Chandler counting cows through the gate
October is one of our busiest months. The cows and calves, and the ewes and lambs, along with yearlings of both species, have spent the summer on the Medicine Bow and Routt National Forests. Our off-date is October 1st, so we stage the bands of sheep and gather all the cows we can find and bring them down to pastures near the Home Ranch headquarters. It has been a warmish fall and some of the cows are hiding out. Eamon and the cowboy crew have been backriding every day, but the best incentive is cold weather, which reminds the cows that it’s time to get the heck out of the Forest. We migrate along with the deer and elk as instinct draws the critters downward. This time of year, all the sheep and all the cattle are close to home. We work them through the corrals. The lambs are separated from the ewes. Often we sell the lambs this time of year, but this year we still have feed so we will keep them a little longer. The lambs are weaned and switched to a different bunch. The calves will be with their mamas a couple of more weeks, and then it will be time for them to be sold, as feeders or as replacements. It’s noisy as night, as the newly weaned lambs and calves call in the night, and the guard dogs who are now close to home bark all night to warn us of various impending dangers. To be fair, usually the coyotes are howling which makes the guard dogs even more on alert than usual. Tomorrow, we’ll start the sheep on the trail to our fall pastures, some 20 miles to the west.
Meghan, bringing down the cows
lambs in the corral at sunrise
Hampshire ewes hanging out with the bucks for March lambing
Theo working sheep
at the Home Ranch corrals
cattle in the Big Meadow
yearling ewes in Loco Canyon, with guard dog
fall colors with the Petite Tetons (the Mountain Formerly Known As Squaw)
Tags: .Petite Tetons, Battle Mountain, Chandler Winn, Loco CanyonHome Ranch, Meghan Lally, Squaw Mountain, Theo Moree
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
Tags: AG Kawamura, Bridger Peak, flat tire, orphan lamb, Pat, Tiarnan
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
Tags: Alejandro, livestock guardian dogs, Medicine Bow National Forest, Savery, sheep, Tiarnan, yearling ewes
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
Tags: Cherry Grove, docking, ewes, lambs, Seamus, sheep
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
Tags: Border collies, Eamon, Edgar, llamas, Megan, Meghan, Modesto, shearing, sheep, wool
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
Tags: ewes, I80, Red Desert, Rodewald, sheep
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
Tags: calves, ewes, Hampshire lambs, heifers, Powder Wash, Red Desert
moonset at Powder Wash
The yearling ewes have wintered in the Powder Wash country. We decided to move them some 100 miles or so north, where the running age ewes have spent the winter. We need to have everyone (almost) together for next month’s shearing. We had to start early in the morning to get the trucks loaded and one their way.
loading the trucks at Powder Wash
ewe and lamb near the Bob Terrill corrals
yearling ewes waiting to load
rider keeping an eye on the yearlings
guard dog and yearlings, Powder Mountain
a girl and her dogs
horses and guard dogs, moving too
unloading at Cyclone Rim
yearling exiting the truck
making themselves at home at the Cyclone Rim base camp
the guard dogs are happy!
Tags: Cyclone Rim, guard dogs, Powder Mountain, Powder Wash, trucks, yearling ewes
Hampshire ewe and lamb
It’s March, so it must be lambing season at Powder Flat. We raise our own rams, and have a farm flock of Hampshire and Rambouillets–known as the “early lambers.”
Here’s a look at this busy time. We are glad that our intrepid Peruvian crew is on the job. Several of them just came back from a few months at home.
It’s also time for the cows who have spent the winter in balmy Laramie to come home.
Ladies in waiting
Hampshire and Rambouillet ewes
twins!
Tiarnan practicing child labor
whiteface ewe with crossbred lambs
bring in the cows
cows at Powder Flat
lambs, lambs, lambs!
Tags: cows, ews, Hampshire, lambs, Powder Flat, Rambouillet, Tiarnan
Hampshire ewe with her triplets
Baby lambs arrive,
new mamas lick and snuffle.
The season begins.
Hampshire with new twins
Rambouillet mama with baby
Tags: ewes, Hampshire, lambs, Rambouillet
Ladder Ranch
