An evening at Half Moon Hill
A small group of grazers gathered at Gerrid and Sadie Franke’s farm last Thursday evening to check out the herd of sheep living on one of the many picturesque pastures sprawling across northern Marathon County.
Half Moon Hill, located off CTH A in the town of Hamburg, has been the home for the Frankes’ sheep for the past 16 years. The couple currently graze 25 ewes with 21 lambs on their 21 acres of pasture.
The husband and wife team started their grazing operation from the ground up.
“We had nothing,” Sadie said. “This was an open field with no fencing. We didn’t have a barn, so we had to literally build everything and seed the pasture, which was a cornfield.”
Gerrid and Sadie said they have made plenty of decisions they later regretted, but each misstep taught them a new lesson. They’ve also had to adjust their plans as they go, experimenting with different kinds of clover and grass.
“It’s not our full-time gig, so stuff that should get done sometimes never gets done,” Gerrid said, laughing.
Over time, Sadie said their pastures have become more “naturalized,” allowing a diverse ecosystem to develop that produces both helpful and harmful foliage.
“We have a lot of thistle and stuff, but we’re working on that,” she said. “That’s one of our challenges.”
Brooke Bembeneck, conservations analyst for Marathon County Conservation, Zoning and Planning (CPZ), helped facilitate last Thursday’s pasture walk, asking the hosts questions about their operations and encouraging conversations among the other grazers learning the trade.
When Bembeneck asked the Frankes what inspired them to get into grazing, the couple said it took them awhile to settle on a purpose for their land.
“When we bought this place, we actually had no intention of farming,” Sadie said. “We did not know anything about farming.”
The couple tried growing grapes and then started thinking about what kind of animals they could raise.
“I knew we couldn’t do cattle,” Gerrid said. “We didn’t have enough acreage.”
Sadie said they didn’t realize the potential of grazing until they started working on a plan with the Farm Service Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
“We didn’t know anything about grazing to be honest. We just kind of fell into it,” she said. “When we learned about it, we were like ‘This is the best thing ever.’ It just worked for us.”
Sadie said they were able to pay for a lot of their fencing and other infrastructure using NRCS grants, “which are the only reason I think we have a farm.”
“That was instrumental for us,” she said. Bembeneck said NRC grants are still available, along with cost sharing through Marathon County, to help grazers get started and grow their operations.
“That seems to be a big barrier for people to get into grazing, because it is a big capital expense upfront – for the fence, the water lines, the winter waterer, the animals,” she said. “That’s a lot.”
Gerrid said he had always been “conservation- minded,” so grazing was a natural fit for him.
“I think I was born that way,” he said. Gerrid said they would love to raise sheep full-time, but they would probably need 80 acres or more to make it profitable enough. At this point, though, the number of sheep they have allows them to rotate once every two days, which fits in with their busy schedules.
By allowing their grass to grow tall before the sheep graze, a lot of residual plant matter is left behind on the field, but Gerrid said they prefer it that way.
“I feel a messy pasture is the best pasture, because if you look at the natural world, any natural grassland or woodland, it’s messy and it’s just teaming with life,” he said. “We have bugs, we have a heron that comes every day, we have cranes that come and hang out at least every few days. If we had any other kind of farm, they wouldn’t be here.”
