Heifers and young bulls, Meghan, Eamon, Rhen and Tiarnan
Category Archives: Animals
Spring lambs!
ewes and lambs in State Land pasture
ewes and lambs at Cottonwood
Cottonwood Creek
Pepe checking his ewes
Pepe at Cherry Grove
Branding at the McCullem Place
bringing in the cows and calves
The McCullem Place is part of our Powder Wash ranch west of Baggs. It serves as spring pasture for some of the cows and calves. The homestead era headquarters is mostly gone, so we set up portable corrals, brought in the cows and calves, and processed the calves. These are some of the Akaushi-cross calves so we also had to take a snip of ear to check their bloodlines. We built an old-fashioned fire to heat the branding irons. We had another great crew of family, friends and employees.
Eamon and McCoy
cows and calves in corral
crew getting ready
Karen, Edgar and Eamon
Juan with branding fire
McCoy and Aspen
Sheep Mountain branding
Rhen mounting
It’s branding time! We have lots of baby calves who need brands, eartags and vaccine so that they can be ready to head to the National Forest next month with their mamas. We have a great crew this year, which includes a lot of home-grown child labor. Sheep Mountain is a pasture which we graze spring and fall. Sheep Mountain itself is an extinct volcano which has provided us with rich soil and great pasture.
hard-working crew
Eamon, Rhen, Mike and Karen
Meghan and Mike Buchanan
Rhen bringing in calf on Jake
German and Mccoy
Tiarnan on Sarah
Siobhan multi-tasking
Siobhan and Kathryn
Rhen, Megan and Eamon
Heading South
We are heading south on the sheep trail.
Now that the sheep are sheared, it is time to head 40 miles south to our lambing grounds. Trailing was held up a couple of days by stormy weather, but the moisture was welcome. We are pushing hard to get there before we have too many lambs on the ground. Now it’s time to pray for perfect weather, no predators and green grass!
The ewes are eager to migrate to the Cottonwood lambing grounds.
Pepe has picked up the ewes with early lambs and one guard dog.
A Successful Shearing
shearing underway
2021 shearing went very well. Roland Montemayor’s crew showed up with plenty of shearers and wool handlers, good equipment and on time. The Montemayor crew has sheared for us for several years. We try to shear two weeks or so ahead of lambing, which is easier on the ewes and the shearers, and allows time for the ewes to trail on to the lambing grounds ten pounds lighter.
My only complaint was the howling wind for the first two and a half days. The winds were so strong on the third day that it was blowing the fleeces away. As Meghan pointed out, “The point is to get the wool into the bags.” We called it a day after lunch. We have shut down shearing many times due to weather, but this is the first time we’ve stopped because of high winds. Finally the weather settled down and we were able to finish all the sheep–pregnant ewes, yearlings, the early lambers and the bucks. Roland’s crew moved on and sheared sheep for a couple of our neighbors. Shearing is one of the very most important things we do all year, and it is one which we have little control over since there are so many factors that come into play. Thank you, Roland, Ciro and crew for your good work!
early morning–waiting to get started\
wooly ewes waiting their turn
the first shorn sheep
shearer at work
Tiarnan, Guillermo and Anthony on deck
Siobhan at the chute
packing the wool
wool handler on the run
packing the fleeces into the tromper
guard dog supervising
Thomasa–former bum lamb and newly sheared lead sheep
Pepe processing sheep
lunch line
lunchtime
top hand Julio
bells
Badwater base camp
view through the hatch
shorn ewes: free at last!
Pat and Roland
ewes through the shearing shed
Southering
Ewes ready to leave the Red Desert
We are heading south from the wintering grounds on the Red Desert. The first leg takes us to the Badwater Pasture. The shearing crew has assured us that they will be here in a couple of days, which means we can shear the pregnant ewes at Badwater. This is better for the ewes because they can trail the last 40 miles to the lambing grounds at Cottonwood without ten pounds of wool on their backs. It also means they are shorn well before they start lambing. Some years the shearers are late due to weather, equipment or misadventure, and we see lambs on the ground as we are trying to shear. With luck, all will go well. Stay tuned!
Seamus opening the gate
heading under I80
truck above, sheep below
passing through Creston Junction
between I80 and the railroad overpass
the orange flag alerts oncoming traffic
Joel bringing the ewes over the Union Pacific line (the trickiest part)
through the gate and into Rodewalds’ pasture
Pepe and John at Rodewalds’ gate
Zebra baby calves
Stripes paint baby calves,
spring light sliding through wood slates
promising sunshine.
Spring Fever
spring snow on round bales
bovine shadows
It’s springtime and the livin’ is crazy. After hunkering down for the winter months, we are moving livestock from winter pasture to spring pasture. We are lambing, calving and trying to get all of our livestock charges to where they need to be for the change of seasons. We trucked the yearling ewes, and a few older ewes, from their wintering grounds at Powder Wash to the Badwater pasture. We are seeing the Akaushi cross calves on the ground, after last year’s decision to try these Wagu-type bulls on our Angus heifers. The calves sure are pretty and we’re excited to see what they look like as they grow up.
Akaushi babies at Powder Flat
Pepe, at dawn, ready to load the yearlings
ready for the trucks
guard dog, on the job
guard dog on the truck
Meghan, supervising
yearlings unloaded at Badwater
Alejandro, with his bellwether, Panchito
Bringing the bucks home
Leo getting the bucks ready to load
In mid-December, we haul bucks out to the Red Desert so they may romance the ewes, thus guaranteeing lambs in May and June. “December rams bring May lambs” as the old saying goes.
Now it’s time to bring the rams home so that they may resume their bachelor lives, and create challenges until next December.
Here we are loading rams on the top of the aptly named Cyclone Rim. We are on the Rim seeking snow drifts for water for the sheep. The bucks are still in their working clothes (red powder) which will come off when they are shorn in a month or so.
Welcome home, bucks!
Leo with the bucks
down the chute to the trailer
Pepe, Leo and Seamus
Leo’s camp on Cyclone Rim
Ladder Ranch
