100% by morning I’ll be keeping her in the barn for a few days or until this stupid heat breaks. Sicily is one hell of a ewe. She’s given me big, single lambs every year, and I was over the moon to get a ewe lamb out of her this year. It would kill me to lose this sheep. Kill. Me.

Please keep Sicily and Fairfax in your thoughts tonight.

MONDAY MORNING UPDATE: Sicily made it through the night and seems much better, although her breathing hasn’t returned to normal and her nose is still runny. I dosed her again with antibiotics and electrolytes and am going to keep her indoors again today in the cool. She isn’t happy about it but I’ll feel better today knowing she’s got a breeze on her.

Mr. Hopkins, my hay farmer, is bringing a large round bale over today and positioning it in the shade of the woods in the west pasture. My hope is that the sheep will stay in the shade munching hay for most of the day,rather than grazing in the heat of the sun all day.

Can I be honest? I was kind of dreading getting back to the farm today. I missed my flock and my dogs and even my bed, but the lack of electricity and company were daunting. (Paige is in California visiting her father this week.) I not in the mood for roughing it in my own home.

But once I pulled into the driveway I felt my equilibrium was restored. The farm looked absolutely beautiful and it was so quiet and peaceful.

We have a few trees down.

Our driveway still hasn’t been plowed, so I had to park by the road.

Of course, my first stop was the barn to check on the lambs and kids. Dimples was modeling some serious hay-head.

The dogs were super-happy to see me.

We brought the little lambs into the barn during the storm. They don’t have as much body fat as the big sheep and they were looking a little miserable.

They were happy to see me too,

but only because I had a pocket full of animal crackers.

I love the chicken footprints in the snow.

The snow hasn’t stopped the hens from laying.

Alabama (right) is now officially bigger than his mama, Daisy (left).

It was so great to be home that not having electricity or running water didn’t seem like such a big deal. Which is good, because it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting power back tonight. And tomorrow? More snow!

As you may have read, Central Virginia got 30+ inches of snow this weekend. That was on top of the 12 inches we already had on the ground. Everyone at the farm is fine but we’re going on day three without power. I was lucky enough to be in DC for the weekend, although the snow was out of control there too. In fact, I couldn’t get over how shut down the city was even today.

I’m sleeping over at Kris and Charlie’s house in Arlington, VA tonight so I can get up bright and early to head back to the farm.  There’s a pretty good chance we could be without power for another three or four days. So no internet, no phone, and no water. We do have heat, thanks to the woodstove and the delivery of wood we got last week.

I think I might have a case of the Day-Three-of-the-Storm Blues. Not at all looking forward to going home to no heat but very much looking forward to getting home to my flock and my dogs. I’ll blog when I can, but I might have to drive in to C-ville to find electricity and WiFi.

Hope you are all some where warm snuggled up to someone you love.

I woke up to three inches of snow this morning. We could get as many as 12 inches, but I’m skeptical.

Paige is off this weekend so it was just me and flock.

Amazingly, our flock is still grazing on pasture, but not today. I couldn’t get the hay to them fast enough this morning.

Ernie looks like the Abominable Snowman.

We’ve been putting Sabine in the small paddock with Lucy during the day to stave off the depression Lucy was starting to suffer. The two of them play for hours and you would never know that Lucy nearly died a little over a week ago. It is so good for my spirit to see them together.

Global climate change stinks. It has been raining on the East Coast for the past month and the average temperature in New England is 10 to 20 degrees below normal. This is after a really, really, cold winter.

Obviously some jobs are more effected by the weather than others and shepherding is one of them. But whenever I start to complain, I think about roofers and housepainters who CAN’T work in this weather and I shut my trap. (Our own house has been half painted for months now.)

All this rain is also terrible for farmers who make- and depend on- hay.

These fields probably look beautiful to most people driving by…

but to farmers, these pictures are heart-breaking.

Absolutely heart-breaking.

See how the stalks are bending over? That’s because they are going to seed. Which means most of the nutritional value in the hay has already been lost. It will still be cut and baled and fed to animals in the fall, but it will take a whole lot more of it to meet the nutritional needs of the cows, horses and sheep that depend on it for the majority of their diet.

The expression “make hay while the sunshines” isn’t just a suggestion: it’s a stone-cold, iron-clad order. Hay can only be cut when it’s dry and when there is no rain the forecasts for the following week. Since we haven’t had that kind of sunshine in a month, the hay remains uncut in the fields.

The only thing worse than letting hay go to seed is trying to sneak in a cutting and getting caught by the rain. Once the hay is cut, it has to “cure” in the fields for a few days before baling. Rain on cut hay = a total loss to the farmer. I actually got a lump in my throat when I took this picture and I’m getting another as I write this.

Why is all of this so important? Besides the fact that small farms that almost always teeter on the edge of insolvency are watching one of their key cash crops rot in the fields? Because I make wool and wool is made from hay. Hay prices will almost certainly skyrocket in the fall.

What can you do? Support your local small farmer. When you pass a farm stand this weekend stop and buy some berries, lettuce or apples. Try to buy more yarn from small farms and less from international conglomerates.

Farmers will survive this rain, as they have survived all kinds of weather since time began. They are a tenacious, never-say-die lot. They don’t need your pity, they need your business.

All the babies are muddy and wet and tired of this weather.

Except for Ophelia and Odette. They are warm and dry inside with their mama.

Last September I had the good fortune to sit next to a woman named Nancy Aronie at an animal communication workshop I was attending. I say good fortune because Nancy is an absolutely fabulous woman. She’s a wonderful writer and gives a very famous workshop on the Vineyard called Writing from the Heart.  Everyone at the workshop we were attending had to go around the room and introduce themselves and Nancy laughed deeply and wept openly in the same sentence. She is brilliant, and brimming over with life, and, lucky for me, she is freezing all the time.