Welcome to the Dispatch Archives!
May 20, 2018Welcome to the Dispatch From Mormon Trail Farm Archives! It has been several years now that I have been visiting with my Dad, Clark, about needing a webpage for Mormon Trail Farm. We have discussed it at length, but as it often happens with big projects, it never got much further than those discussions. Trying to get together to work on it as a team…honestly, there were always other things going on and it kept getting put on the back burner. So when his birthday was on the horizon this year, my sister Carrie and I decided to tackle the…
Character Building Weather –Dec 1986
The calendar says November 10 … mid-autumn. But the thermometer says a record- breaking minus eight degrees … def- initely mid-winter! Thouqh my sentiments lie with the calendar on this contradiction, every other part of me must…
Lamb markets –Nov 1986
What has happened to the lamb market? Seems a bit strange in this land where supply and demand rule supreme, that with over eight percent fewer lambs com- ing to market this year than last, we have…
Cost management and the bottom line –Oct 1986
I’ve waxed eloquent before in this col- umn about the feeling of excitement and challenge I have each autumn at the start of another sheep breeding season. I also read alot. And something I read recently in…
Heavy Lambs and Product Promotion –Sept 1986
In the sheep business as with the rest of life, I guess the tendancy is to look else- where for a scapegoat when things go wrong-even when a mirror might show us the real culprit. I was…
Where are all the sheep going? –Aug 1986
Not too long ago, retired Iowa State University extension livestock specialist, Tom Wickersham, wondered out loud in a newspaper article he authored, why sheep numbers have resumed their steady fall in recent years when good prices should…
What Makes a Shepherd? –June 1986
Some thoughts at large this month- as opposed to large thoughts. Somebody asked me recently, after dutifully noting that “not just everybody can raise sheep,” what personality traits were common to good shepherds. I leaned far back…
Check Off, Or Check Out! –May 1986
It seems that’s the rallying cry of agricultural commodity leaders these days as referendums on various “self- help” programs pop up like mushrooms after a summer rain. Last month (March), sheep producers here in Iowa gave 71…
Expectations Fulfilled –Apr 1986
The early lambing season is now istory. It’s something that’s always preceded by tremendous expectation and excitement … and usually followed by relief and, if things go well, satisfaction. Such was the case this year. One of…
Neighborly Relations –Feb 1986
Preparations for the ’86 winter harvest were nearing completion earlier this week when a new crisis arose. The harvest I am referring to, of course, is the early lamb- ing season. The ewes were approaching parturition in…
Back to the Basics –Jan 1986
I’m not sure who it was, but some great person, perhaps an insurance salesman, said, “When all else fails, go back to the basics.” As the New Year fast approaches, I think for me and a lot…
Shovel-Deep Musings
Originally published THE SHEPHERD Magazine December 1985 Dispatch From Mormon Trail Farm Clark BreDahl Whether you’re a religious person or not, I think the fact that the birth of Christ was first made known to shepherds has…
