Tis the season to be jolly, Fa La La La…….After a bit of bribery and a whole lot of cajoling on my part I convinced my lovely children to help stack and put in more than 5 cords of wood this past Sunday.  One might ask how I was able to get so much work out my two little cherubs and the answer is simple.  I promised to put the Christmas tree up when we finished our chores .

This would be how I found myself wandering down memory lane with the girls pointing out the history of every little Christmas ornament we have collected over the years.  Surprisingly enough tucked in between fly fishermen, ballerinas, an outhouse with a wreath, and even a fishing creel full of beer were several special sheep ornaments that have been given to me over the years.  My favorite is a funny faced bobble-headed sort of sheep that almost looks as if he is laughing at everyone as he stares out from the tree.  Given to me by a special aunt he reminds me of a few of my old ewes over the years that have occasionally escaped the vaccination pen.

Many of my favorite Christmas decorations have been those that were handmade by someone special in my life or picked up on a wonderful trip.  They are items which help to tell a story of the eras of my life, hence the outhouse and beer reminiscent of a Jeff Foxworthy joke.  It is a story that now spans a few decades and a number of ever-changing fads, but in the end one thing has remained constant….my ever growing family of sheep peeps.

Check out these great ideas for sheep ornaments that you can share with your special sheep peeps.

http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/woolly-sheep-663716/

http://www.ehow.com/how_4626732_make-christmas-ornament-corks-wool.html

http://novapages.com/ideablog/ideas/sheep-ornaments/

As I go about my daily chores and mentally try to summarize the key points of the OSGA meeting this past weekend, one word keeps coming to the forefront of my thoughts:  Protein.  With that said it is a bit reminiscent of when I started teaching straight out of college.  Bright eyed and bushy-tailed, I was ready to conquer the world and fortunately I had been armed with an arsenal of key buzzwords that in turn helped me successfully land my first job quickly and efficiently.

With the word “harvest” now almost obsolete, the word “protein” is now stepping into the limelight.  Why all of the fuss about a new word to describe meat?  Well perhaps it is the public’s limited knowledge of true production agriculture mingled with their tendency for leaning towards political correctness.  Or quite possibly it is a more formal term to describe something a bit more common, but either way the just of the matter is based on many of the speaker’s comments at this weekend’s conference  referred to  “protein production” as the key to our success in the future.

Tie that with a recent report entitled 2012 Proteins Forecasted to Gain, on page 6 of the December 2011 Issue of the Sheep Industry News  ( http://sheepindustrynews.org/ ) and it makes one excited to be a part of the livestock industry.  As this article points out US consumer spending has actually gone down in recent, however the percentage of spending on proteins has actually went up, thus concluding there is more of a lean towards choosing  meats, or might I say proteins over starches and sugars.

Based on the new Oregon State University Department Head of Animal Science and Rangeland Sciences John Killefer’s comments this past weekend, the trend towards adding more proteins into ones diet is not only something catching on in America, but also globally.  With the worldwide population slated to grow significantly in the next twenty years, as well as the increase in worker’s wages in a number of developing countries there is a greater consumption of proteins than ever before.

The National Lamb Feeders’ Association President Don Gnos after a trip to the recent international Tri-Lamb Conference  perhaps summed the changes in the global consumption of “proteins” up best when he noted, “It seems like the first thing a man wants to do when he gets money is eat better.”  To many better is the consumption of more meats or proteins int the diet.

So how does this affect those of us raising sheep in Oregon?  Bottom line greater demand for lamb and other proteins worldwide is helping to drive up the cost of lambs here in the US.  With population numbers hitting an all time high and agricultural land continuing to be in decline, basically farmers are going to have to become more efficient in the production proteins with less resources.

This is one area in which Killefer appeared to think Oregon State University could excel by providing crucial data to help farmer’s and rancher’s meet the rising worldwide nutritional demands.  However one might wonder how he plans to accomplish such a big task of acquiring research data for the sheep industry when the university is already considering cutting a great portion of the sheep enterprise out of the budget.

Killefer’s answers appears to lie in the use of flocks throughout the state to partner with the shepherds and state organizations to lock in funding and resources to gather crucial data.  How that plan looks is yet to be unveiled, but as of now we at least have another buzzword to load into our arsenal of creative conversational topics to market to the public.