Good Shepherdesses Volume 1 - Traci Bultemeier
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. Luke 2:8 KJV
Were those shepherds women? The bible does not explicitly say one way or the other, though it was customary at that time for young, unmarried daughters to act as the family shepherd, and especially if there were no sons to do so. Think of Rachel (soon to be Jacob’s wife) in Genesis 29:6 and Zipporah (who becomes Moses’ wife) in Exodus 2:16; both of these women first appear either leading or tending to a flock of sheep.
While such young women would not have exclusively been shepherdesses, it was a common practice, so it could well be that all or some of the shepherds in that field near Bethlehem that night were women. And frankly, that’s pretty darn cool when you think about it.
I don’t work exclusively with shepherdesses, though many of the shepherds I obtain fiber from also happen to be women. I’d like to introduce you to my shepherds, and get to know them a bit. Sheep people are wonderful people.
The first shepherdess I’d like to introduce you to happens to be my business partner in Weald & Wool, Traci Bultemeier of Wayne Trace Farms, and the one I blame for my plunge into the larger world of wool.
C: Hello Traci! So glad you are able to join me today for a quick chat!
T: Glad to be here!
C: Can you tell me a little about your farm operation?
T: So, Jamie and I bought what would become WTF in August of 2012. We bought it on our own, then we rapidly expanded to all kinds of things, including when we started out with three sheep and four pens that were supposed to be the boys’ 4H projects are now about 50 ewes and their babies, a ready to lay chicken operation of about 12000 birds a year and 400 acres of row crops and hay.
The Bultemeier family and Mocha the donkey.
C: What do you mean by row crops?
T: Row crops in the Midwest, in Indiana are corn and soy beans and wheat.
C: And you do all three of those?
T: Yes, we do all 3 of those. The corn and the soy beans, once they are harvested are hauled to the elevator and sold. The wheat grain is also sold at the elevator, but then we bale the straw, the remaining part of the wheat, to act as bedding for both our layers and our sheep.
C: What’s different about the way that you guys row crop than other farmers?
T: One piece that sets Jamie and I apart from some other row crop farmers is that both of us have Master’s degrees in agronomy-
C: What’s agronomy?
T: Agronomy s the study of plants and soils in a production management process. So, we are kind of like plant doctors, or soil doctors, we figure out why the plants aren’t growing and look at all the things – fertility, sunshine, rainfall, solar radiation, all of the pieces that make a plant grow, and we try to grow better plants. There are agronomists all over the country, so that’s nothing new or special about what we do, but we take that knowledge that we’ve gained and apply it to our farming operation, then try new things. We will experiment with different closing wheels on our corn planters, or we will experiment with different amounts of nitrogen for our crops. We’ve been experimenting with cover crops, which in our case we use annual rye grass and crimson clover and some others, a 12-way mix, and that cover crop gets planted after our corn and soy beans crops are harvested in the fall and it serves to protect the soil because we are no-till farmers. No-till means that we do not run tillage equipment through our soil to break up the crop residue. The crop residue and the row crops remain on the soil surface throughout the winter, thereby protecting the top soil from being blown away or eroded down into the creek.
C: Okay, so you grew up on a farm. What kind of farm?
T: I grew up on Old MacDonald’s Farm! We farmed about 80 acres in eastern Ohio. We had cow-calf pairs, we had sheep, we had fair-to-finish hog operation, we had laying hens, and we were pretty self sufficient with a big garden. Most all of the grain that we harvested and the hay that we made, all went back into cattle and hog feed. So we didn’t haul anything to the actual elevator. Our sale, our goods that we sold were the livestock.
C: So, you’ve been in sheep for a while then…sheep aren’t a new thing for you.
T: Correct.
C: What kind of sheep did your parents have when you were growing up?
T: My aunt had the sheep, she lived on the farm with us, and we had Suffolks.
C: So, you said before that you run about 50 sheep, correct?
T: Yes.
C: And how many chickens?
T: About 12000.
Traci's dad, welcoming a new batch of baby chicks.
C: And how many cats?
T: About 10 too many!
C: So, what breeds of sheep do you have here at the farm?
T: Our two primary breeds are Lincolns and Suffolks. Our rams are Lincolns, to provide wool quality along with efficient rates of gain, efficient feed management. And then the Suffolks for meat. And then I have a random Romney, a couple random CVMs and a stupid Merino, and a lot of crossbreds that have really beautiful wool.
C: And Shetlands
T: Two Shetlands – Sam the Ram and Fluff
C: What about the lambs?
T: Two lambs that are Shetland Lincoln cross!
C: What is your favorite breed of sheep?
T: My favorite breed is still a Suffolk.
C: Why is that?
T: I don’t know, I just love them. My second favorite is the Lincoln.
C: What breeds are you dreaming about?
T: Bluefaced Leicesters and Mule sheep.
C: Who is your flock leader?
T: Hard to say. It is probably one of the old Suffolk mamas that’s been here a long time. She’s always out in front. And then you have Brindle, the fiber wether, that was a bottle lamb, he’s always bringing up the rear. And then there’s Mocha, the donkey, has her say in all of it.
Mocha, the miniature livestock guardian donkey.
C: And Mocha the donkey is…why do you have a donkey?
T: She is our flock protector.
C: So, like your livestock guardian.
T: She is my livestock guardian dog with big ears.
C: And why do you have a donkey as your guardian?
T: She was super cute! We have about 25 acres of pasture, 12 acres is continual and the rest of row crop farmed and we plant the cover crops, then we can graze the rest of the pasture throughout the farm as the cover crops are growing strong, so then we don’t have to feed as much hay into the winter months. The back pasture is pretty far back and has trees and a large wood around it, so the donkey is our protection from coyotes and wild dogs and whatever else might try to eat my sheep. We chose a donkey over a traditional livestock guardian dog or a lama because I waited 41 years to get a horse, and I had to settle for a donkey, and that’s why we have a donkey.
C: Mocha is what kind of donkey?
T: She’s a miniature donkey.
C: She kind of blends in with the crowd…
T: Yup, some of the Suffolks are bigger than she is, taller.
C: But she’s still the protector.
T: She is definitely the protector. When we had a coyote in the pasture last fall, she pushed the sheep up against the electric fence, into a corner, then she circled the other half of what wasn’t protected by the fence, to keep the coyote away from them.
C: Way to go Mocha! Do you have any troublesome sheep?
T: Yes! Those two little rotten Lincoln Shetland babies are bad news! And the Merino is just not smart at all. And any of the yearling ewes that lambs we kept from last fall, that are now out on pasture, they have no respect for the pasture fencing. They tear em down, run through em, they are a pain!
C: What is your favorite part of your operation?
T: Lambing! There is so much joy and new life, fuzzy lambs running and jumping around…they are too adorable!
A set of Lincoln x Suffolk twin lambs snuggle under a heat lamp.
C: Okay, what’s your least favorite part?
T: Also lambing! It can be so hard. There is always loss, and late, freezing cold nights, plus there is always an element of anxiety in every birth.
C: What fiber arts do you do yourself? What do you do with the fiber from your sheep?
T: Well, taking care of the sheep takes up a lot of my free time. Getting the fiber prepared to actually use it takes up a lot of that time, because I also shear my own sheep. When I do play with fiber, I like to weave on the peg loom, I crochet, I use a tapestry loom and a rigid heddle, and I like to do rug hooking and wool applique.
C: What was your fiber gateway? Where did you start in fiber arts?
T: I guess it was Anita Richert, just showing me the value in the fiber that was coming off the sheep that we had. Our very first wool sheep was a Romney from Circle B and it all kind of went down hill from there into the fiber world.
C: By downhill, you mean…down the rabbit hole!
T: Down the big rabbit hole!
C: What would you say is your favorite fiber art now?
T: Using the peg looms to make rugs. And I also really want to be a spinner, but I’m not very good at it!
C: It’s all about practice, and you’ve got all the time in the world for that, right??
T: {eye roll}
