Welcome to The Chronicles. I hope you will enjoy my posts about the joys of raising the oldest breed of sheep in the world -- the always intriguing, easy-to-raise Soay sheep. With few exceptions, posts contain what I hope is useful information interspersed with a bit of whimsy. Feel free to comment on anything you find here. If you want to send me a private message, that's okay, too. Send your note to the address on the "contact us" page of our main website (***saltmarshranch-dot-com). Meanwhile, enjoy The Soay Sheep Chronicles! Priscilla
One of the few genuine dangers in raising sheep, heritage or commercial, is the non-breeding rams’ aggression towards the (lucky) breeding rams when breeding is over and the breeders return to the full ram group. It’s a pretty simple phenomenon: the breeders smell like ewes and the non-breeders are overwhelmed by hormonal jealousy. The solution […]
As we approach the end of 2015, we are encouraged by the report of over 60 inches of snow on Big Red Mountain, the only source of water for our Little Applegate River once the rains diminish in April and stop altogether in May. Last year there was no snow on Big Red – zero […]
Our indispensable livestock guardian dogs are an endless source of delight and amazement, and never more so than in the late afternoon when they provide a brief recital that echoes across our Little Applegate River Valley. It is so lovely and so sweet we have dubbed it “Vespers.” Let me explain. We have six Anatolian […]
Once upon a time and long ago, 14 summers ago as best we can remember, a scrawny local teenager not yet old enough to drive began working on our farm, eventually becoming our full-time, resident ranch hand. It ended yesterday when that same young man, now 29 years old, married and the father of our […]
It’s been a quiet week at Saltmarsh Ranch, at least compared to the recent weeks of frantic downsizing. Temperatures have fallen to normal autumn levels and the fire danger level was reduced from “extreme” to “high,” still scary but a whole lot better than it was all summer. The sheep are making one more pass […]
Will the search never end? With Dalton’s wonderful little tags no longer available, options are limited. As I’ve said repeatedly on this blog, it is nearly impossible to find ear tags small enough and light enough to work in a lamb’s ear as small as heritage Soay sheep. Even the round white adult USDA tags […]