Sheep, Siblings, and (Home)School

Howdy! I have 9 posts that need to get written and posted....and I have no clue on how much I will get done over the weekend...I am so busy; well, with my reading, watching TV, Starbucks runs, and visiting and all!

One of my friends wanted me to blog about living on a sheep ranch, so I thought I would share a bit about it.

I think I have blogged a bit before about it, but I don't think it was in detail. If you have followed me for any amount of time, I usually talk about it throughout my posts, so you probably know a bit about it, but I wanted do share more, so, here goes!

A long time ago..in a galaxy far away..oh wait, that's a different story!!!

Just a quick history: We kids are the 4th generation ranchers. My great-grandpa came from England 1899, where he landed in Montreal. After a few years of working here and there, he came out West to BC in 1906. When he came to where the present ranch is now, it was all trees...he cleared out a place for him and his bride (my gr. grandma) , and set up a life for themselves. Fast Forward to 1976, when little old me was born...I had my own health issues and nearly died (I will write about that sometime; the story is EPIC), and when I was around 22 months old, I came to live on the ranch (after being in the hospital since my birth), and thus begins the story!!!

Our sheep ranch is 2 hours north of where I currently live. It is in a valley called The North Thompson Valley, and it is a 15 minute drive to either small little town on either side of us. I grew up on a dirt road, and I loved it! The most sheep the my family had was about 1200 (triple that in the summer), and now they have about 600 ewes (females) and 40 rams (uncut males). We used to have about 2000, acres, and now it is a bit less, but not much (this also includes land across the river that we take the sheep to in the spring and fall).


Being on a sheep ranch was definitely fun. We played for hours outside; spent time with the animals, doing farm work, gardening, etc. We played in the creek, in our yard, we spent hours gardening, playing in our fort...riding horses, chasing chickens, jumping on the trampoline, etc. We helped with every single farm activity; lambing (when the ewes had their lambs) in April, Shearing (shaving their wool off) in May, moving sheep to pastures off our land (across the river and up to the mountain range), haying in the summer, "moving" sheep in the summer (back then, the sheep would spend a good chunk of the summer on the mountains, but now, they spend more like about a month or two up there), and when we were younger, docking (due to PETA, etc being out there, you can DM me about what docking is). I long for a simpler time :) Hahah

We usually would have a picnic or two in the summer/fall. My family still tries to have one a year (though I don't know if they have had one in the last year or so). The picnics were EPIC, and all day things! We would have people who had (and were still) working on our ranch to join us...we would all bring something. In the summer, my dad would "flood irrigate" the fields (it is basically, letting the creek overflow into the fields), and we would swim and spend HOURS playing! I don't know if Dad does this type of irrigating much anymore...he mainly uses sprinklers..long pipes that you move every 24-48 hours with "faucets" on them...now. When Dad hayed in the heat of the summer, Mom would pile all we kids in the car, and we would go and find him, and we would have picnics in the field (this still happens sometimes, actually), and late in the afternoons, we would deliver lemonade. Heck, Mom tells a few stories of me and my brother delivering lemonade in the wagon when I was about 4, and my brother was 2...ALONE (though I don't think that it was that far, really). My mom planted a 500 acre garden (ok, not that big, but it was huge), we would spend HOURS gardening...then harvest and preserving the fruits and veggies of our labours.

The winters were (and are) a bit less busy, but that is when Dad feeds the sheep hay from the hay wagon (they now do it only once a day, and they sometimes use the truck to feed...there is a contraption that lifts the hay off and drops it to the field to the sheep); someone drives the tractor, and another person cuts and pitches the hay to the begging following sheep! This used to be done twice a day, but as I stated above, it is only done once a day. Lambing is in the month of April. This has been done for 70 years, or something like that. Actually, I think that has been done for 100 years. April is a good time for lambs to be born...and it fits into my family's Ranch Year living. April isn't too hot, nor (usually!) too cold! When they go up to the mountain, the lambs are about 4 or 5 months old. Lambing usually lasts a month, and it is CRAZY! It is SO fun! It is an "all hands on deck" type of deal. Everyone helps out....from helping the ewes give birth (if needed), helping out any sick lambs or ewes, moving sheep and their babies from pen, to small field, to an even bigger field. In years gone by, we "docked" the tails off the lambs, which was a whole day affair, but now they "ring" them (it's done while they are still in the pens), and mark them as necessary. There are marks for different things...you look at their ears, and they can tell you all about them. Twin? Good wool? Female? Gave birth while still young? Has had twins? Anyway, I could go on and on about lambing, but I will leave it there. In May, they shear the sheep (and contrary to what you may have heard or read, it does NOT take their skin off, nor does it hurt them), in June, they go to the pastures, in July-August, they are up the mountain (better grass, etc), September, back down to the valley, October "wrangling", cutting the males and females out...getting the males ready to be shipped for....well, you can guess where to....and the ones that my family sells "farm gate" (locally) goes to the local butcher (I am wanting lamb/mutton as I am typing this!), and the rest get sent. Yes, we all get a bit sad when this happens. #circleoflife When we were young, we all had our pet lambs...orphans that couldn't be with their mommy....now they are bought for 4H, local farms, etc...and when we were young, we would often torment our younger brothers and sister (ok, mainly sister) saying "we are eating (insert their orphan lambs name here!)", and they would cry...fun times!!! Most of the time, we wouldn't eat them, but the odd time, we would (they mainly died of disease, so we couldn't eat them). November, they put the mommies in with the daddies, and #babymaking would begin #thebirdsandthebees. Then, in March, we start things all over again!

At the end of grade 4, my mom started homeschooling my younger brother and myself. The younger siblings have never gone to school (but almost all of us have done some secondary training, so just so you know, we are complete country hicks!). My parents started homeschooling us before it was popular or cool. We older kids did it differently than the younger kids (they did a lot of theirs on the computer/internet). My mom used a lot of different curriculums, and she changed it up a lot over the years. We started by doing it downstairs, and as Mom started having more kids, we would move to the dining room, and then the upstairs office. Our "school" was called Eagle's Nest training for life. We even got t-shirts. #legit My mom was AMAZING at teaching us; I don't even know on how she did it. We got life lessons as well; sewing, cooking, baby sitting (ha!), mechanics (thanks, Dad), and of course, gardening. Because we were homeschooled, and Dad was a rancher who worked from home, we had TONS of time to talk over meals. Breakfast was our favourite. We had devotions at breakfast, and often times, we would spend HOURS talking about God, the Bible, etc. Oh yes, and of course, we had Bible/History lessons! If you googled homeschooled Christian family, we would probably appear (also, if you Google John Christ, he mocks his own life, which is a mirror image of on how we were raised, and completely cracks me up!). Dad taught us, too..ranch life, mechanics, war, the Bible...:) Later on, with the younger ones, our aunts joined in on the fun of school! Did I also tell you that I am a pastor's/preacher's kid??) Ya'll, it's true! We had the best life!!!

And now, for the siblings...I am the oldest of 7.....SEVEN kids! There are we 3 older kids, then an almost 8 year gap, then my parents had 4 more! There is 21 years between me and the youngest. Did I tell you there are 5 boys and two girls? #thestruggleisreal

Oh..and my dad's parents lived on the ranch until they died (Gma in 1982 from leukaemia, and Grandpa in 1997 due to heart issues), so we don't see or talk to them anymore. One of my greatest memories is riding in the OLD truck with my grandpa while he smoked his pipe. Fun times. I still love the smell of pipe smoke to this day. My aunt Valerie and her husband live in the house that my dad and his sisters grew up in. They have been married a few years longer than Anker and I. My Aunty June and her husband live up the road a couple of miles from my parents'.

So, there you have it :) A SMALL glimpse of what life on our ranch was (and is) like! I hope you have enjoyed reading. If you want to see more pics (I am only going to post one here, as it is late, and I don't have the time or energy to post more than that), go to my IG, or my FB :)

 This is in April, in the evening. The sheep are having their supper :)

This never gets old!