Chapter 11: Best Jest

“Dallas? Heads up, pal. That ranch six abutting your ranch to the south? I bet Emma Schmidt is ready to sell it cheap, if you’re interested. Whatever her bottom dollar offer is, deduct the value of a bull and a dozen pregnant cows, and re-offer. Tell her, I’ll run her cattle down to her, she can have them back, we don’t want them.”

“What’s this WE business, Joey. If I buy the ranch, why would I make you a partner, even a minor one?”

“Because, you’re a cattleman and wouldn’t be caught dead messing with sheep. I can make the ranch six profitable, as a dairy sheep ranch and cheese producer. But I’m all finished with working for nothing.”

“You’re right. I don’t even want to have to smell sheep. I sure as hell don’t want a sheep station alongside me.”

“You’re lucky you’re not downwind like Emma.

“That’s your game? Nasty! When you plot revenge, you’re a stone cold hearted SOB, Joey.”

“Will you deal with her? And me?”

“I’ll talk to her. If the price is very right, I might cut you out a few acres far away from me and close to Emma, for your own sheep cheese enterprise, but I won’t be a partner in it with you. Never!”

“Let me know which way it goes? Thanks. You’re my pal Dallas. I understand you can’t afford to risk sheep taint and expulsion from The Cattleman’s Association. Good luck, and watch it with Emma. She lies and cheats. Gail an I experienced being shit on by her. Bye.”

“That’s sneaky, Joey. Is Dallas really going to buy this ranch? Is there really quicksand and and did you booby trap this ranch?”

“Quicksand? Who knows? I didn’t set booby traps, just snares in Emma’s imagination making her anxious to cut and run, get out from under. Insurance worries over future injury claims and cancellation.”

“That’s mean and conniving!”

“That’s appropriate payback for not paying us our back-pay.”

“Yeah, she’s a miserly old horny bitch. She just wanted to get laid.”

“Well, she’s welcome to that. I’m not sorry I fucked her. She had some good pussy. Why do so many men think they’re expected to only bed beauty pageant contestants? They’re reputation for manliness is so fragile they don’t dare be SEEN squiring fat women, old women, horse faced women, disfigured women, all of whom got warm welcoming pussies. Nonsense! Who’s keeping score?”

“Not every pussy welcomes cocks. Mine doesn’t.”

“You don’t need me to remind you I wasn’t referring to you, Gail. You could enter a beauty pageant with a good chance of winning.”

“Ah, sweetums. What a nice compliment. Smooch!”

“I’m serious, I meant it. Can I have some more smooches for additional compliments? You’re so easy to say lovely things about, because you are so lovely. You can smooch away. Ready to receive.”

“I know you mean it. That’s why it’s so sweet and special. Tell me about your plans of raising sheep? What put the idea in your head?”

“There was this program on PBS from the University of Wisconsin, about dairy sheep farming. About it being big business almost everywhere except in the USA. They had a map showing which states had dairy sheep farms. Most states have only one or two or a few. Florida doesn’t have any. Why not? Mexico has more than a dozen dairy sheep ranches. Florida isn’t any hotter than Mexico.”

“Who would buy sheep milk here?”

“We can make easy cheese from the sheep milk and sell cheese.”

“Yuck.”

“You love sheep cheese.”

“Ridiculous! Never had any, so how could I love it?”

“You mean, it’s obvious you didn’t know it when you were eating and enjoying sheep cheese.”

“I don’t think I want to hear this. Might ruin things for me that I enjoy just fine not knowing where it came from. So don’t tell me.”

“Okay, I’ll say it in such a way so it won’t get too personal for you. The best most expensive imported cheeses are made from sheep milk. I’ll mention just a few. Romano, Feta, Queso Manchego, and Roquefort. Sheep’s milk is nearly twice as rich in fat and solids as cow or goat’s milk. It takes five pounds of sheep’s milk to make a pound of cheese, but nine pounds of goat or cow milk to produce a pound of cheese. Even after making cheese, the left over sheep milk’s whey remains rich enough to make ricotta cheese. Same milk yielding two different cheese batches. Ricotta means twice cooked.

It takes three or more acres of Florida pasture to support one cow, but one acre can support three to four sheep. In addition, sheep mature and breed rapidly, increasing herds rapidly. Sheep frequently drop twins, beginning when a year old, and some breeds can have two litters per year.

Another advantage is, lambs can be bottle fed from day one, never suckling and require only thirty days to wean onto eating grass. Mortality rates are better when controlled identical known sufficient quantities of colostrum and milk substitute are fed each lamb.

The ewe can be milked rather than nursing her lambs, increasing production. Ewes are milked quickly. They only produce about half a gallon of milk each per milking, but can be milked twice a day.

While the milking machine is set 50/50, equal time sucking and resting, same for both cows and sheep, the cows are set for fifty pulses a minute, and sheep at a hundred and sixty or more pulses per minute, more than three times faster. Smaller animals don’t require as stalwart stalls and fencing as heavy cattle do. Cheaper to set up.

The best breed for Florida I believe, is a breed developed in the Virgin Islands called Saint Croix. The St. Croix is adapted to the heat and humidity of a tropical climate, and has well documented parasite resistance, far superior to most other sheep breeds. It is small, with ewes averaging 120 pounds. Rams 165 pounds. We don’t want rams.