Running an Errand at Wisteria

The vineyard in spring, with Shenandoah National Park in the background.

Wisteria held its sheep shearing event last weekend - I'll have a post coming up on that tomorrow.  After everything was done, I was visiting with a few of the enthusiasts there, enjoying what was turning out to be a fabulous spring afternoon, when Moussa said he needed to go run an errand.

If you follow this blog, you know I'm up for errands - there is a whole category of posts about them:  just click on the label "agribusiness!"

With the forecast indicating five days of rain during the week ahead, the freshly shorn sheep were not likely to get out of the barn to graze, and the plan was to get a few bales of feed hay to get them through the week.  Moussa calculated six bales would be needed, so we headed over to Patchwork Pastures to pick it up.

Moussa unloading the hay.

Patchwork Pastures is one of the Page County Grown farms, and a part of their venture includes sheep as well.  So we piled into the little Ford Ranger (disclosure: I think a compact pickup like this will suit me well in future agribusiness efforts) and headed over to the Mill Creek area of Page County to pick up the hay.  It turns out that the farm was along the route of the Tour de Page County where the cyclists had been the day before.

Patchwork has a lot of activity underway.  There are chicken and beef operations, as well as the flock of sheep.  I understand they do a little rescue work as well with older animals - I hope to follow-up on this and learn a little more about what's happening with this.

We made short work of collecting the hay and were soon on our way back to Wisteria, unloading the bales into the barn.  Moussa was sure to let the sheep know that the hay had arrived and they would be taken care of during the coming monsoon.

Meanwhile, that just whet my appetite for more agribusiness ventures.