Shadows
As the elk and the deer
head down from summer’s grass
calves and fawns by their side
we gather cows, their calves and
hope for good weather.
We hook up the sheep camps,
move our community of critters—
ewes, lambs, dogs, horses.
The shepherds shift from early mornings,
lazy afternoons, fights with bears
and coyotes—
trying to find a camp spot among
tourists, campers, refugees from Covid.
At home, we stage the sheep, bringing them
bunch by bunch to pastures,
to the corrals
For sorting, for judging who stays,
who goes, some to the desert
some to farmers with soft fields and warm barns.
Lambs climb onto trucks—
first the heavies, born early,
next the lights,
and finally the peewees
headed for corn and lower country.
Now we follow the migration.
ewes trailing down from the Routt Forest
past the Bull Pasture
KIm supervising
Meghan at the sorting gate
lambs
under the sun
Anthony working the chute
ewes after sorting
Meghan loading the truck, with help
lambs loading on truck
Pepe and Oscar bringing them up
Pepe. Edgar and Bubba
Ladder Ranch
Martha Kennedy
October 30, 2020 at 8:14 PM
Beautiful. Here, too. The black Angus cattle are down from the high country and the stoical and sweet Great Pyrenees who lives with them has come back, too. I love “my” farms, those along the road to the Wildlife Refuge where I walk with Bear. They don’t know all the good will that emanates from me to them as I pass by, how happy I am to see them. No sign of elk, yet, but mule deer are around now. I’ve seen them often.