The lights still brighten the night, and my heart. We haven’t taken them down because the cords are still snowed under. They have been glowing continuously for three months.
Category Archives: Events
Lions on the Little Snake
The other day, Meghan looked up and saw a mama mountain lion and her kitten in a tree. We know we have lions, but I always say, “We don’t see the lions. The lions see us.”
This time, she got lucky.
Another tough winter
winter wagon, LaClede
We have had a challenging winter, so far. Last winter found our sheep trapped on the winter sheep permit on the Red Desert. We could not get them out, and we could barely get feed in to them. We had a good crew on the ground, and managed to keep everyone alive and well until the snow started going off in early March and we could move the sheep out to graze. We were able to trail to spring country, the shearing pens and the lambing grounds. This year, the winter has come early and snowy and cold. Two bands of ewes trailing to the winter country on the Red Desert were caught by storms and we had to break trail with the tractor in order to stay on the designated BLM trail. We decided to move the third bunch to leased ground to the south, on a permit called LaClede after an old fort. The early storms have not quit, and the winter feed, usually available as the wind blows the sage flats clear, is buried. We have piles of snow in the north country, and in LaClede.
We learned of sugar beets in northern Wyoming, which had not been harvested due to s severe October freeze. After aligning a lot of moving parts, we have made the decision to lease fields, truck sheep, move sheepherders, wagons, and dogs to beet fields and crop aftermath. The fields are farther north, but 2000 feet lower, and offer us the means to nurture our animals through the winter months. We have trucked the ewe lambs and some of the ewes, with more to follow this week.
Siobhan counting the bucks
Chica supervising feeding the sheep
waiting for the cake
sunrise at Powder Flat, waiting for the trucks
The Sandman on Christmas Eve
Sandman Mountain
Laden with stone pack,
Mr. Sandman waits for the call
From Santa. He’ll fly!
Almost Solstice
morning contrail over Sheep Mountain
Winter solstice seeks
Southern-most arc of sunrise,
craving darkness‘ end .
almost solstice sunrise
Ready to brand
Bringing in the cows and calves
It finally stopped raining long enough to allow us to brand some calves. Clouds were threatening, but with lots of good help, we got through them. They were, as my Dad used to say, “Big enough to get ahold of.”
cows checking the clouds
Eamon watching Jeff chase the errant cow
Jeff bringing her in
Jeff and Mike watching the calves
Ladder Ranch
