Waiting for Clarity

Now that irrigation season has been over for nearly 2 months, I’m back in the habit of walking (or jogging VERY slowly) several mornings a week before work – and on weekends. The exercise gets me out of the house early (I still have chores to do, after all), and it gives me time to think without the distractions of email, texts, or phone calls. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to rely on this combination of physical activity and contemplation to help me make decisions. Clarity, for me, seems to come when I’m not staring directly at the problem – and when my lungs are pumping!

But clarity doesn’t always come on demand. Over the last five months, I’ve been adjusting to running Flying Mule Sheep Company as a sole proprietor rather than as a partner. When we weaned last spring’s lambs, I bought out my partner, Roger. Last summer, with help from my youngest daughter, Emma, I used the ewes to reduce fuel loads in a community near Auburn (and got paid to do it). I also grazed our replacement ewe lambs and feeder lambs on irrigated pasture closer to home (moving water every day; moving sheep every 4-5 days). And I worked my full time (and then some) cooperative extension job. By the time irrigation season ended on October 15, I was exhausted.

This fall, I’ve realized that other parts of my life have changed as well (beyond simply being the only shepherd in our sheep business). Both of our daughters have moved away – Lara to a job in New Mexico; Emma to college in Idaho. We visited Emma over Thanksgiving week; we’ll visit Lara in mid-January. On top of this family travel, the post-COVID conference world is demanding more of my professional attention. In January, I’ll head to Texas to moderate a panel discussion on targeted grazing at the American Sheep Industry Association conference. In February, I’m going to Boise to co-lead a symposium on rangeland sheep production at the Society for Range Management conference. These opportunities, in part, have arisen because I’m both a shepherd and an extension agent.

I’ll be home during lambing (from late February through the end of March), but will travel to Oregon in mid-April to visit Emma at a logging sports competition. A week later, I have to attend another conference for work. I find myself anxious about figuring out how to get the sheep looked after while I’m gone.

Our sheep enterprise, obviously, is a side gig – big enough to be profitable; small enough to preclude hiring help. I don’t NEED to raise sheep, but I love the work. I don’t need the income, either, but I like having meaningful work that relates to my extension priorities. But sheep, like dairy cattle, demand daily attention. Unlike beef cattle, sheep (and livestock guardian dogs) need to be checked every day – someone once told me, “If you see your sheep every day, you won’t see any problems.” They were mostly right – I still see problems on occasion!

And so I find myself considering other side gigs. Since COVID, I’ve been messing around with a chainsaw sawmill – milling rough-cut boards and building furniture and other fun stuff from local timber. My long-time friend Allen, who owns a chunk of timber ground in Colfax, wants to start a joint-venture portable sawmilling business. I’m intrigued – and torn. A sawmill doesn’t need to be fed every day. A sawmill would be a side gig that allows me to travel. And yet…. And yet, I have difficulty contemplating NOT being a shepherd. I can’t give up my sheep.

Part of this, I think, is my inclination to want to work both with my hands and my brain. I realized in high school – during Mr. Sterni’s wood shop class and Mr. Clyde’s drafting class – that my creativity required a combination of physical and mental work (sorry, Mr. Clyde, but I suspect I could never have been a computer-aided draftsperson). I realized that I was most fulfilled by the applied arts – by designing and building something. By creating a body of work – which my flock of sheep has become. Body and mind are connected for me – which is probably why physical activity helps me make decisions. Now, more than 35 years after graduating from Sonora High School, I’m still the same kid who needs to exercise both my brain and my hands.

All of this brings me back to my walk this morning. I realized, as I was walking before work, that I’m waiting for some kind of epiphany – some kind of clarity. I want to be able to travel to see our daughters. I want to be able to fish, camp, and backpack in the summer. I want to be able to hunt (here in California, and with my daughters in other states) in the autumn. I want to learn a new business (sawmilling). And I want to remain a shepherd – and a county extension agent. Simplifying the sheep enterprise might accomplish all of these goals, and yet I haven’t yet been able to put all of these pieces together. Keeping the sheep on a single (rented) property all year might help, but I’d have to feed hay part of the year (and those of you who know me will know how difficult this would be for me). Keeping sheep at home (at vastly reduced numbers) seems like a pointless (and expensive) hobby. Keeping sheep (regardless of where they are) will require me to ask for help when I’m gone – and that’s difficult for me, too!

Part of growing older, at least for me, has come with the realization that I can (and should) give myself time to make decisions like these. I don’t need to figure this out NOW – I don’t even need to figure this out before my travels in April. But I do feel the need to come to some decision. I do need some clarity on all of this. And so I’ll keep walking – and thinking. I’ll keep waiting for clarity.