Silver Linings - I’ll Take What I Can Get

Last Sunday, the forecast for Auburn said we’d get close to three-quarters of an inch of rain from March 2-4. As seems to happen during a dry year, the forecasted amount decreased as the week progressed. This morning, I had 0.01” in the rain gauge. We might get that much more overnight. Our soil moisture, which I checked this morning, seems more like what I would expect in early May - not early March. After a record-setting October, and a great December, it seems that drought has returned (or maybe it never left) the Sierra foothills. But for a pasture lambing outfit like ours, the dry weather has it’s benefits.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m stressing about the lack of moisture. Warm temperatures and dry weather have brought our oaks and shrubs out of dormancy; this early growth increases water demand - which explains our lack of soil moisture. I’m seeing many of our annual grasses (like Italian ryegrass and foxtail) mature 3-5 weeks early. Wildflowers we usually see in April are blooming now. Even our native grasses - like purple needlegrass and California melic - are ahead of schedule. 

This accelerated seasonal growth complicates our work as shepherds. We’ve found it’s better for our sheep - and better for our bank account - to move the sheep to the forage rather than move forage to the sheep (in other words, we’re better off grazing than feeding hay - and so are the sheep). In a year like this, when feed becomes short, our approach means we need to move sheep more often - and graze on areas that are more difficult to fence with our electronet fencing. And moving ewes with lambs is always a more time-consuming process. In addition, as our grass matures and goes to seed, it becomes less palatable (and less nutritious) for the sheep.

But the dry weather has also meant that the ewes are giving birth in very favorable conditions. We had some cold weather last week, but most of our afternoons have been sunny and reasonably warm. During lambing season (from the third week of February through the end of March), we check the flock three times a day. In wet, windy weather, we also check them three times each night - just to make sure that any new lambs are warm and well-fed. So far, in 2022, we haven’t had to do any nighttime checks at all. Small blessings, I suppose.

In many ways, I guess, we’ve developed a pastoral- (as opposed to a ranch-) based system. We follow the feed, even at our small scale. In productive years, we have more forage than we can get to; in years like this, we’re moving more often - and worrying that we won’t have enough. Sheep lend themselves to our un-landed business model (we own less than 2 percent of the land that we graze) more so than cattle would. A shorter gestation - and a more varied diet - make sheep incredibly flexible in our increasingly uncertain climate. And our sheep convert the grass we have available into protein and fiber. The miracle of rangelands - and the miracle of ruminant animals. Tough years like this make me appreciate this system even more!