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Category Archives: Animals

Adventure trip with AG

14 Aug

AG and Pat with the handyman jack

Our friend AG Kawamura came to visit us from California, and to represent Solutions from the Land at the AgroForestry tour Pat organized. He had an extra day and we wanted him to have a true range agriculture experience while he was here. AG raises strawberries, green beans and other tasty commodities, so he is a true farmer, but had never tended sheep camp before.

Sure enough, as we were pulling the sheepcamp up the VERY rocky road to Bridger Peak, we heard a bang, followed by dust billowing out to the side. Soon we were looking at a really really flat tire. We had a handyman jack and a spare tire (and Alejandro’s pet lambs, Susan and Cunadita) in the back of the truck.

After a lot of jacking by AG, Pat and Tiarnan, they managed to get the flat tire off and the spare tire on. I was indeed helping by sitting in the driver’s seat with my foot on the brake.

Pat and Tiarnan taking a turn

AG and Tiarnan removing the lug nuts

a teaching moment

AG with the spare, and Susan the lamb

Susan supervising

 
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Posted by on August 14, 2022 in Animals, Family, Folks, Folks who help us out, Sheep

 

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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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Lambs losing their tails, gaining vaccine

16 Jun

ewes and lambs on Cherry Grove

We’re almost done lambing and it’s time for docking      the lambs and getting everyone ready for trailing and summer’s grazing on the Routt and Medicine Bow National Forests. Sheep are naturally long-tailed, and if those tails are not cut short early in life, they can have problems later with manure and flies. The assembly line process also includes earmarking, castrating the males, vaccinating for diseases and a stamp with a paint brand. The ewes also receive a fresh brand and everyone is counted. We usually run two docking lines with all hands on deck, and bring up a hot lunch and plenty of cold drinks.

ewes and lambs ready to go

docking crew working two lines

Seamus vaccinating

hats and lunch

after docking

 

 
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Posted by on June 16, 2022 in Animals, Events, Family, Folks, Folks who help us out, Sheep

 

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Branding Time

05 Jun

McCoy bringing in a calf

 

 

It’s that time of year again. We have lots of baby calves who need vaccines, brands and earmarks before they head up to the Forest with their mothers. We have a great crew this year. Everyone knows how to work together to minimize stress on both cattle and people.

 

calves gathered in the Elephant Corral

Bubba, Tiarnan and McCoy bringing in the calves

Siobhan at the ready

Rhen on the water tank

Bubba and McCoy

branding crew

McCoy and Eamon

 

 
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Posted by on June 5, 2022 in Animals, Cattle, Events, Family, Folks, Folks who help us out, Friends, Horses

 

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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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Bald Eagle over Ladder Ranch

03 May

 

Bald Eagle soaring

harbinger of this springtime,

portending seasons.

 

 

 

 

 
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Posted by on May 3, 2022 in Animals, Nature and Wildlife, Poetry

 

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Leaving the Red Desert, on to shearing

20 Apr

sheep trailing under Interstate 80

It’s time for us to leave the Red Desert, as we do every year in mid-April. One bunch a day crosses a day apart for three days. This year road construction started on the third day, which meant to sheep had to be escorted by the pilot car. Since the railroad overpass can be dangerous and difficult, we were glad for the assistance. The ewes only have to travel about a mile and a half on WY Hwy 789 before they enter Rodewald’s pasture. Our neighbors, the Rodewalds, let us cross their private land to get to the Badwater Pasture, Shearing starts soon! (Photo credits to Meghan Lally and Linda Fleming

 

off the highway and on to the right-of-way

 

trailing south

Pilot car escorting the sheep

crossing over the railroad bridge

through Rodewald’s gate

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2022 in Animals, Sheep

 

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Spring Scenes

18 Apr

Heifer with six calves at Powder Wash

 

Spring is finally springing. It’s been coldish with intermittent snows. Just when we think it’s going to warm up and grow some grass, another snow storm comes through. Luckily for us, we did not get the calf killing Holy Week blizzards that buried North Dakota and eastern Montana. We got an inch of rain  at the Home Ranch the other night, which took off our covering of snow. Finally, it’s warming up into the 60’s, which is good because we are expecting the shearers in the next few days.

Heifers at Powder Wash reservoir

Heifer babysitting baldie calves

Hamp lambs at Powder Flat

last days on the Red Desert

ewes ready to trail to the shearing pens

 
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Posted by on April 18, 2022 in Animals, Cattle, Sheep

 

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A murder of crows

20 Mar

 

 

A murder of crows
Seeking garbage, guarding trash,
St. Francis keeps watch.

 
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Posted by on March 20, 2022 in Animals, Nature and Wildlife, Poetry

 

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