A working sheep farm

Yesterday our homeschool association braved the wind and bitter cold (the temp was in the 50s) to travel the 2 1/2 hours to Timmonsville, SC to attend Homeschool Day at Ovis Hill Farm. The photo above is my daughter Alli on the right and her friend on the left.

Here is a good description of the farm from their Web site:

Ovis Hill Farm is a family owned livestock farm located in Darlington County just west of Florence and convenient to I-20 and I-95. Alice and Charlie Caldwell are currently shepherding about 400 sheep, grazing 35 dairy and beef cows as well as gathering eggs from a small flock of laying hens. Many of the sheep are historic breeds representing some of the earliest livestock brought into our country. The Caldwells sell pasture raised, grass fed lamb, beef, poultry, eggs, and dairy products as well as wool and yarn from their sheep. All meat is USDA inspected, hormone and antibiotic free."

Here is the farmer, Charlie, with some of his cows.







And here he is near one of the farms many chicken tractors.
Charlie said Ovis Hill Farm participates with a few other farms to sell their wares at a farmer's market and in each others' stores.


The Caldwells hire local homeschool moms to do tours for both public schools and, twice a year, homeschools. The kids learned about a lot about wool and took a tour of the farm. One of the things the kids did was to make butter. Below is Adam getting a taste of the butter he made. He wasn't too sure about it, but boy, that was some good butter - it was very creamy!


My favorite part of the day was watching Jolly, one of their border collies, at work. Jolly is a red and white border collie, bred for her abilities as a herding dog, not appearances as mandated by the American Kennel Club. And let me tell you, she was good at her job!


If you look very closely at the photo below, you can see Jolly hunched down behind the sheep. She could stop on a dime whenever Charlie told her to, and kept her head low and her demeanor non-threatening so as not to scare the sheep too much. And did you know that herding dogs are actually taught to know left from right so their masters can communicate with them? I have always herd that border collies were one of the smartest breeds of dogs around, and watching Jolly yesterday - I believe it!