When my wife Sami was in vet school, we brought home a ewe from the place where we’d boarded my horse. The ewe had a joint infection, which my soon-to-be-veterinarian wife treated. The ewe survived, and over the next several years (as we bought our first home in Penryn, and then moved to Auburn), we expanded our sheep “business.” We raised a few feeder lambs each year - one (or more) for our own freezer, several for friends and family.
In 2004 or 2005, we partnered with some friends with whom we shared a farmers market stall on purchasing a dozen Barbados lambs to graze on their property near Colfax. This is a story for another post, but I’ll just say the experience convinced me that we didn’t want to raise Barbados sheep. In the fall of 2005, we bought some Dorper and Dorper-cross ewes - and a Dorper ram - and embarked on the journey that has become Flying Mule Sheep Company.
In those early years, I was working in Grass Valley, and grazing our sheep on the famed Loma Rica Ranch between Grass Valley and Nevada City. In 2006, our first year lambing out our ewes, we had snow every 2 weeks for our entire lambing season. I learned a tremendous amount. And I worked mostly by myself - with a good deal of help from our local farm advisor, Roger Ingram.
As time went on, we expanded our operation. Eventually, Roger purchased a handful of sheep that we ran with our ewes. And in 2014, Roger and I formed a partnership. We’ve operated as a partnership ever since.
Our professional lives have also been intertwined. I went to work for the Placer-Nevada office of the University of California Cooperative Extension in 2012 - where Roger was the livestock and natural resources advisor and county director. After earning a master’s degree, I was hired as Roger’s successor in 2017. And our sheep partnership continued; Roger took over more responsibility in his retirement. He managed the grazing; I managed the finances and the irrigating.
Before the pandemic, Roger expressed an interest in stepping back from the day-to-day management of our sheep business. But he stayed with it - as the virus kept us all close to home, Roger continued to build fence and move sheep.
But now, in 2022, Roger has decided to step back. And I absolutely understand - Roger is both my friend and my business partner; friend is the most important label. Roger wants to travel. He wants to enjoy his retirement. He wants flexibility - which raising sheep doesn’t always provide. And so in the next two weeks, we’re dissolving our partnership.
I realized this evening, as I was moving irrigation water, that I’ve been here before. I’ve been in a place where all of the responsibility was mine - from lambing out the ewes, to building fence in July, to moving water for the six month irrigation season. And yet I’m a bit apprehensive.
Part of my apprehension, I think, is the reality of my current job. I’m doing the same work that Roger was doing when we entered our partnership - and when I was responsible for much of the day-to-day work. My day job is time consuming and occasionally stressful (more than occasionally, if I’m honest). Running sheep is much like operating a dairy - the work requires daily attention, above and beyond my full-time job. Roger provided some of this attention - next month, the attention will be entirely my responsibility.
Over the last 16 years, finally, we’ve arrived at a profitable part-time business model. I’ve become a shepherd (looking back, I wouldn’t call my 2006 self a shepherd). I’ve learned how to manage a business, how to care for sheep, how to graze rangeland and pasture. Roger has been on this journey with me - as a partner, a mentor, a friend. I’m so happy for Roger to be moving on to this next phase in his life. I’m uncertain about the next phase in mine.
I’ve realized, over the last 20 or more years, that raising livestock - sheep, specifically - is what I love to do. For a variety of reasons - internal and external - raising sheep is not something I’m able to do as my full-time occupation. Regardless, raising sheep brings me a great deal of satisfaction and a moderate amount of income (finally). As the responsibility for the sheep of Flying Mule Sheep Company becomes (again) solely mine, I find myself thinking about the uncertainties I experienced 16 years ago when we bought 26 breeding ewes. I’ll be interested to see what the next 16 years brings!
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