As you can see, Donatello needs to be sheared. in fact, all the sheep need shearing. It was decided at the open board meeting last week that Saturday April 6th. will be the first shearing day. As always, the shearing will be open to the public, for those who want to learn to shear, work with the sheep, or just to cheer us on and pet the sheep.
Weather permitting, we will be starting at the Caldwell pasture at 10am. Contact us to get in the loop on weather cancellations and information on how to get there.
A while back, we got a morning call from the county Animal Control Officer. She was good humored, and confirmed that she could not find a problem. The reason for the call, someone had called 911 saying there was a sheep in our pasture that had a steel rod sticking through them. So, fast forward. One day this last week, I went out to the Caldwell pasture at lunchtime, and guess what I saw. Oats loafing in the pasture looking like he had a t-post sticking through him. Believe me, seeing him from head on, it looked real bad, and gave me quite a start.
When I finished feeding in the morning, it was starting to spritz snow. You know, just the occasional tiny bits that may have come from freezing fog. I headed across town to first service at church. When I came out of church the snow was coming down good in pretty big flakes. Decided I should check on the sheep shelters before heading home.
There was no accumulation on the shelters, but you can see what I saw. Cookie (the llama) was enjoying second breakfast, and everybody else was under the shelter. Everybody except Cady, she was laying out in the falling snow. Maybe it is her breed, I don’t know, her mother for sure was a rambouillet range ewe. They typically live an unsheltered life in our region.
Between the last post and now, we have been posting onto our social media accounts, principally on Facebook. We are turning a new page, and returning to our blog posts.
Today we put in a windsock. This has been planned for over a year, but has not been a priority. This winter has been pretty stable with streamlined daily chores, and simplified rotation patterns, (yes, we have two flocks now). It has been taking just over 2 man hours a day to do all that the sheep need, and that includes the always important scratches and treats. All the parts were prepared over the last two weeks, pipe was cut and threaded, parts were ordered or bought locally. The day was good for the job, until the last few minutes. As the windsock was being attached to the frame the wind came up and it started to hail. I was not sure we were going to get it dropped into the base tube. Eh, piece of cake.
I know some of you are, or live with pilots, What is the wind speed?
We have been wanting to put the windsock in because the only way we could know wind direction or speed was to look at the sheep shelter and look at the difference between the two sides. You can see the uplift on one side of the shelter, and pressure on the other.
I was concerned that the sheep would be freaked out by it, but they do not mind it at all.
We have florescent orange paint for the mast, but with the weather, we decided to wait for a better day to paint.
We have a new resident. Well, new as of last August. He came to us with the name of Oats. We decided to put him in with Cady and Beauty. Beauty being a 13 winter ewe has been a perfect auntie to the two lambs. Oats had a bout with Blue Tongue not long after he got here, but has fully recovered.
Oats snuggled with Beauty
We thought he needed another name, and we decided to call him Oatis, but the name Oatis never really caught on. We are guessing that surprisingly, he really is an Oats after all. Oats is two months younger than Cady
Beauty putting her best face forward
Cady had never had another lamb to play with, and us shepherds tried to play tag and lambpede with her as much as possible. Well, Oats has been a great playmate for Cady, they have become best friends, and they are almost inseparable.
Hey buddy
I am sure there are going to be more Cady and Oats posts in our future.
It has been said that the greatest blessing you can receive is to be a blessing to others. I can personally attest to that being a fact. I saw this new intersection as I was hauling hay on Saturday. It seemed so perfect. There are many worthy organizations out there that could use your help, please help them when you can.
When we began, we set out four main focuses for our mission. The four classes of sheep we had a desire to help were:
Abused / Neglected
Lost
Homeless
Orphan
We opened our doors by making it known we were a sanctuary for the abused and neglected. We additionally made it clear to authorities, that we could help with emergency feed, shearing, and physical help for good shepherds that were in dire straights and needed help. We have never been interested in being part of the legal process or of making determinations, we just want to be there for the sheep if a determination by proper authorities is made. However, there have not been any formal abuse or neglect cases in our immediate vicinity. We have seen a couple of suspected cases in our area, but the sheep were been spirited away before anybody could do, or prove anything.
Looking Forward
The lost and the homeless we have seen, and have had opportunities to be part of the solution. This is how all the sheep in our care have come to us, either as unclaimed lost sheep, or pet sheep losing their homes. We want to continue to expand our service area, working with regional volunteers who can capture lost sheep, and arrange temporary housing and care while lost and homeless sheep are waiting for transport to our facilities; They can also be the contact for the good shepherds in their region that may need help. The story of Bo Peep is a good example of this. We are hoping in the coming years to keep expanding and serving more of the lost and the homeless.
Looking Forward – Where’s My Shades
The remaining and as yet unrealized goal is to help orphans. I know it is hard to believe, and painful to consider, but there are many orphaned lambs that are not cared for, and suffer for it. They fall into a limbo between uselessness, embarrassment, and inconvenience in the commercial setting. Saving them is the most difficult of the goals, because orphan lambs are both amazingly resilient, and very fragile. If you are like me and participate in online groups with people who are working to save orphan lambs, you may have noticed a fairly high mortality rate. The people trying to save these lambs are good souls trying their best, with the resources they have. The good news however is there are also shepherds in these groups who are successful year after year, and lamb after lamb in their care goes on to a long healthy life. What makes them so successful is a very well developed skill and knowledge set. Our plan is to bringing fosters of all skill levels together under our program. We see mentorship combined with access to physical resources as being the key to saving the greatest number of lambs. As a note, when I originally wrote this paragraph, we had never dealt with an orphaned lamb. About two weeks later, we had a two day old in our care.
Cady, Our First Orphan Lamb
The Caldwell pasture is an example of the stewardship we feel for the land and environment. It has been a real treat to see how an entire ecosystem can develop if given a little push. We have been surprised how many more plants, insects and animals have moved in on their own, and established a home. Another surprise has been the people who have come out to the pasture just to hang out and watch the sheep. There is something therapeutic about sheep being sheep. We are going to continue to demonstrate how sheep, a large variety of plants, and intelligent grazing can heal the land, and help to improve the world in which we live.
A Pasture can be Healthy and Pretty
How do we grow? The scaling formula is pretty simple.
Volunteers + Land + Funding + Sheep = Growth
All four of the above conditions have to increase proportionately before we can expand our programs, or create new programs. A benefactor once looked at the 70 acres next to the Caldwell pasture and asked me “They lease that land, what if you had that area to work with?” I told them, “I could fill it with sheep in no time, a thousand sheep would be easy to come by.” That is true for most all sanctuaries. That is why if one looks around there are so many sanctuaries with more animals than the land can provide for, days away from insolvency, and/or staffed by owners/volunteers that are overworked and over stressed. We never want to be in that situation. Even if we took in just 10 more sheep we would need another shepherd for them. One of the great things about the scaling formula above is that those sheep would not even have to be in Idaho, or even in the United States. A shepherd who has access to some land to graze, a few sheep in need, and volunteers in the area to help when needed, can found a new RescEwe flock under our umbrella.
Spring Grazing in Caldwell
So, with the coming year being more uncertain than the last, how far will we go? Well, who would have dared to guess that in the COVID year we would have continued to grow. I guess the Lord only knows where we will be this time next year. But, we will be ready to take on anything that He brings to us.
“The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.” Proverbs 12:10 (NIV)
When the COVID lockdowns were beginning, we were concerned that the effect of the lockdowns on volunteer participation was going to be devastating. We were looking at the up-coming shearing season, and fencing the new pasture had just begun. However, we have had more volunteers than ever this last year, and they have done a phenomenal amount of project work. The fencing of the new pasture is a great example; about a hundred ranch panels and two hundred t-posts were put in place. About a quarter of those t-posts were set two feet into rocky ground. All the while, the new pasture was being cleaned up and seeded, and the typical sheep management continued as well. The work done by the volunteers this last year can only be described as heroic.
A Couple Examples
In the fall of 2019. I listened to a podcast dealing with running a nonprofit. One of the statistics they had was that the health and longevity of a nonprofit was correlated to the percentage of volunteers who were female between the ages of 16 and 29. The more the better. At the time, the volunteers at RescEwe were averaging about 50 years of age, with some almost 80. I told that statistic to some of the board members, and they did a week of prayer asking for more young women to volunteer, and then they dropped it. We never discussed this outside the board. Then about three months later the improbable happened. A regular volunteer who never knew about the statistic or the prayers, was having lunch at a burger joint in Parma. She started talking to a young woman at the next table about RescEwe, and how we are always welcoming volunteers and teaching shepherding. The amazing young woman turned out to be an LDS missionary, and was always on the lookout for ways to serve the community. From that point on, she and or her fellow missionaries have participated in almost every work day at RescEwe. Most all were in the area for a few weeks, and then they were off to another post. Some were from cities, and others from farms or ranches. Very few had ever worked with sheep. It is gratifying that many of these volunteers have had a memorable experience with the sheep, and some now plan to have their own sheep in the future. As we look back at the participation of the LDS missionaries during the year, we have to say that they were a real Godsend.
What can I say about the people who volunteer for hard physical work like fence building, and hay stacking. They are their own breed apart. Although this is not part of the daily work we do, it is a very important part of our programs and projects. Without their help, the new pasture would not be usable, or even safe to graze sheep on. Bear in mind the adjacent road is a busy state highway, and we have spotted coyotes and dogs roaming the area. A good strong fence is a must for the Caldwell pasture. Hay moving and stacking is a necessary part of winter survival in Idaho. The volunteers who moved our hay got a workout, but many hands make light work, so I can not complain myself. There would be no winter feed put up without these volunteers.
Shearing days saw the greatest amount of participation this last year. Most all the volunteers received the opportunity to try their hands with manual blade shears, and the braver ones electric shears. Sheep need regular maintenance like shearing, and hoof trimming, so this has been a good opportunity every year to bring people together with sheep and make a fun day of it.
In Closing
Volunteering has many rewards for us. There is the fellowship with others who love working with sheep, working with the sheep themselves, learning about pasture management, or the simple pride in making a real difference. All the volunteers have had their own reasons for volunteering. Regardless of their reasons, our volunteers have gone above and beyond this last year. We are very thankful that they have chosen to be a part of RescEwe’s mission. There would be no RescEwe without them.
This is the time of the year when we close our books on the fiscal year, and as such, we see the businesses and individuals who have donated to our projects, both in cash and supplies. We also look at the volunteers who have given their time and labor for nothing more than the enjoyment of working with sheep, doing good works, and the knowledge they acquire. Midway through the year the song Reason by Unspoken came to dominate my playlist. It is a really good song, but the first two lines did not match the year we were having:
This year’s felt like four seasons of winter And you’d give anything to feel the sun
I realize in 2020 things have been all sideways, and not all has been well for many, but we have seen blessing after blessing in both volunteers and donations.
Once again Sage Woolens has been a major supporter of our programs, consistently helping to keep the sheep happy. Their donation to the fencing of the new pasture was phenomenal, and quite timely. We were three weeks out from starting the fencing project when they notified us that they were sending a sizable check. Our practice of not soliciting donations applies to our benefactors the same as any other individual. We don’t. So when they told us the check was on the way, it was both an unanticipated and wonderful blessing.
The generosity of Idaho Farm Animal Sanctuary (IFAS) was amazing. In October, completely on their own, they used their platform and network to do a fundraiser benefiting us. What nobody but our board knew, was that in June we needed a little more cash to finish our new pasture. One of our donors who supplies matching funds contacted us, and offered to advance us matching funds if we needed it to finish the project. We took the advance knowing that by the end of the year we had to have additional donations to warrant the matching funds. After a week of prayer, we let it go and forgot about it. In November when we received the check from IFAS, it not only covered the advance of matching funds, but qualified us for additional matching funds which went to our winter hay.
Golden Valley Vinegar Once again the folks over at Golden valley Vinegar supplied us with apple cider vinegar for the sheep. Most people do not know this, but where humans prefer sweet, sheep prefer sour. Apple cider vinegar is both a treat to them, and a tonic for the rumen. We are happy that they have
We would like to tell you all about the anonymous matching funds, but they are anonymous. They covered a large part of our costs this year, and we already have a commitment to as much next year as well.
We are very thankful for the many volunteers who have been helping out this year, we have hit an all time high in the sheer number of volunteers, which was surprising considering this has been a year of covid and gathering restrictions. Some of the volunteers were only in the area temporarily. We cherish their contributions and are attempting to keep in touch with them. Thanks to the internet, Germany or Georgia is as close as the keyboard or phone. We continue to pray that they are both bold and effective in their labors. We will dive deeper on the volunteers in another post.
The next RescEwe board meeting has been set for 10:00 am Saturday December 26th at Jolts and Juice Coffee in Caldwell. This is an open board meeting, and the public is always welcome to attend. We welcome your input. Even if you have no input, just come on out, and enjoy some coffee with us.
If you feel you want to up your involvement with RescEwe, and perform a valuable service at the same time, you can volunteer for the Advisory Board. This meeting is your best opportunity to set things in motion. An important point we need to make, is that our board members do not have to be located in the Treasure Valley area. Our board members have, and still live in different states, not just Idaho. We understood from the beginning that a diverse knowledge and skill set will make our boards more effective. As such, most all board work happens online with no need for face time for those outside the area. This also means that the board members can fulfill their duties pretty much on their own schedule. It just requires a commitment to participate.
We will still be using Discord to connect to our remote attendees. If you do not already have access to the Discord server, contact us to let us know and we will set you up with access . Due to the Covid, we may have to have a totally online meeting this year, but it is looking unlikely at this time. We have an alternate location under consideration in Homedale if Canyon County tightens their restrictions.
We look forward to hearing from, or seeing you there.
