Monthly Archives: April 2014
Greater Sage Grouse under Muddy Mountain
Pat took our Partners friends to watch Greater Sage Grouse dance on our BLM lambing grounds near Muddy Mountain. According to the Wyoming Game & Fish, it is the largest lek within 3,000 square miles. We told our visitors, “You’re from the Government, and we’re here to help you.”
Spring calves under three mountains
The baby calves continue to arrive, keeping us and their moms busy. We have had, blessedly, a wet spring. We’ve gotten lots of wet overnight snows which melt into the ground the next day. As one of our irrigators said, “God gets all the high spots.”
Luckily, this weather has not been to stormy or windy, so it hasn’t hurt our calving. We did get a really wet snow today. It closed Interstate 80, but aminly gave us more water in the ground and in the streams. Our friends on down the Colorado River should be happy. It was this time last year that we had a killer storm that killed both calves and lambs, so we are grateful for wet weather that’s not too severe.
We are enjoying the return of the birds. Some are migrating through and some are coming to spend the summer. When we check the cows, lots of birds are in attendance. The cry of the Sand Hill cranes accompanies the calls of the mama cows and the baby calves.
Milk on the hoof
If owls are a Parliament, and crows are a Murder, our lambs so far this year are a Plethora. We are grateful for this, but it does mean that we’ve got quite a few “bottle babies.” We were spending a small fortune on lamb milk replacer. Eamon went to the auction and came home with one fresh cow and seven milk goats. McCoy decided he needed to guard them until we could get them unloaded.