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Category Archives: Dogs

Safe and sound, but still snowy

16 Feb

hanging out on the snowdrift

The sheep, herders, dogs, and horses are all safe and sound on our hay meadows near Dixon. All the grass is still buried under snow, but we can get to them with feed every day, and bring alfalfa and cake to them (except when the highways are closed, which is pretty often). It took several more days to ferry all the sheepwagons, panels and other equipment off the Red Desert and to the Dixon ranch headquarters. It continues to be especially brutal in the area we evacuated the sheep from, on the Chain Lakes allotment. Hay prices are high due to demand from impacted livestock producers and state game agencies. These historic winter conditions stretch through northern Nevada, Utah, northwestern Colorado and southern Wyoming. Wyoming’s Governor Gordon has declared an emergency. Spring still looks like a long ways away!

sheep on the plowed lot

guard dog still on the job

ewes, drifts and Muddy Mountain

 
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Posted by on February 16, 2023 in Animals, Dogs, Sheep

 

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January Day at Powder Flat

15 Jan

Powder Flat house in the winter

 

After a series of winter storms brought on by the “atmospheric rivers” hitting California, then flowing on towards us, we have more than enough snow. The Snotel near our mountain headquarters is measuring 160 per cent of average.

Our crew at the Powder Flat headquarters, Edgar and Alejandro, have been doing a great job of keeping all the animals safe and fed.

 

sheep in the corral

solar panels

2022 lambs on feed

winter lambs

Pat with lambs

winter gold

livestock guardian dog on the job

Do Not Enter

 

 

 

“Do Not Enter” the road to Powder Flat from the folks building the power line

 

Maria the llama with her sheepy friends

antelope gathering in a herd–a sign of a hard winter

 

 

 
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Posted by on January 15, 2023 in Animals, Dogs, Family, Folks, Llamas, Sheep

 

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Working the yearlings in winter

27 Dec

Meghan at the Terrill corrals

 

Today was the best day we’ve had in a while to vaccinate the ewe lambs. They are on their wintering grounds near Powder Wash. Last week was bitter cold as a “bomb cyclone” with the unlikely name of Winter Storm Elliot swept down from the Arctic. It caught us on the southern end, and we only had two or three days of wind and terrible cold. It was far worse to the east of us as the storm swept across the Midwest and the Northeast. Today, it warmed up to about 30 degrees, with only some wind, so Meghan gathered up her crew of Eamon, Chandler, Filomeno, and McCoy, Maeve and Rhen to vaccinate Alejandro’s ewe lambs. The ewes on the Red Desert “blew out” as they walked before the wind. The herders waited out the storm in their camps, then found the ewes when the cold and wind died down. The Farmer’s Almanac says we are on the borderline between a harsh winter and a mild one.

coming down the chute

Alejandro with his ewe lambs

Meghan, Filo and Aleja

Meghan with vaccine gun at the ready

time to relax

 

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Posted by on December 27, 2022 in Animals, Dogs, Family, Folks, Peruvian sheepherders, Sheep

 

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Solano and the lambs

16 Nov

Solano with the lambs

 

Faithful readers may recall Solano, the pet lead sheep. Last spring he was featured on this blog as he traveled with his herder, Alejandro, and the yearling ewes on the Savery Stock Driveway. He was sporting a backpack that Alejandro had fashioned for him, though I’m not sure what it held.

He has been hard at work as a lead sheep, helping to convince his more suspicious cohorts to enter the corrals. Here is is with a group of lambs, getting ready to load and head for the feedlot.

Solano will soon rejoin Alejandro and this year’s yearling ewes. Alejandro is anxious to reunite with his pet and co-worker.

Alejandro and Seamus

 
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Posted by on November 16, 2022 in Animals, Dogs, Family, Peruvian sheepherders, Sheep, The Bellwether Solano

 

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Fall Work

09 Nov

Cows in the JO

 

I once told a cook that we were only really busy in the summer. As the year wore on, he commented “I didn’t know summer lasted until November!”

So here we are in November, and it seems like  the fall work just keeps coming. Here’s some pics of cows, calves, ewes, lambs, dogs, horses and folks who help us out.

in the corral

Eamon and dogs at the ready

Casey and Bubba

Eamon, Bubba and Casey having a meeting

ewes and lambs in the Dixon corral

lambs onto the truck, Nevada bound

sea of sheep

Meghan and the loaded truck

beaver dam across Battle Creek

 
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Posted by on November 9, 2022 in Animals, Cattle, Dogs, Horses, Sheep

 

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Sheep camp

22 Oct

sheep camps

I mentioned to some acquaintances that I couldn’t attend a Zoom meeting because I was busy moving sheep camp, it became apparent that they had no idea what I was talking about. However, they applied a humorous interpretation, speculating about what sheep camp might entail. They envisioned sheep playing volleyball, rowing boats, perhaps attending a crafts class. . .. All this made me wish that I were a graphic artist and could sketch sheep involved in summer camp activities. Alas–that is not my skill.

What I am actually doing, along with Meghan, is moving the sheep camps (portable homes) as our herders trail the sheep from the Home Ranch environs to fall pastures north of Dixon, Wyoming. These pastures also happen to be our lambing grounds in May and June. When the ewes left here in late June, their lambs were toddlers. They faced down bears and coyotes as they grazed on the Routt and Medicine Bow National Forests in the summer months. The predators exacted their toll, but the sheep were defended by the herders and the Livestock Guardian Dogs (aka Big White Dogs). Now the sheep return with their almost grown lambs. They will graze on fall pastures on Cottonwood Creek until it is time to trail north to winter country on the Red Desert.

Leo on the trail with the sheep

herder, sheep and Baker’s Peak

Loco Creek

guard dog on the job

along the Savery Stock Driveway

coming down the hill

sheep running under trailer parked on the Driveway

heading for fall pasture

 

 
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Posted by on October 22, 2022 in Animals, Dogs, Folks, Horses, Peruvian sheepherders, Sheep

 

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Heifers on the Move

10 Sep

semi at the chute

 

It’s time to move the heifers to fall pasture at the Home Ranch. We still have lots of green grass, although the leaves are showing some yellow.

guiding the truck in

Eamon and dogs at the ready

in the corral

headed for green grass

 
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Posted by on September 10, 2022 in Animals, Cattle, Dogs, Family, Folks, Folks who help us out

 

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Yearling ewes, and Solano, from Badwater to the Forest

15 Jul

Alejandro on the trail with the yearlings

After lambing, we trail the ewes and lambs to grazing allotments on the Routt and Medicine Bow National Forests, where they find green grass, fresh water, and bears and coyotes. The on-date is the first of July, and we stage the trailing, one day apart–one bunch after another. When the ewes, lambs and herders and settled on their summer grazing grounds,  it is time for the yearling ewes to start on the trail. They have been grazing in the high desert Badwater pasture since shearing in late April. They follow the traditional trails, including the Savery Stock Driveway, to their high mountain allotment in the Medicine Bow.

Solano with his backpack

The yearling herder Alejandro likes to keep an orphan lamb each year, and raise it as a pet. This summer he has two bum lambs, including one which was lost on the trail and picked up by our neighbor, Jock–an avid bicyclist. Alejandro still has his pet from two years ago, Solano. I was startled to see that Alejandro had “repurposed” a dog food bag into a backpack for Solano. I’m not quite sure what he was meant to carry. Solano is quite the sheep. Sometimes he follows Alejandro on his horse, and sometimes he hangs out with the dogs or the sheep. I like to say that Solano is “no ordinary sheep.”

Jock bringing me the lost lamb on his bicycle

Tiarnan with Alejandro’s pet lamb

lamb and Tiarnan

midday break at Loco Creek

Guard dog mom and pups catching a ride

yearlings on the march

 
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Posted by on July 15, 2022 in Animals, Dogs, Family, Folks, Folks who help us out, Peruvian sheepherders, Sheep, The Bellwether Solano

 

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Pollination

29 May

I stand with the bees!
Dandelions’ sweet bounty,
Spring’s ready nectar

 

 

 
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Posted by on May 29, 2022 in Animals, Dogs, Musings, Nature and Wildlife

 

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Shearing at Badwater

04 May

wooly ewes waiting for the shearers

It’s that time of year again. The shearers have shown up and shearing is underway. Each year it takes a lot of moving parts for fleeces to roll off the sheep and into the big bales. Our shearing crew are contractors who come out of California. We are their last client of the season. This is good because they are not under pressure to move on to the next producer, but nerve-wracking because we want to have the ewes shorn in time to trail to the lambing grounds north of Dixon. Lambing starts around May 10th.

We were fortunate with the weather this year. We had a snowstorm right before we were ready to start. The weather cleared and was warmish and nice for most of the week, allowing us to get through the “main line,” as the wool buyers call the running age ewes. The yearlings were next, followed by a brief, but not killer storm–always a worry for freshly shorn sheep.

Our crew packed up their portable shed–the shearing equivalant of a food truck–and moved to Powder Flat. The early lambers and the rams were there, and soon they too had given up their winter coats. Beulan and Maria the llamas were also shorn, much to their spitting disgust, but they are ready for summer.

wooly ewes with wagons

waiting in the corral

shorn ewes, ready to lamb

Frank and Gramps, son and father, on the job

Modesto and Eamon counting sheep

shorn ewes with birds

Edgar with unshorn llamas at Powder Flat

 

shearer at work

Meghan and Maria

Megan with Beulah

Beulah, freshly shorn

the wool packer baling the fleeces

bales of wool

fleeces in line

 
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Posted by on May 4, 2022 in Animals, Dogs, Events, Family, Llamas, Nature and Wildlife, Peruvian sheepherders, Sheep

 

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