the curse and blessing of blackberries
Much has been written about the grasses and other edibles Soay sheep lived on during their thousands of years on the tiny islands of the St. Kilda archipelago and how that compares to their relatively posh existence these days on the grass pastures here in North America. There also are plenty of articles about what […]
Ever since we got our first Soay sheep nearly seven years ago, we have bragged to our friends, and frequently boasted online as well, about how great they are for cleaning up neglected pastures and keeping grass pastures healthy. Everything we learned online in the early days reinforced our notion that our sheep were in […]
No sooner had the post about making pies from the blackberry thickets our Soay sheep have not yet eradicated hit the web than I received an e-mail from my college roommate (class of 1969, in the interests of full disclosure) alerting me to a terrific website created and run by one of our other classmates. Life intervened, as […]
For eleven months of the year, I watch with glee as our sheep search and destroy the wild Himalayan blackberry vines that are the curse of fields and streams here in Oregon and throughout the Pacific Northwest. Each year we are amazed at our animals’ ability to forestall the re-infestation of our fenced pastures. Nary has […]