\A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on. Never will a time come when the most marvelous recent invention is as marvelous as a newborn baby. The finest of our precision watches, the most supercolossal of our supercargo planes don’t compare with a newborn baby in the number and ingenuity of coils and springs, in the flow and change of chemical solutions, in timing devices and interrelated parts that are irreplaceable.
An existential question regarding Siobhan
Is Siobhan dressed for Coronavirus?
. . .or trailing yearling ewes up the highway on a cold April day?
Unloading the heifers AKA home school
Hereford heifer comes off the truck.
We brought the heifers, recently gathered at Powder Wash, to the Home Ranch. The unloading crew was Eamon, Rhen, Sharon and Siobhan. Our equipment included a mop in lieu of a “poking stick.” This exercise fulfilled home schooling requirements for animal science, mathematics and physical education.
Eamon and Rhen
Rhen unloading
Rhen and Siobhan
heifers crossing the bridge
green grass is on its way: Pat, Eamon and Rhen
Ace-in-the-Hole, Powder Wash
horses, ready to go
Today, we gathered, trailed and sorted cattle in the Powder Wash. It was a great home-schooling experience for Siobhan, Tiarnan, Rhen and Seamus (helping but camera-shy!). We were joined for a time by three young mustang stallions, evidently kicked out of their herd and looking for friends.
Siobhan, home-schooling
Tiarnan and Dot, one of his home-school teachers
Meghan and Siobhan
heifers, Megan and Rhen
Eamon sorting the heifers
sorting crew, Powder Wash
Cows and heifers trailing up the Powder Wash
Welcome to the world, Emma!
The horse herd welcomes Emma
This morning when we checked the horses, we found that Sarah has a brand new colt! Sarah is a great kids’ horse, so Tiarnan and Rhen were very excited to visit Sarah and her baby. She has a filly, born on my grandmother Emma Terrill Salisbury’s birthday, so of course she is named Emma.
Tiarnan and Rhen checking out Emma
mealtime for Emma
Tiarnan and Rhen opening the gate
Babies on the Ground
Cows and calves, Squaw Mountain
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have lot of new baby calves being born. We’ve had some fresh snow, but the temperatures are decent and the mamas are doing a good job. It warms the heart to see these new babies!
Ames Field
Mamas and babies
Angus cow and calf
Sandhill cranes are here too!
Homeward Bound in the Time of Coronavirus
lining up for the trucks
As our blog watchers know, we have had a horrific winter which made it hard to keep our livestock well cared for. This is the origin of the phrase “animal husbandry.” After a long and trying series of experiences, mostly weather related, we moved both the sheep and the cows to warmer climes. They are now coming home. We are in the season Still Winter/Almost Spring. The Coronavirus outbreak has affected our day-to-day lives less than many, but our big picture economic lives more than many. Still, we live in the day-to-day. We had sent most of our sheep, ewes and rams, to the Bighorn Basin for the winter. The early cold froze the sugar beets grown there, which meant that the beets couldn’t be harvested, but were frozen in the ground. As it happens, sheep can “graze” on sugar beets in the ground, and other crop aftermath. Spring is sort of coming and the deep snow is finally sort of melting. The farmers in the Bighorn Basin, where it is almost 3,000 feet lower in altitude, need to have their fields cleared of sheep so they can be ready to plant the 2020 crops. We began to be worried that the side-effects from Coronavirus would make it hard to bring the ewes several hundred miles south, and home. The truckers are busy hauling essential supplies, and sheep trailers especially are in short supply. What would happen if our sheep, men and dogs were stranded? We have some great trucker friends and were able to organize 17 trucks (same trucks, more than one trip). We had already brought some home earlier, but we had not figured on the unprecedented challenges of a Black Swan event.
ewes and rams
getting the truck ready
eager to go home
brand inspector on the job
Joel and Pepe
Tiarnan supervising (home school)
Pepe and our “landlord” Pasquel
Maeve serving her brownies (Grandma Laura’s recipe) after the last sheep is loaded–more home school
Seamus and Pat with the trucks
Pasquel, Pepe, Joel and Meghan
multiple unloading
Home at last!!!
There’s no place like home
Home at last!
We brought the ewe lambs (coming yearlings) home this week from their winter quarters on the frozen beet fields of Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin. You can see their dirty faces from rooting sugar beets out of the ground. The white-faced Rambouillets look like smut-faced cross-breds with the dirt on their noses. We unloaded them at the Chivington Place, where the snow has finally melted enough to bring them home and allow them to graze. We hope to bring the rest of our ewes back to our country soon. We are still waiting for snow to melt on their BLM grazing allotments.
Off the truck and onto the Chivington Place
unloading
Looking for grass, not beets
Jesus keeping the lambs together
Jesus and the lambs
Ladder Ranch
