Here’s our good Percheron team, which helped us feed the sheep all winter. They are living their best life now, with lots of grass all around. Eamon took them for walkabout recently. They are truly gentle giants.
Here’s our good Percheron team, which helped us feed the sheep all winter. They are living their best life now, with lots of grass all around. Eamon took them for walkabout recently. They are truly gentle giants.
Posted by Ladder Ranch on June 16, 2023 in Animals, Family, Folks, Friends, Horses
Tags: .Petite Tetons, Eamon, Percheron horses, Rhen
Patrick and Sharon O'Toole are ranchers in the Little Snake River Valley on the Wyoming-Colorado border. They represent the fourth generation on the six-generation family ranch. The O'Tooles raise cattle, sheep, horses, dogs and children on their high country ranching operation. The transhumance operation stretches from north of Steamboat Springs, Colorado to Wyoming's Red Desert.
Pat has served in the Wyoming House of Representatives, the Western Water Policy Commission, and is currently President of the Family Farm Alliance, representing irrigators and water users in the western United States. He is active with several conservation and agricultural organizations.
Sharon is a writer and poet. She writes extensively on western issues, and the relationship between landscape, animals and people. She is widely published as an author, essayist and editorial commentator.
Pat and Sharon have three children. Their daughter, Meghan and her husband Brian Lally, live on the ranch with their children, Siobhán, Seamus, Maeve and Tiarnán. Meghan has also served on the Wyoming Board of Agriculture and the Environmental Quality Council, She and Brian are active in community service.
Daughter Bridget lives in Phoenix with her husband, Chris Abel, where she works in health care communications. Chris works in the food distribution business.
Son Eamon and his wife Megan live on the ranch with their sons, McCoy and Rhen. Eamon is a horseman and natural resource manager, and Megan is a flight nurse. Eamon is a member of the Wyoming Beef Council and is active in the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
The blog traces the activities and life on the ranch, from the mundane to the fabulous.
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Martha Kennedy on Sandman Mountain | |
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Martha Kennedy on Loading the 2023 Wool Clip | |
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Martha Kennedy
June 16, 2023 at 8:41 PM
I know it’s silly, but tell them I love and honor them. Without a team of Percherons like that, I don’t know how my mom’s family — 9 kids on the high plains of south/central Montana — would have survived the Great Depression. They pulled the school bus my grandma drove, they pulled the plow and the wagon. They took the Baptists/Methodists to church on Sunday. They helped get hay out to the cows and calves in spring blizzards. Their team looked just like Chief and Commander.
murisopsis
June 18, 2023 at 2:54 PM
Wonderful ode to the strength and necessity of the team of Chief and Commander! Also beautiful photos – love the blue sky!