Maeve and the great City Market crew loading groceries
200,000,008 vaccines on April 21st
Meghan receiving vaccine instructions
President Biden announced today that two hundred million Americans have been vaccinated for Covid-19. The Ladder Ranch crew, including Meghan, made that 200,000,008. Most of our Peruvian employees received their second Moderna vaccine. They were glad to get it, as Covid rages in Peru, affecting their families who don’t have access to vaccine. Meghan received her first shot, so we can go into lambing with one less worry. The Carbon County Health Department sponsored the clinic at the Baggs Senior Center.
Thumbs up! The Ladder Ranch crew, post vaccine
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
Greater Sage Grouse dance
Early morning Sage Grouse dance east of Muddy Mountain
Third grade teacher Cindy Cobb is famous for her field trips. The most famous field trip is to see the mating dance of the Greater Sage Grouse, which is amazing. The kids have to show up to the school at 5 a.m. or so to board the bus for the dancing grounds on our lambing grounds. Last year when my grandsons McCoy and Tiarnan were in third grade, they missed the cool field trips because the coronavirus had closed the school, This year, the fourth graders joined the third graders on the trek to see the lek where the male grouse dance and hoot in their attempt to attract the hens. Wyoming Game and Fish Department Biologist Phil Damm accompanied the students on the bus and explained what they were seeing. These kids know the ways of the birds and the bees!
McCoy looking our the bus window
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
Cattle and sheep and dogs, oh my!
Ladder Ranch crew–Rhen, Eamon, Edgar, Leo, Pat
Rhen on the chute after guiding his Dad who was backing up the truck.
Sometimes we have multi-species days. Pat, Eamon, Rhen and Sharon headed to Powder Flat to load heifers on trucks so we could move them to spring country north of Dixon. We are full-on lambing at the Powder Flat headquarters, so there was plenty going on there already.
heifers heading for the truck
Eamon on Aspen, ready to trail up the road
meanwhile back at Powder Flat. . .
guardian dog puppy in training
burning old straw by the lambing shed
Leo and Rhen feeding a bum lamb
Ladder branding iron
Early Lambing at Powder Flat
Hampshire ewe with comfy lamb
Each March, we lamb our purebred ewes, Hampshire and Rambouillet, in the sheds at Powder Flat. We raise our rams for the commercial range ewes from these two farm flocks. Luckily, we have a good crew and the early weather has been mild.
Pat and Edgar with pen for outdoor dining
guard dog hard at work in a circle of ewes
guard dogs on the job
Hampshire ewe and twins
bum lambs in warm straw
Leo feeding the bum lambs
Meanwhile, Maria is hanging out with the bucks
Ladder Ranch
