Farm Friends

If you move to a farm, it’s best to seek out a few human farm friends – those people who can commiserate about frozen pipes in the winter, ignore the muddy paw prints of spring, and will celebrate when you find a piece of rusty sheep handling equipment. This week we brought home a used sheep tilt-table. When the sheep walk into it, the metal contraption squeezes them so they can't move forward, backward or sideways. A still sheep is easier to vaccinate and deworm. Once squeezed in place, the handler also can tilt the sheep on its side, making the twice-a-year hoof-trimming ritual easier. A sheep-owning friend is in awe. "I want one," she says.