Recently I’ve been feeling like some of this shepherding stuff is falling into place — setting up grazing rotations and moving the flock is starting to feel more intuitive, and all of the deworming went pretty smoothly yesterday, despite the fact that the deworming medication kept freezing in the drench gun.  But this is the latest evidence that I don’t have it all figured out:

We’re in the midst of a cold snap (14°F early todat), and all of the sheep water was frozen solid this morning, along with all of my hoses and supply tanks.  During a proper winter, there’s snow on the ground that the sheep will happily nibble for hydration, but today’s weather reminded me that cold dry weather is also a reality I have to reckon with.  I ended up filling 5-gallon jerry cans with hot water in my bathtub and ferrying them to the 3 groups — rams, lambs, and main flock — in the bucket of the tractor.  I’d like to believe there’s a more elegant solution, but it’s eluding me so far.