Dear Curiosity Journal,
On Saturday morning, we gathered in the pasture to learn from Nadia Alber, M.S. Director of the Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy & Livestock Farmers, and Project Manager of Farm2Facts for UW-Madison to learn about raising sheep and goats. Nadia covered basic small ruminant care, feeding, shearing, trimming, fencing, lambing, and rotational grazing. My curiosity was running wild. Questions cued up in my consciousness, and I felt like a front row school girl wanting to pump my hand up in the air to ask all that I was wondering about, but I behaved myself, filtering my questions for the appropriate, relevant moment. I could have listened to Nadia talk sheep all day, soaking up each sentence, and interweaving new knowledge with the old, learning and unlearning management practices. I really appreciated Nadia’s depth of discussion on rotational grazing and how to be a good “grass farmer”. I’m trying not to beat myself up for not having more paddocks built. We have more than enough land to do an A+ job at rotating livestock, but run short on time, energy, and money to build fencing. It was so helpful to have Nadia and her husband Chad demonstrate how to lay out, move, and problem solve the electronet fencing. I feel like if I could get this system down, I could move the flock to a new piece everyday. In these dry spells, it takes longer for the grass to recover, and I learned that I need to respect the time it needs to rest for the health of the land and animals. I’m so thankful for Nadia and Chad sharing their knowledge and experience with us and look forward to integrating the improved management practices we learned. If anyone wants to come help me build fencing, comment below 
~Joy
