Timeless climb, steadfast,
hefting pack of sleeptime sand
up Sandman Mountain
After we finished shearing the sheep in early May, we stored the wool bales in a shed at Cottonwood. In early August, the wool buyer sent a truck so we could load the bales and send them to San Angelo. They will eventually make their way to Italy to be turned into fine woolen clothing. We loaded the bales, two high, onto the skid steer, then drove them to be loaded onto the flatbed trailer of the semi. We loaded 102 bales. The driver strapped them onto the bed, then secured tarps over the whole load. We had a great crew, all working together to get the job done.
Each spring, the yearling ewes graze in the Badwater pasture, south of Interstate 80, until it’s time to hit the trail south and east to their summer grazing grounds on the Medicine Bow National Forest. It’s a high allotment, and the snow has lasted longer than usual on the forest. The ewes travel five-ten miles per day for some sixty miles or so. This year, they trailed part of the way down the highway instead of on the traditional back country trail..
Trailing down the highway requires flagging front and back. We do this with one pickup pulling the sheepwagon behind and another vehicle in front, both with flashers and flags. Alejandro, the herder and another person on foot push the sheep. Alejandro is followed by his faithful Border collies, and Solano, his pet sheep. We try to stay in the right of way to make it easier for traffic to pass.
We spent two days trailing down Highway 789, overnighting on BLM land proximate to the road. Lots of people stop to take photos and ask questions, so it provides us with a teaching moment. We were happy to put in at the Dad/JO road and get onto the backcountry trail. We trailed onto our pastures north of Dixon, then east on the Savery Stock Driveway to the Blake allotment in the Forest. Alejandro, his ewes, his dogs and Solano will rotationally graze until our off-date in late September.
Summer is here, and we are crazy busy with cattle, sheep, horses, and lots of folks! We have a great crew this summer. Here’s some pics of these summertime days.
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May and June bring us lambs, and lambs mean docking–cutting the tails, castrating the males, eearmarking,vaccinating and paint branding. This requires our crew to gather the ewes and lambs into portable corrals, which we move to the various areas on the lambing grounds. We sort the lambs into a smaller pen, then carry them, one by one, along an assembly line where they are prepared for their future lives without tails. The last stop is a paint brand. This year we have an exceptional multi-national crew, which includes Peruvians, Mexicans, South Africans and Americans, including our grandchildren and employees. We have had fair weather and great lunches. Soon the ewes and lambs will be ready to trail to their summer pastures on the forest.
After months of being in landscapes out of sync with where the ewes are used to being, they are at last on the lambing grounds during lambing season. They are happy and we are happy.
Spring shearing is always an adventure. This year, we planned to shear a little later than usual, since we had put the bucks in with the ewes a few days later than usual. Our shearing crew comes from California, and they told us they would be a few days late (surprise!), due to persistent rains in California.. This year we didn’t have to worry about trailing to the shearing pens on time, since the ewes have been near them since late January, when we trucked out of the Red Desert. Still, when our crew showed up, we were just a few days away from the beginning of lambing.
The rains showed up the same day that the shearers set up,. We gathered up every tarp we could and draped them over the wool handling area. We have good sheds at Cottonwood, where we were to shear, so were able to put the ewes in to stay dry. Wet sheep can’t be shorn. The moisture ruins the wool if it’s packed, and the shearers won’t shear wet sheep because it leads to “wool pneumonia.” Between the sheds, the tarps and our intrepid crew, we got all the ewes with the “main line” wool done at the Cottonwoold pasture. Since that is also our lambing grounds, the ewes, who were starting to lamb by the time we were done, just moved right onto their lambing pastures.
We moved onto shearing the yearling ewes, who had spent the winter at Powder Flat. We moved the shed, the shearers and our crew and were able to finish the yearlings in one day. Riley, our friend and former ranch cook, supplied the meals, delivering them each day to where ever we were. Her tasty meals kept everyone going
I haven’t put up many posts this winter, mostly because it has been so overwhelming. 2022-2023 is one for the record books, not just for us, but all the way from Elko, Nevada to Rawlins, Wyoming. All of Wyoming, and parts of surrounding states were hit pretty hard. Interstate 80 was closed 55 times between October and early March. It seemed like every time they opened the interstate, someone died.
As this blog shows, we had to evacuate our sheep in January and early February from their usual wintering grounds on the Red Desert to safety on our hayfields north of Dixon. Normally, they spend December to mid-April grazing on the Cyclone Rim and Chain Lakes allotments before heading down the trail, first to the Badwater Pasture south of Creston Junction, then on to the lambing grounds near Dixon. Often we are worried about finding enough water and snow drifts along the trail. If the shearers show up on time, we usually shear at Badwater. If they are delayed, we set up the traveling shearing sheds on the lambing grounds. Sometimes a few lambs show up by the time we finish shearing.
This year our cows wintered on a friend’s ranch near Laramie. Who’d have guessed that Laramie would have a relatively mild winter with not much snow.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we were buried. The Snowtels were measuring record snowfalls. The story that the Snowtels (measuring devices for snow and water content located high in the mountains) didn’t tell is the amount of snow falling in the lower country. The wildlife normally spend the summers in the mountains where there’s lots to graze. That’s where our cows and sheep spend the summers as well. In the fall, we all move down together.
In 2022-2023, the snowpack was “inverted.” It piled up in the lower landscapes where the deer, elk and antelope can usually dig down to dried grasses and be sustained through the winter month. Usually, especially on the high desert, winds blow the snow into drifts and leave bare ground for grazing. This winter, it started snowing in mid-December, then warmed up briefly allowing the surface to turn to liquid, then ice. This formed a solid layer which the animals couldn’t penetrate with their hooves.
We usually turn our rams in with the ewes on about December 13th. We were worried because we had to wait a few days since the roads were closed. I said, “Well, if it’s a stormy spring, we’ll be glad to be lambing a few days later.” Little did we know how prescient those words would be.
As chronicled in earlier posts, the ewes spent the winter on full feed on our snow-buried fields. We have brought in truckload after truckload of alfalfa to keep them alive. Family, employees and friends have done an heroic job. Some of the neighbors fed elk alongside their cattle, and we even had Greater Sandhill Cranes picking alfalfa alongside the sheep.
Deer and antelope are not very adaptable in their diet. They cannot digest hay and alfalfa, and we have watched them die. Now that the snow is finally melting, we find their emaciated bodies alongside the roads and piled under Juniper trees. Some few deer have survived by staying in town and foraging there.
It has been a slow warm-up so far. This is generally good because it slows down the flooding, but much of the snowpack is still in the mountains. We pray for warm days so the grass will finally come, but not too warm so we’re not inundated. Water managers in the Lower Basin States of the Colorado River are happy as they anticipate the runoff. However, Mother Nature is taking her due, soaking runoff into drought-dried soils, and evaporating into the sky. Even so, we hope to see significant rises in reservoirs large and small.
Today, I was in the feed store in Craig. An older gentleman, there loading up bags of feed, said “It sure is a nice day.” I agreed. It made me look around and appreciate it.
I went inside to sign the ticket and chatted with a young lady, there to pick up calving supplies.
We commiserated and told war stories about the winter. She told me about the scores and scores of dead deer, antelope and elk that she had counted along the roadside.
She said that she and her husband had thrown valuable alfalfa to antelope sheltering in a draw near their home. “They’re all dead now,” she said.
Finally, finally, most of the ground is bare and we are seeing a green sheen on the pastures and hillsides. The surviving deer, antelope and elk are looking a little better as they are able to forage. Most of them will make it now.
As for the sheep, they too will look a lot better once the green grass comes.
I hope now to spend the next months posting about sunshine, grass, lambs and great weather.