Our employee, Timeteo, had a lot of experience working with horses in Peru. He is starting to train one of our young horses, whom he named “Speedy Gonzolez”.
Speedy–first offering
thinking about it
Tim’s got him eating out of his hand (or possibly the pan).
meanwhile, back in the corral
making snow angels
I see stripes everywhere.
road near Battle Creek Bridge
white horse and gate
shadows, panels and trees
heifers in the Ames Field
cows on feed line
through the trees
Last June, Pat and I visited the Navajo Agricultural Products Industry (NAPI) farming operations near Farmington, New Mexico. The farm was established by the Navajo Nation to grow crops using water supplied by the Navajo Dam. NAPI boasts the largest contiguous farmland in the nation., with about 70,000 acres currently in production, and another 40,000 to be developed in the next couple of years. Their Navajo Pride brand includes potatoes, corn, alfalfa, beans, and small grains, such as barley, wheat and oats.
While we were there, the farm manager Tsosie Lewis asked us if we would host interns later in the summer. NAPI sponsors scholar interns and summer interns who are students and
are part of the Navajo Nation. The scholar interns receive a college education and in turn work on the farm for a period of time.
Three young ladies, Alexandra, Shantel and Leticia came and visited our ranching operation. They visited sheep camps, helped move cattle and toured various parts of the ranch. We really enjoyed having them, and were glad to have a chance to repay the hospitality we had received.
Leticia, Siobhan and McCoy, ready to ride
Shantel, Alex and Leticia, mounted
Siobhan and Leticia–look-alikes with boots, jeans, red shirts, baseball caps and long ponytails
Alex relaxing on Daisy
15 heifers and a cow
Shantel on Coco
Eamon said he had never had so much help!
Last spring we could hardly find suitable days to brand calves. Every day dawned cold and rainy. Each day that looked like maybe it wouldn’t rain, we had to chose between docking lambs, branding calves and fixing fence (among other things). This year is the opposite. Each day is unrelentingly warm and dry. While this gives us lots of suitable days, the weird weather has compressed seasonal work in its own way. We had to start irrigating when we were still branding. The fences are in much better shape than last year, when near record snow crushed them to the ground. The early dry up and green up, with no following rains, has meant that fences have to be in good shape for early turn out. And everyone is scrambling to take care of the early growth of feed, since it appears that not much regrowth is likely when we come back to fall pastures.
Except for the late calves, we have finally gotten all the calves branded and ready for their rotation to summer pasture on the Routt and Medicine Bow National Forests.
Bruiser on alert
The management team makes a plan
McCoy: he can ride AND handle a vaccine gun
Family labor
Megan O’Toole, R.N.
Our crew breaks for lunch
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Ladder Ranch