by Birdsong S.
For me, one of the best parts of making an effort to eat locally has been getting to know more about my food sources and discovering new ones. If you visit my personal blog, you will find that I am a passionate knitter and occasional quilter. That is why, back in March, a member of my quilt guild who also knits asked if I wanted to visit Harvey Farms for the annual sheep shearing. I had met Anna a few times, as she is a member of our guild, living on the other side of Yuba Pass. She is a fourth-generation sheep rancher, it turns out, who has focused her 80-head flock on wool production. Much of the wool gets turned into quilt batts, and some into quality knitting yarn. Anna also teaches felting and needlefelting classes at the farm, and last fall, she and her husband Don, put in several acres of blueberries.
I wrote a lengthy post, complete with photos of the sheep and the livestock gaurd dogs, which you can find here.
A small but steady by-product of raising sheep, even for wool, is production of lambs to enrich the flock. Another by-product is culling a certain amount of those lambs each year, so that the flock size stays manageable. Anna has developed a small customer list for these lambs, and my friend Linda asked if we could be added to the list, splitting the cost and the meat from one lamb between our two households. We heard last week that our meat was ready, and went through a couple of options for picking it up.
One of the differences in living in a rural place v. an urban one is that nothing is really very close, and everything involves driving someplace. Eating locally usually means that a certain amount of oil is expended by me personally to get anything to eat. However, we never do just one separate errand in the car, and we all learn to plan ahead, share errands, and otherwise minimize the travel involved. I am lucky that another member of my CSA, a close friend of my husband's, picks up our box too, and then brings it by as he works a mile from our home.
In this case, I was able to combine both chores and pleasure, as well as collect some photos to share that will show you how learning about the people who bring food to you can enrich your life. I went first to the Portola quilt guild's annual show, where Anna had a booth selling some of her felted, dyed wool, baskets of yarn, quilt batts, and crafts supplies.
She had this fabulous quilt on display (which has one of her wool batts inside): 
Along the way back towards Sierraville, where the lamb is stored in a large freezer, I stopped at Anna's road to take a photo to show you just how beautiful it is where she and her family live:
Then, I met Anna's husband, Don, and we filled up the two ice chests I had with me with the already-halved collection of packages of chops, leg of lamb, etc. The meat is cut and wrapped for Harvey Farms at one of our local markets, so the total round trip from farm to storage, where I connected, is about 35 miles. My round trip is about 140, but we all consider ourselves to be in the same region of the Sierras, and I have been delighted to get to know the Harveys and learn about my shared crafts interests with Anna. Linda and I will be attending a needlefelting class at the ranch in June, and I am hoping to use my leg of lamb as the centerpiece of an "Eat Local" feast for some friends later this month.
Birdsong lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California, where she blogs about her passions at A View from Sierra County.
