My husband and I were in our 50s when he changed jobs and we moved to Eastern Ontario, north of Kingston. I thought it was a bit late in life for me to be job hunting, and since we had bought a house in the country with 10 acres, I told him I would become a hobby farmer and grow all our food. “And I'll have sheep,” I announced, “so I can knit you sweaters of natural homespun wool.”
My husband didn't outright object to the venture, but he cautioned me to be economical, since I wouldn't be contributing an income any more.
I found my first sheep on the Internet. He was a beautiful Shetland wether (castrated ram) with an oatmeal-coloured coat so shaggy it curled in ringlets. I could see his soulful eyes in the photo. I phoned and made a date to visit him in Joyceville, Ont.
In “person,” he was a captivating animal – he even wagged his tail when I petted him. And only $100. “I'll take him,” I said.
“What?” the breeder said. “You can't take one sheep.”
“Why not?”
“They're herd animals. They need the company of their own kind.”
“All right. I'll take that one too.” I liked the look of the grey ewe standing beside my wether – her fleece wasn't long like his, but soft and puffy as candy floss.
“You can't just take two sheep.”
“How many do I have to take?”
“Three. You can get away with three.”
So I chose a black-and-white wether, also $100, although the ewe was $300 because of her breeding potential, and I took them home.
Our property was fenced for horses, but not for little Shetland sheep that could slip under the boards. At the local farm store, I asked for advice on fencing. “We have a lot of problems with coyotes in this area. They'll just eat the leg off a sheep and leave it to hobble around and bleed to death.”
Others in the store murmured in woeful agreement. “You'll need a high-tensile page-wire fence fastened over the board fence. Do you have the tools for that?”
I didn't. It cost $200 to buy fence for one acre, and another $200 to persuade the store owner's son to bring his tools along and set it up for me.
The sheep needed shade from the sun and shelter from winter winds: plywood and lumber, $150. They needed vaccinations and medicines to eliminate worms: $90 for the veterinarian's visit. They needed their hooves trimmed twice a year, so I paid $60 for hoof-trimming scissors, although I thought they could probably double as pruning shears (ever mindful of these little economies).
They basically ate grass in summer, and in winter got by on a flake of hay – a slice of a bale – in the morning and a flake of hay in the evening. At $4 a bale, that's feed for three sheep for six months for $240. And in the spring I was rewarded with three beautiful fleeces shorn off my shaggy sheep and flung out expertly in front of me by the professional shearer I had hired for $50. Really it's only $10 a sheep, but I had to pay extra because it's hard to get a shearer to come for only three sheep.
I bought a spinning wheel at an antique store in Picton, Ont., a steal at $80. Finding that I didn't have the know-how to operate it, I joined the Kingston Handloom Weavers and Spinners ($50 annual fee) and signed up for spinning lessons from a wonderfully expert and patient instructor. The class was only $40 for members.
