January 2025 NatureKit: Sheep & Shepherding

pic by wonderopolis.org

Sheep and shepherding have been integral to human civilization for thousands of years, playing a significant role in agriculture, economy, and culture.. Known for their gentle and social nature, sheep form tight-knit groups, making them ideal for flock-based herding. Shepherding, the practice of tending to and guiding sheep, dates to ancient times. Shepherds not only care for the animals' physical needs, such as feeding and shelter, but also protect them from predators and ensure their health. This role has traditionally been passed down through generations, particularly in rural and pastoral societies. The practice of shepherding, with its deep connection to nature and the rhythm of the seasons, continues to be an important part of farming in many parts of the world, preserving both cultural traditions and sustainable agricultural practices.

For this month you are to read a book about sheep or shepherding. This can be fiction or non-fiction, an adult or children’s book, or the Biblical 23rd Psalm. You can read about the sheep vs. the cattle range wars, the harvesting of wool, sheep husbandry, sheep and the environment, or there is even a welfare organization for sheep! Whatever you decide to read, please let us know and post in the wiki if you would like!

The wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2025_NatureKIT

Possibilities:
The Shepherd's Life by James Rebank
The Sheep Queen by Thomas Savage
Follow the Flock: How Sheep Saved Civilization by Sally Coulthard
The Wisdom of Sheep: Observations From a Family Farm by Rosamund Young
Series of 8 books Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw *children's
A Short History of the World According to Sheep by Sally Coulthard
In the Footsteps of Sheep: Tales of a Journey Through Scotland, Walking, Spinning, and Knitting Socks by Debbie Zawinski
Beautiful Sheep: Portraits of champion breeds (Beautiful Animals) by Kathyrn Dun
A Sheep Remembers (The 23rd Psalm) by David Calhoun
The Idylls of Theocritus (more pastoral than actual sheep--but they are mentioned)
Hymnus (mythological shepherd) as well as Endymion
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe
If Clouds Were Sheep: A warm and humorous portrait of the shepherding life by Sue Andrews
Counting Sheep by Axel Linden
Cattlemen vs Sheepherders : Five Decades of Violence in the West by Bill O'Neal
Year Walk by Ann Nolan Clark
Sheep for Beginners: A dip into the world of wool by John Eunson

Is it time to start picking books for next year already? Luckily, for this month, I have an obvious choice in my TBR Sheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep, and Enough Wool to Save the Planet by Catherine Friend.

If any cozy mystery fans are looking for a book, I enjoyed Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann.

I live in what used to be one of the biggest wool producing areas in the world. We still have a lot of sheep! I have lots of book on sheep and wool as I am also a huge knitter and yarn dyer. My dream, dream holiday would be to Shetland. I will not choose just yet but I am very much looking forward to adding some more sheepy books to my list.

My brother has a small farm and raises some sheep so I might read a BB I took a couple of years ago for The Shepherd's Life by James Resnick and may try to fit it in for January.

>1 Tess_W: Great list. I am not going to do Nature Kit but like to read the messages.
I am crocheting a scarf from organic native Shetland yarn I bought at a yarn shop in Lerwick, Scotland when we were on a British Isles cruise in May.

I'm going to read The Sheep's Tale by John Lewis-Stempel.

>5 mnleona: Sounds interesting!

Several for me to choose from:
Vanishing Fleece Adventures in American Wool by Sarah Parkes
A Short History of the World According to Sheep by Sally Coulthard

I will also spend a few hours at the library reading as many of the Sheep in a Jeep books that they have.

I'll choose one or more from these titles:
Christopher Russell: The quest of the warrior sheep
Tim Winton: The shepherd’s hut
Andre Alexis: Pastoral

I hadn't expected the naturekit or the culturecat to be quite so detailed in category, so I'm thinking I'm going to just aim to split the year between the two and read one book for one or the other each month. I've actually got a bit of a phobia of sheep, so I won't be joining you all this month, but I'm curious to see what choices come up!

>8 Tess_W: Now that brings back memories! I must have read Sheep in a Jeep every night for years!

Tess, I'm curious what prompted you to decide on this topic?

(I won't likely have time to pick out what I'll be reading in January until sometime next week, so I'm not sure yet what I'll pick up for this.)

>12 LibraryCin: Actually, I just finished a book recommended by Jackie on sheep and shepherding, so the topic stuck in my mind!

>13 Tess_W: Ah, thank you. I wondered if you worked with sheep or something, but just an interest that came up via another book!

Can't see anything relevant on my TBR and wishlist shelves so I will skip this one. But I'm still interested to see what other people come up with.

>8 Tess_W: - I took a BB last year for Vanishing Fleece and I'll be reading this also. We'll have to compare notes. Also works for the ColorCat which is nice.

>9 VivienneR: Neat! I really enjoy Alexis and particularly loved Fifteen Dogs. I may join in with Pastoral

Wisdom of Sheep is my tentative pick for now! Inner lives of sheep, sounds great to me.

Wondering if I can sneak The Farmer's Wife by Helen Rebanks in here? I have read all of James Rebanks' books about sheep and this is about their life on the farm. Thinking it fits?

>20 JayneCM: Go for it! I prefer fluid CATS!

>21 Tess_W: Thanks! I'm sure there will be mention of sheep in there as well as home life.

I plan to read Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon.

I'm a Knitter and have recently read and loved James Rebanks' The Shepherd's Life, and a little longer ago both Clara Parkes' Vanishing Fleece and Sally Coulthard's A Short History of the World According to Sheep. (I think I read all of these in audiobook form)

I didn't know about Helen Rebanks' book! Thanks JayneCM! I'll try to read either that one or The Lost Flock by Jane Cooper.

I think I will also go with The Wisdom of Sheep.

I just finished this. It's not something I would have picked up on my own and I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would.

>1 Tess_W: Thanks for the interesting topic!

I have Sylvia's Farm: The Journal of an Improbable Shepherd in my physical TBR stack, so I'll be reading that.

Signing up for Vanishing Fleece as well.

Just finished The Quest of the Warrior Sheep by Christine Russell and Christopher Russell
Five sheep, all from rare breeds, live on an idyllic English farm. One day a cell phone drops out of the sky (actually from a hot-air balloon) and the sheep see it as a message that the Great Lord Aries needs their help and this is the baaton that will lead them. They go on an excellent adventure that proves to be an exciting yet endearing story. And OhMyGrass! I loved the sheep words. Middle-grade readers will love this hilarious novel.

Somewhat obliquely, I am currently reading Clear by Carys Davies, set in the Highland Clearances, when people were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands so that the land could be turned over to sheep farming.

I read A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm by Phillip Keller In this book the author tells the story of the 23rd Psalm from the Shepherd's point of view.

I have read If Clouds Were sheep: A tale of sheep farming in the Cotswolds by Sue Anderson. I think it's easier to explain the book if I just copy my review. I rated it 3.5*

This is a memoir that follows Sue and her husband Aubrey from meeting as young adults through years of hard work establishing a successful farm in England (Gloucestershire) . It was a slow start because they had very little money and both worked full time away from the land they rented. Sue gives a detailed account of what raising sheep requires and tells the good, the bad and occasionally the funny. Through the years, not only did they build a successful farm, they also became known internationally as respected breeders of Tesla sheep. My only problem with the book was that it didn't follow an easy to understand timeline. I think because Sue had written for county magazines and other publications these tales may have been patched from those. Regardless, I enjoyed reading about their farm lives and may read more of her books.

Pastoral by Andre Alexis
This is an allegory, a fable, conveying mythical elements. It’s a contemplative book said to be an homage to Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral, and each chapter follows the five movements of the symphony. Although, recognizing that both book and symphony signify a celebration of living close to nature was as far as I got to understanding the connection. Father Pennant, the new priest from Ottawa finds himself in unfamiliar territory when he is assigned to a small town in Ontario and his own parish to “shepherd”. The miracles of nature he experiences eventually lead to an unresolved crisis of faith. Having grown up in small town Ontario, Alexis imbues an authentic and rich sense of place.

The Wisdom of Sheep

I suppose the subtitle should have clued me in that this wasn't a scientific enquiry on the psychology of sheep. It was a collection of observations, quotes, and sometimes political rants from a family farmer, and probably less than half the book was about sheep. I was rather disappointed by the lack of cohesion in the book overall; many of the anecdotes seemed to end abruptly, mention details that seemed irrelevant, or veer into non-sequitur, and I couldn't figure out the logic in the order of the entries, which skipped around in chronology, tone, and subject. The politics, when they were brought up, were sometimes contradictory, and often so heavy-handed I could barely get through them, even when I agreed with the author, and the pseudoscience that occasionally graced the pages, such as sending unpasteurised milk to a recipient who had serious autoimmune conditions because 'she needs stress-free foods,' shocked and disquieted me.

However, the prose of the author was incredibly vivid and evocative, at times even poetic. Most, though certainly not all, of the entries were about cosy, down-to-earth, honest farm living. I did learn some things about sheep (and cows). The book is divided into very short 'chapters,' the longest of which, in my edition, were perhaps four pages long, which made for perfect bite-sized reading, and the book overall was just a little over 200 pages, made considerably shorter by quotes, poems, or short entries which took up only half a page and were formatted with ample blank space.

Here's February's Thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/367657

I finished Sheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep, and Enough Wool to Save the Planet by Catherine Friend. It was funny, and I may look up her other memoir, Hit by a Farm.

The Wisdom of Sheep / Rosamund Young
2.25 stars

The author runs an organic farm. These are little anecdotes.

The book started well – a bit of her biography/background. But then it got into chapters of (sometimes odd, in my opinion) anecdotes. Some chapters were just a poem or a quote from literature; some were about other critters (not sheep) such as frogs, insects, butterflies, birds. Many chapters (maybe more than the ones about sheep?) were about cows. (Some of) the chapters on cows and sheep were the most interesting to me, but often she’d also throw in more literary references and other things that just were odd to me. There were some nice little illustrations and it was a very fast read.

I've finished reading Vanishing Fleece; Adventures in American Wool by Clara Parkes. She examines how wool makes it from a farm through the manufacturing process by buying a bale of wool and following it to various manufacturers of wool.

The Lord God Made Them All / James Herriot
3 stars

This is another of English veterinarian James Herriot’s books about his practice during the mid-20th-century in rural England, mostly working with farm animals. Amidst the usual anecdotes about various critters, he did a couple of long trips (one on a ship to Russia), tending to the animals aboard during the trips.

I listened to the audio, so there was a bit too much that I missed to be able to rate it higher. Most of what I heard was enjoyable. There were tidbits included about his family and kids, as well.

It's maybe a little bit of a stretch, but I'm including Short Stories by Jesus by Amy-Jill Levine, since the chapter on the Good Shepherd talks about sheep and how shepherds were viewed in Jewish society 2000 years ago.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to get to my pick for January, John Lewis-Stempel's The Sheep's Tale. It's quite a short book though, so I'm keeping it on the pile and will review here when I eventually get to it.

I am really late posting this. I read Vanishing Fleece by Clara Parkes. Interesting to read about her project/business from start to finish.