I am writing this from a hand-hewn table built into the wall of a tinned cabin in the woods. Outside the large picture window, there’s a small meadow of wildflowers below the green canopy of trees, and beyond that a gravel road. I haven’t heard a car all morning, but I have heard the clip-clop of hooves on dirt as a buggy belonging to one of the neighboring Amish farmers passes.
The Little Pasture Stories, Songs + Yarn Tour is underway, and we are currently in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin. The Driftless Area is a region in Minnesota, Wisconsin, northwestern Illinois and northeastern Iowa of the American Midwest that was never glaciated.
The result is steep hills and ridges, now punctuated with red barns buried in the hillsides and cornfields and forests somehow flowing into and out of one another. It is very beautiful and very different from the rocky hillsides of the short grass prairie I call home. It even smells different — green and damp like a slow, meandering river.
But that isn’t what this column is about — at least not directly. Last night, I played a concert at a small, family farm called, appropriately, Small Family Farm. The weather was perfect, warm and sunny with a hint of cool breeze and pale, blue sky populated with fluffy, golden clouds to herald the dusk. The crows of young roosters punctuated my songs, and as I introduced a reading about different migrating birds, a chipping sparrow and song sparrow landed on opposite sides of me and gave the audience a short, cheerful concert of their own. All this was very magical, but perhaps not as magical as what I am about to describe.
Wisconsin Driftless Milking Sheep
When we first arrived on the farm, one of the owners gave us a tour. There were many delights, but for me, the highlight was, of course, her sheep.
“What breed are they?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m not sure …” she said. “We got them from our Amish neighbors to milk.”
It may not surprise you to learn I’ve spent a lot of time looking at and reading about different sheep breeds, but after meeting these particular sheep (a mother and her teenage lamb), I had no idea what breed they were either. Most likely they are an as yet unclassified breed, perfectly suited to their region and function because that’s been the main consideration with breeding. Someday we may know them as “Wisconsin Driftless Milking Sheep” but they are just sheep for now.
This in and of itself is delightful and amazing. Most humans, at least in America, have become increasingly divorced from interdependence with the ecosystems in which we reside. As a result, our livestock, seeds and even seasonal celebrations have become increasingly divorced as well. Having a sheep that’s just a sheep but is the perfect sheep for where you live is a beautiful thing.
I was also charmed by folks keeping a sheep to milk. The family dairy cow or even a family dairy goat is a rare but not wholly unexpected phenomenon. But a family dairy sheep? That I have not heard of, and why not? In my experience, sheep are a lot easier to care for than goats merely because they are much easier to keep fenced in. (Or OUT as the case may be … goats eating up the garden is definitely a thing …) And sheep require a lot less feed and space than a cow, not to mention, the amount of milk produced is more appropriate for the average family than the massive quantities a healthy jersey will provide.
I was gifted a jar of just-milked sheep milk after the show, and sitting at this lovely hand-hewn table, writing to you all, I am drinking my coffee with that milk instead of cream. It’s absolutely delicious. So is the regionally-specific family milk sheep the next big thing? Perhaps it should be. But I think the bigger question is this: Which of MY sheep is most likely to want to be the family dairy sheep when I get home?
