I bought our sheep and brought them here from Pennsylvania more than a decade ago, I got them so I could become a shepherd and learn to herd with my border collies. This worked out beautifully, but now, with Red gone, I don’t have a herding dog I can work with any longer, and my sheep herding days are over.

It seems like a hundred years ago that Fate and I took the sheep up over the hill and through the beautiful woods on the mountain near Bedlam Farm. I so loved being a shepherd I even had a crook.

Red’s death was an  earthquake here, it could have meant the end of sheep at Bedlam Farm. We can’t afford to keep animals here that there is no purpose or justification to have.  The donkeys are important guard animals, they keep the sheep safe from coyotes, and we are very attached to them.

Animals like sheep are expensive – feed, fences, health care, shearing, hay.

But the role of the sheep on the farm has changed, thanks mostly to Maria. She has taken over the sheep, they are hers now, really, although I help with their care and feeding and love to photograph them.

She has them shorn twice a year and sell the wool. It’s been a big risk for her, dyeing and converting the wool into yarn is expensive, and takes a long time. Dyeing the wool is especially costly.

It wasn’t clear she could recoup the cost of having the yarn treated, she doesn’t have much room for large expenditures that don’t pay for themselves.

For seven years, she’s been experimenting with the wool and colors and volume. Yesterday, she had 97 skeins of wool to sell, and tonight, there are only about 14 left. Pretty good gamble.

Maria is a brilliant artist, but she’s a pretty good business person too, she keeps evolving.

I think the sheep have a long future ahead of them here.

You can meet her sheep and see their wool on her blog, you can still buy some yarn on her Etsy page.

I am relieved that the sheep will remain a part of Bedlam Farm, even though I won’t be working to herd them with dogs unless you count the irrepressible Bud. With Red gone, he isn’t much interested in hanging around the sheep. He was mostly trying to protect his pal, I think.

I’m happy to be able to photograph these iconic animals and see them grazing in our pastures. They have been such an integral part of life on the farm, and just watching them is a meditation.