The lyrical sounds of a French horn playing Franz Strauss’ 150-year-old masterpiece “Nocturno, Opus 7,” on a sheep farm in northern Michigan is a far cry from the noisy action of a 4-H competition at the Alpena County Fair.

But the small flock of Suffolks at Fall Creek Show Lamb farm, 7 miles outside of Alpena, regularly hear the music, as owner Brian Carter practices for his other role as a musician, who plays internationally.

Carter and his wife, Michelle LaFave, a physician, operate the 35-acre farm, 230 miles northeast of Lansing.

He couples his travel performing with producing show sheep for 4-H members.

Just back from his fourth appearance at the Ischia International Chamber Music Festival on an island in Italy’s Bay of Naples, he was busy returning to his rural role.

“Right now, I am down a little and only have 10 ewes, eight lambs and three rams,” Carter says. “I have been really busy, playing the horn.”

That includes appearing as a soloist at the Vianden International Chamber Music Festival in Luxembourg.

At home, he is principal horn of the Marquette Symphony Orchestra, Gaylord Community Orchestra and Alpena Symphony Orchestra. He also performs with the Marquette Symphony Brass quintet, Northern Winds Brass quintet, Canusa Wind Quintet, Sault Symphony Orchestra, Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra and Midland Symphony Orchestra.

And he’s the conductor of the Tawas Community Concert Band.

But sheep are in his blood as much as his music, and Carter has been selling show lambs for 25 years.

“I don’t sell a lot of club lambs, usually anywhere from five to 10 a year,” he says. “I don’t have a lot of ewes, but the flock I have is all top genetics from Suffolk breeders around the country.”

Profits take second place when it comes to selling champion show lambs.

“I want the kids to be successful,” Carter says. “It’s not really for me; my whole philosophy is 4-H. I try to keep the price down so 4-H kids can afford them and actually make money. I just want to help 4-H kids out.”

They exhibit at the Alpena County Fair and Otsego County Fair in Gaylord, 70 miles west of Alpena.

“Up here, the kids are not going to sell their lambs for a lot of money,” Carter says.

Following through
LaFave says her husband doesn’t just sell lambs and forget them.

“One of the things that Brian does with the show lambs that I like is that when kids come and buy lambs, he’ll go to their farms and help them — see what they are doing, making sure they are feeding them and getting them up to weight,” she says.

“He will go around and shear them. He went to shearing school and knows how to do that.  He will go a couple of times because they need to be slick-sheared for the show.”

Carter says this is part of his commitment to the young owners; he wants them to have a good experience with the lambs.

“I try to have the best ewes I can afford and the best rams I can afford. Hopefully, if I do that, eventually it will come back, and the youngsters will say they want their kids to raise sheep and be in 4-H, and they will pass it on to somebody else.”

Because of the local fair schedule, he usually lambs February to March.

“If we weren’t doing club lambs and just doing meat lambs, we would be lambing a lot later,” Carter says. “Trying to lamb so early, and the [harsh) weather that is up here, makes it very difficult.”

He has set up a lambing area with heat lamps in his barn.

“I have had more success in the last few years since I set up a maternity area,” he says. “The kids will come and pick them around May 1, and I try to have them anywhere from 50 pounds to 70 pounds.”

When Carter first started, he was selling lambs at 40 to 45 pounds, and they grew big enough for the local July and August fairs to about 120 pounds. Now they want the lambs 140 pounds when they are showing them.

“I try to breed a little bit earlier, too, so they get big enough, and I use a commercial lamb starter,” Carter says.

LaFave says, for one reason or another, there are always one or two lambs having to be bottle-fed. “They make pretty good show lambs because they’re pretty friendly,” she says. “The bottle-fed lambs are the ones that end up following you everywhere.”

Carter grew up on a Lansing-area farm that raised shorthorn beef cattle, and before the move to Alpena, he raised show rabbits.

Carter and LaFave, with daughters Kaitlin and Maura, moved to Alpena when LaFave took a job at a local medical clinic.

“I always wanted sheep. And when I got here, it was perfect, but I didn’t plan to show them,” Carter says. “Our oldest daughter was 5. I was in 4-H when I was a kid, so I thought she should be in 4-H.”

But when it came to show time, there was no expert help, with a 4-H leader saying the young girl would figure it out.

“We’re at the fair, and she’s out there, and the lamb is pushing her around, and all of a sudden this guy comes up laughing and smiling and helping her,” Carter remembers.

“His name was Rick Wallen, and I liked that guy. I got to know him. He was a show sheep producer. When I said I need a ram, he said ‘OK here’s a ram.’ I started dealing with him, and he got me really hooked into show sheep.”

LaFave works full time as a physician with a family practice, and now has added hospice and palliative care. She travels a couple hundred miles at any given time, and her husband travels for his music.

Carter also spent 13 years commuting to Gaylord, where he taught band and general music to students at Gaylord Intermediate School and Gaylord Middle School. It was a 140-mile commute.

“That is why he had to cut back his sheep,” LaFave says. “The hard part is trying to keep a sheep farm going when he is traveling, and I am working. I go out and help and do what I can.”

The farm was once more commercial, selling meat into local restaurants and at farmers market, but it’s now becoming more of a hobby.

Carter’s show lambs have won several grand champion and reserve champion market lamb ribbons at the Alpena County Fair, and he presents an annual award for the top 4-H sheep exhibiter.

LaFave says fair winners do not get big money in northern Michigan.

“They might pay $7 or $8 a pound,” she says. “The businesses will buy them to have their name in the newspaper. It is the baker and the grocer and the car dealership up here. We’ve seen amounts more than what they would normally pay for the meat. But then what they do is give the sheep back to the kids right away. The auctioneers let the kids resell them, so people can bid on the same sheep two or three times.”

The youngsters get all that money and sometimes still walk away with the sheep. The Carter daughters did that a couple of times.

Connecting to youth
Back in his youth, when he decided to go into music, Carter also resolved not to be a band director.

“I did not want to work with kids,” he remembers.

But then in Alpena, Carter got to know the Thunder Bay Junior High School band director, who was looking for a teacher’s aide.

“I said ‘OK, I would do it,’ but I didn’t want to work with the kids,” he says. “It wasn’t very long before I realized those junior high kids were kind of fun.”

Then he was talked into getting his teacher’s certification, and at age 42, he went back to school to be a music teacher.

“I liked working with that age group,” he says, sounding almost surprised. “Part of the reason I went into teaching was I wanted to make a difference in kids’ lives. I might inspire somebody to do something good with their lives. It is kind of like that for me with 4-H.”

There was a watershed moment 15 years ago when Carter was running 50 sheep and pushing market lambs, while teaching in Gaylord and commuting three hours five days a week, all while pursuing his music career.

“I sold all my sheep for about year,” he says. “Then I missed them so much I started again.”

Harman writes from Brighton, Mich.