I hadn’t gotten to cleaning up all the smaller branches from the fallen ash, and yesterday when I was walking the farm with friend, neighbor, and logger Mark Smith, he asked if I had left them out for the sheep to eat.  I’m not totally convinced he wasn’t just being charitable about my messy pasture, but he explained that deer absolutely love eating ash bark and small twigs.   Much as I wanted to confirm that I was indeed providing a clever alternate food source for my flock, I had to confess that I simply hadn’t finished cleaning up.  It turns out that Mark knew my sheep better than I did, and I might have gotten away with the fib.