by Dan Mackie
Valley News Staff Writer

Some people say that sheep are dumb as dirt piles, but on a recent scorcher of a summer day, Chuck Wooster's flock had it made in the shade.

In the greater Upper Valley, humans were bustling about and sizzling like fried eggs.

Wooster's sheep were watching the pasture grow. They lay serenely, woolly little Buddhas under cover of a shelter similar to a carport, meditating on the taste of grass and waiting for a cloud to block the sun.

When the cloud came, they'd go out for a bite.

Until the cloud came, they were cooling their heels, or hooves.

Now it's true that they weren't discussing globalization or the impending Michael Jackson verdict, or anything that humans would say constitutes higher intelligence.

But on that day, they were chewing grass and humans were mowing lawns. The latter risked heat stroke -- so who is it, really, who's dumb?

Wooster defends sheep smarts in his new book, Living With Sheep, which promises in its subtitle to reveal Everything You Need to Know to Raise Your Own Flock. A generous offering of color photographs, ranging from adorable to pastoral, are by Geoff Hansen of Tunbridge, who has done several books and is photo and graphics editor at the Valley News.

One of the first issues Wooster addresses is sheep-think. We are predators, he explains, and sheep are prey, and that affects everything about how we and they see the world. (And explains why we understand cat-and-dog behavior, that of our fellow predators, better.) "Their main deal is, they stick together," he said in a recent interview at his 100-acre farm in Hartford, where the flock currently includes 10 ewes, a ram and eight lambs.

That stick-to-itiveness makes a lone sheep look silly if it gets isolated from the flock and panics, Wooster said, and sheep don't take directions well. They move, en masse, "like a liquid," said Wooster. "They're amazingly good at it."

Wooster has been a shepherd since 2000; he went into the field without much forethought, or preparation. His boss at Northern Woodlands magazine in Corinth wanted to give up his flock, so Wooster took them. Neither Wooster nor his wife, Sue Kirincich, grew up on farms, so they had to learn on the fly.

Five years later, he said it worked out fine, and contends that sheep farming is a pleasant hobby/sideline/business that shouldn't be intimidating to wannabe shepherds.

His book has a reassuring, user-friendly tone, and there's a reason for that: Wooster said he used himself as the model of a person who needed hand holding. When he started, he said, the books he turned to were aimed at people who at the very least grew up in 4-H, or were serious farmers. "I didn't set out to write the comprehensive guide. ...It's more to show how easy it is," he said.

"In a way, this is an easy breed," he said about his Navajo-Churro sheep, a breed that came here from Spain via the American Southwest, where it was kept by Navajo and other Native Americans. It's an heirloom breed, known for long, coarse wool.

"It needs no pampering to survive and prosper," says the Navajo-Churro Sheep Association. Wooster said breeds bred for meat tend to have larger lambs, which can mean more difficult births. The Navajo-Churro were kept in open fields for generations, so natural selection meant fewer complications.

Wooster said he's had few complications himself. One day the youngsters wandered off and he called police, who informed him that they couldn't help with poor little lambs who'd lost their way. A neighbor down the road called and said they'd gone there; Wooster said it was an adventure herding them back, he not being a very experienced shepherd, and they not being very experienced sheep.

This time of year, tending sheep isn't very labor intensive. They stay outside, restricted to a section of his rolling fields by electrified fences that keep the sheep in, and coyotes out. Wooster said it takes just 10 minutes a day to tend to them. The main chore -- done every few days -- is moving the fence so the sheep don't buzz cut the pasture. There's much more labor in the winter, when the sheep are more barn-bound.

Wooster is a tall 38-year-old with a trim beard and a relaxed manner. His farm isn't far from Route 5 in Hartford, but the green expanse makes it seem more remote. "It feels like you're a few towns away," he said.

Although his flock hasn't really turned much (if any) profit, Wooster said he loves "the pastoral aesthetic. It's fun looking and seeing them out there." Kids and families who visit their small organic vegetable farm love to see the sheep and lambs. And he said it's a good thing these days to know where your food comes from, and how it's been raised.

The ewes are permanent fixtures, more or less, but the lambs are usually sold in the fall. Wooster has used various naming conventions for them: one year he used Spanish names, to recognize their origins; one year he named them after Red Sox players. A pair of twins were named Manny and Papi, after Manny Ramirez and David "Big Papi" Ortiz. He's also had some first ladies, Mamie Eisenhower and Martha Washington among them.

Wooster's flock is typical of many in the Twin States. "Most of the farms are small ones," said Julie Patterson of Chichester, N.H., former president of the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Growers' Association. Ken Frizell of Jaffrey, N.H., the current president, cited 2004 figures that said there were 50,000 sheep in New England, and 10,000 in New Hampshire. "The trend in the last century and a half has been down," he said.

Association membership has been growing, however, as new shepherds with small flocks have been getting into it. Frizell said there's a resurgence of interest in natural fibers, but that sort of thing is highly cyclical.

The Vermont Agriculture Department cited a 2002 survey that reported there were 470 sheep operations in the state, with 11,200 breeding sheep, and 14,000 lambs born that year.

The region had a wool boom in the 19th century, with a peak around 1840, according to Frizell. There were roughly a million sheep in New Hampshire then, outnumbering people four to one.

Demand was high and prices were, too. "A lot of the stone walls we see were cleared by farmers creating pastures for sheep," said Frizell. "Many farmers did well selling wool. That paid for Meeting Houses and many fine homes."

Wooster said it takes years to make a real profit these days, when you factor in costs like fencing and farm equipment.

Living With Sheep hit the shelves just recently, so Wooster wasn't sure yet how it's doing in bookstores. But he said he might be interested in writing about his experience with the newest addition -- three piglets -- to his small farm. "I have to live with pigs first," he said.

Valley News -- June 18, 2005

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