the “SheepShaw” | Mobile Sheep Shelter One Person Can Move

I see you getting into your tool set this morning from your birthday yesterday. I guess, I guess you're gonna be occupied a while, huh, Mr. Brown?

Yeah, Papa. Yeah, we're stuck building that.

I'm gonna be crunching on my latest documentary project, Grilling Bacon. It's our 2-year Growing Pigs story. So I'm crunching on that this weekend, and Jonah and Mom will step up and do more chores this weekend, so I'm happy to give Jonah a break this morning. You can play with those toys. Oh, worked on the sheep shaw yesterday, got so far. All we lack is Hey, is this our paneling? Big Daddy got us paneling. We got paneling and moving the minerals over to this. Wow. And then that's ready. When I get the sheep out to pasture— when I get the ewes out the pasture behind the cows— setting that up today, and then tomorrow moving the ewes out to pasture. Oh my, the lane for the ewes. The bank is smack dab in our way. We need to be right there. Hey, good morning guys! I think my best bet is to turn this fence off and then carry our buckets over. Hey, good to actually see you guys out of the chickens. There's only 5 of them though. I know one got got, but did another one get got? All right, I don't see any other guineas, so I'm assuming we're down to 5. We've been trying to train our sheep to a bucket. We've tried apples and we've tried alfalfa to no avail. I talked to Mr. Google Pants last night and he said lettuce is one of the things. And since these guys are so crazy about greens, let's try lettuce. See if they're coming. See if they like that. Oh no, do you guys not like it? Oh no, is it because it's bolted and it's bitter for you too? Let's see if it's because I'm holding it. They don't like it. That's a huge bummer. I thought for sure they'd love it. Shall we try some that hasn't bolted? Was it that it bolted? Here, try this one. Nope, don't like that one either. All right, up, up. Oh my gosh, the pickiest sheep won't eat lettuce. That's got to be crazy, right? Instead of just pulling this straight forward, we're not going to be able to get all the way with the handle, so we're going to flip it around. Oh snap, I didn't even see that. Something got one. All right, that means we need to come out at night, make sure they're not perching, and now they're eating it. Vicious dinos. All right, I'm done. I've got an hour to milking time, so I think I can make big headway on that sheep shawl and the mineral feeder. Let's see what everybody's doing. Let's change the battery in this camera. Hey, what's going on in here?

Mom having us pick up the decorations.

Oh good. Oh nice, they want me to see the guest room. Oh my gosh.

It's always closed.

Yeah.

Okay.

You still have to pick up the trash. Look, this can make noise.

All right. By one at a time, I meant get one out, play with it, get another one out. Later, like hours later.

Look. There it goes.

Eagle, watch it.

He's getting his flashlight.

Yeah.

Working.

His flashlight working, buddy. Burning the midnight oil. I'm gonna come get the minerals. Is that okay?

Oh yeah, that's great.

We're gonna move them tomorrow.

Awesome.

That's the plan.

You're curious.

There's liquid. In two of these. See that in the red one? Like a pile of it. Like, I don't know if they urinate in there. Rebecca doesn't seem to think it's urine, but maybe it was blowing rain. This was a— below the window. But anyway, let's get it out. Best practice. What's your guess to what happened?

I have no idea. I don't think they could urinate in it. I feel like that would be really difficult because they kind of like arch up like the cows do, and it kind of comes from It's almost like from underneath. I know it's not, but it's just different.

Jenna and I are going to start installing the roof. I feel like, and Rebecca feels like, we should put in some middle braces. I think we did on the meat shop. Okay, it's a hair short of 22 and a half. I'm gonna leave you guys to it. It's milking time. Okay, they're gonna put the minerals on, the lid on. We're gonna try to get this out— we're gonna try to get this out today so the sheep can get used to it before we get them out in the pasture, pasture behind the cows tomorrow. See him in my rearview finder. You never want to turn your back on a bull.

Come on.

Never shown any aggression, but you don't want to be having your back to him the first day he does. It's looking good, y'all. You almost got it all screwed in. It is 10 o'clock.

Exactly 10 o'clock.

10:01. Is that what you like, the exact?

Okay.

And what second is it?

Oh my gosh.

Here.

Why, what time do you want it to be? I bet you want it to be 11 o'clock brunch.

Yeah, actually I want it to be September. Then I can be off this buying fast.

What do you mean? September's over.

November.

Okay, November. What, are you fasting from buying until November?

Yeah, so I'm not gonna buy nothing.

Why?

Character and discipline.

Hey, I didn't tell him to do it. I didn't tell him to do it. That's crazy. Why do you need character and discipline?

Just because I feel like I buy something every week.

Okay, wow, impressive. Us adults can all learn something from you, Jonah. Hey, how are we gonna get this out of here? There's a tool table, chop saw table, bunch of toys, all kinds of stuff in our way. Do you think we can get through right here, Jonah? Then all we'd have to do is move this, huh? We can try. All right, we've measured this. It's like 9 foot 3, so I think that will actually get through.

Jonah, yeah, 4-wheel driving.

Okay, yeah, look, we're gonna make it. Wow, just barely. Okay. All right, Jonah, let's just put it right here and we'll make their lane wider. We got it connected. We pulled off this corner, but I think we can give it some slack because we wanted to catch their minerals. Turn our fence on and just gently run them out, okay? It's tall enough for a full-grown ram. Oh, that one tried to jump the handle. I wish I'd known what they were going to do that. I would have moved the— made it more diagonal. Here, don't let them go back. Jonah's plan is to get me inside here, and then he's going to crawl By example. There they— they went around.

Up, up, up.

All right, well, they're gonna have to take some time to get used to this thing. What have they turned our dining room into, Rebecca?

That's cool.

Hey, are you still a birthday boy? Okay, what do you guys think about this breakfast? Good. Oh, I love this.

I like it besides the onions.

Oh, well, I don't think you have to eat too many of those. I'll eat all your onions.

Okay.

Okay, good with me.

Thank you, Anna. It looks delicious. Okay, so I've been working on my presentation, one of them for homesteaders. Now Rebecca has to make this a slideshow. Yeah, y'all know what that is? Well, so you heard it's a Devilot.

So they're coming on Friday.

75% of our own food from our land. Do you see it? Do you see it? Milk, eggs, bacon, avocado, nuts. What else is notable? Oh, of course, the EIEIO farm. You like the chicken? You like the chicken drawing? Okay, one more notable thing. Oh, better not get it out of order. There's one more really funny one. This is on an intro to permaculture. This is like designing your best homestead ever. Joel Salatin on the dollar. Come, come to Homesteaders of America, see this presentation. What's Jill Salads and a dollar bill have to do with designing your best homestead ever? You're gonna have to come and find out. Jonah, what's that? Maybe that's gonna be part of the fun. Anna, what's that?

Uh, what is it?

It's weird. I guess that's the point. It's weird.

What is it?

A bald guy with sunglasses. It's a devil eye.

It's a goat!

It's a goat eye!

Okay, okay.

She's trying. Okay. You don't have to be polite, it's alright. You see this? I think I should enter that in the fair drawing.

A cabbage.

It's so good. So good. Okay.

It's terrible.

It's terrible.

No, I did do good on this devil eye. Look. Now, Anna. Come here, Jonah.

Look again.

Tell me what that is. Oh yeah, that's clearly a goat. That's definitely a goat, okay?

I thought it was Flossie or something.

Don't you be comparing my cows to a goat. What are you thinking?

It kind of looks like Flossie's horns.

What are you thinking?

No!

Rebecca, your painter did a great job.

He did.

Good job with the design.

Thanks.

It's white now.

It's gray. It's a light gray.

Oh, it's gray. It's a light gray. I'm sorry, I'm not up with the hip new colors. Yeah, you can see it a little bit over here. Looks a little blue in the video. Okay, it looks good. It's lightened up in here. It goes with your kitchen. Pork tenderloin. No, that's not tenderloin. Pork roast.

It's a tenderloin.

Oh my, fresh one from the last butcher. Nope, one of the old ones. And salad, squash. Yum. Hey, you've decorated so nice fall. You've cleaned up in here, Rebecca. Thank you.

You're welcome.

How is it?

It's amazing. The apples and onions and pork.

Ooh, you know what it's missing?

What?

Cultured cream.

There's chutney and cherry jam too.

Mmm. Evening chore time. Jonah, how are we gonna keep them from an owl attack tonight?

Why would they get attacked by an owl?

Yeah, there was one attack.

There it is.

Well, there was one attack last night.

I don't know.

Okay.

Wow, that's a big one.

You know, it'd be an answer, Jonah, is if at night— if we had a fence that only had two posts in it, and then at night you could put a fence up right here and then at the back end, and they would only venture out so far at night and not get got. What do you think?

That was my idea, but I didn't think that we were gonna get those. But okay, I thought you were asking first.

We'd have to make them. Okay, so I forgot to get that chicken out from this morning, and they've pretty much eaten it all. There's some legs left. A bit of wing. That's it. Wow, look how good they've eaten here, Jonah. I don't know if maybe they weren't feeling well at first, but you guys are like eating more. Are the minerals giving you the boost that fast? You're completely out of kelp and BBC. You want to try to pull it? Oh, that's hard.

You try, Papa.

Talking with some folks and we may not breed them this early. We may wait till they're like 2-ish to have their first babies. Could mean we wait not until this December for tent, but next.

Dang it, I wanted my lamp sooner.

Patience is the first. But listen, these will be your grandkid, your children's flock, bro. The little year and a half we wait is gonna be nothing compared to the generational benefit. Okay, but the long-term game plan, he ain't gonna have none of it. We're at the ewes now. I don't, I don't think they got in the sheep shawl, do you? But they will. They'll get hungry for those minerals. What are you doing with that?

I'm gonna put this on their sheep shawl.

Yeah, where are you gonna hang that?

I know, I'm looking.

If you can hang it underneath, we could put a hook underneath somehow and it would keep it dry. You hung it right there, what, through a 2x4?

Yeah.

Rebecca, why would we want to wait till next year to breed these guys?

Less lambing problems. Yeah, um, they will be more mature. They are physically mature, but emotionally, or like mothering mature— mentally, mentally, thank you— mentally mature. And it's just gonna create less problems. I was talking to Claire, my sheep mentor, Judy says they can breed this December. Claire said it could be just fine. It could also result in bottle babies, which we don't want. So we're just gonna wait and we're gonna figure out, uh, them lambing around their second birthday. Okay, we're in it for the long game. We're not in it to get sheep right away.

Preach.

I, I want to like— I want to have the best possible start, and it could still go wrong.

And we only have 5. Yeah, versus 300. So right, we're just going to be more careful.

I think so.

All right. And I heard they give you more— you have a better chance of getting more.

You, you can have a higher birth rate.

All right, are you gonna go pet them?

Yes, I'm gonna try.

Oh, look, you guys are doing it! You're gonna be able to do it in the field. Dude, you're even getting Dixie! That's good, guys. The reason we kept them, you know, moving around in the yard, going back to the stall, so Rebecca could handle them. And now you're able to handle them in a net without them jetting through. As Gideon would say, don't worry, Mama, the sheep will go under there, honey. It'll be all they've got in the middle of the field, and they won't drink water and they won't eat food.

They're a little bit—

sheep have that reputation of wanting to die. Sheep are moving tomorrow. We, we had the idea that— we had the idea that let's put them in the trailer and we can load them in the trailer right there. We can load them in the trailer right there because they got— they're way back there behind the house and we need to move them way out there, basically next to that walnut tree, a day behind the cows. They mowed this down and ate their hay. You guys ready? Phyllis was kind of full. I'm happy about that. And we might put the sheep in there, Rebecca, to clean up that brush. Okay, plug it in. If, uh, if hot electric fences is my new religion And you gotta carry a fence tester in your pocket.

Hitting anything?

99 amps it was hitting at last.

Is that probably—

we got no bolts on it.

Let's walk the line and see.

There was no electricity up at the top. So Justin thinks that it must have gotten knocked off at the source, so he went over there to check that. Jonah and I are just sitting here watching the cows graze. They're really enjoying themselves. We finished moving the cows. It is beautiful night. Look Look at that, look at that sunset, moon, and we are moving the Icelandics tonight. And because it's a, it's a big move, maybe a mower move.

No, we're not getting the mower.

No, we're not gonna get the mower. We're just gonna beast mode it. Hey, did I kind of pick up a fence?

Can you see me?

I can see you.

It's getting dark earlier now.

It is.

What time is it?

7:36.

You are going to have to help me push it up the gravel though.

There really is something magical about being outside at this time. It is October 2nd, yet it's been unseasonably warm, so it's not cool at all like it normally would be. All right, Big Papa, you can do this.

Uh, probably not by myself. Come on, somebody push!

Come on, push!

Oh, we got it! Oh my goodness, it's heavy.

Almost. Okay, we did it!

We got it up! 7:53. One last thing we have to do in the morning. Our cows, our sheep, and our chickens are going to be officially working together tomorrow.