bringing up the ewes
We have been working the ewes, getting ready for the spring trail to Badwater, where we plan to shear the ewes. We then head south to the lambing grounds. Pepe, Walter, Leo, Meghan, Maeve, Tiarnan and Sharon worked Leo’s bunch on a relatively warm day, just before another snowstorm gave us more much needed moisture.
Tiarnan and Pepe at the chute
Maeve and Tiarnan with flags
Meghan turning the ewes out of the corral
Ben shaves the cow
Today, Easter Eve, Chad found a prolapsed very pregnant cow. We called the local vet, Ben Noland, who came up to help. After assessing the situation, he recommended a cesarean section in an attempt to save both calf and cow. Ben and his wife Hallie, also a vet, recently opened the Sage Veterinary Clinic near Baggs, and we are really happy to have them in the community. We have a happy ending, so far.
Ben scrubbing the incision site
the incision
Chad and the peanut gallery: Maura, Maeve and
Tiarnan
Ben and Chad draw out the calf.
Chad tickles the calf’s nose so she will breathe.
My coat goes to a good cause
Ben putting the innards back together
the stitches
Easter Eve after the birth
Siobhan hard at work on her pumpkin
Tiarnan prepares to attack his pumpkin (with a little help from Maeve and Meghan)
Serious business
ready for candles
Maeve and Siobhan washing lambs
The Carbon County Fair is almost upon us. Siobhan and Seamus have modeled their sewing projects and await the final judgement. The 4-H lambs (two market lambs for Siobhan, two market lambs for Seamus and one Hampshire buck lamb for Siobhan) are fat and getting their Fair coats on. Here is Maeve helping to wash the lambs.
Freckles after the bath
Maeve controls the hose!
Seamus made these bear paw pajama pants
Siobhan models her wool outfit (Mom’s boots, Grandma Laura’s earrings, Grandma Sharon’s hair clasp, Siobhan’s smile)
Maeve on Sarita
The other day, Maeve and I were driving along in the pickup, and I was explaining the concept of “habitat.” She said, “Oh…like our family’s habitat is the ranch!”.
Indeed.
Reader Cemetery
The Reader Cemetery is where most of my forebears are laid to rest. It has mostly fallen to Meghan and me (Sharon) to lay flowers on 21 graves. These include Pat’s father, my parents, both sets of grandparents, four great-grandparents, my brother, my sister, aunts and uncles on both sides of the family, cousins, and several beloved former employees of the ranch. It even includes a friend of my long-deceased grandfather who was killed in a notorious gunfight in Baggs in 1912 (Chick Bowen). We always try to lay flowers ahead of the Memorial Day ceremony at the cemetery. This year, we were inundated in rain and fully occupied in the lambing shed, so did not get the flowers laid until Memorial Day itself–a day after the remembrance ceremony. We figured that the ancestors would understand about the lambing.
Maeve with her great-great-grandparents Terrills’ stone
Maeve Eleanor with her namesake, Laura Eleanor, and George Salisbury
Tombstone Time—A Sonnet
Of all the jobs that fell to me
Just one drew tears, and grief and dread
I postponed, but all would see
No stone upon my mother’s bed.
Gravestone nightmares filled my sleep,
This rock would last far past my days,
“I pray the Lord, my soul to keep”
And choose a stone ‘fore end of May
When friends and kin would honor her,
Winter dead, and ashes laid,
With tales of love, with summer flower,
Not let beloved mem’ry fade.
Life’s essence captured in one line
Carved in rock in tombstone time.
Bull fight
The bull fight crowd is pretty placid
the cranes of spring
Seamus on the run
Free range children
Seamus with Val and Dulce
McCoy, Tiarnan and Maeve ready for lambing
Here come the cows!
In the winter, some of our cows go to the balmy environs of Laramie, AKA “Laradise”. It’s almost spring, and time for the cows to come home. In a few weeks, they’ll start having baby calves, and you’ll see pictures of them on this blog. Usually, we have more snow on the ground, but the easy winter means we have plenty of hay.
photos by Siobhan
through the gate…
headed down the hill…
Chica supervising…
Eamon and the dogs put the cows into the…Cow Pasture.
Done. Pat, Rhen, McCoy and Maeve, with a little help from Belle.
puppies on the run
puppy with shadow
Pat with young bulls
Tiarnan, Seamus, Maeve and puppies playing in the corn
Border collie puppy hanging out on the corn sacks
Hampshire ewes
Siobhan with Lulu
Antonio, Meghan, Oscar, Brittany and Gyp–hard at work
some early lambs
ewes with water bottles
Antonio and the unshorn ewes
In mid-winter, we shear the ewes that are going to lamb in March. When it goes well, we even shear before lambing starts! We do this for several reasons. Even though it seems early to shear, all goes better if the wool is off before the first lambs hit the ground. We raise our own bucks, which means that in order for them to be “of age”–at least some of them, by next winter, late winter/early spring is the time to be born. It is important for the ewes to be out of the wool for a couple of reasons. In cold weather, if the ewe is not cold, it doesn’t occur to her that her lambs might be cold and she should seek shelter. And when those lambs are looking for nourishment, it is helpful if tags of wool are not hanging down in strategic locations. Anyway, thanks to Cliff and Donna of Hoopes Shearing, we have spent two days shearing the early lambing ewes and the mature bucks. What did the bucks do wrong, you might ask? Well, then we don’t have to figure out how to get them staged for the main shearing in April (April, right Cliff and Donna?).
Often, well actually, always except for this year, it is pretty cold in mid-February and we feel guilty removing wool coats from the sheep while we are all wooled up in sweaters and long underwear. I don’t know if we have weather or climate change to thank, or blame, but this week, we had ideal shearing weather–not too cold, not too warm–Goldilocks Weather.
We do have a few lambs on the ground, due to errant buck lambs–born last March–you get the picture.
Sorry, but it was too dark in the shed to get shearing shots!
unshorn ewes, Brittany, Gyp, Antonio, shorn ewes–in that order
free at last!
Rambouillet ewes, after the blade
Sharon, working the pink chute
Donna loading fleeces into the brand new packer
which has a few glitches…Antonio and Oscar pushing out the first bales
Justin, who keep the wool packer working!
Maeve and Seamus checking out the new bales
Siobhan trying to push her siblings off the wool bale
Seamus and Maeve dueling with livestock working sticks
brands of growers on the side of the purple Hoopes Shed (with lime green accents and the pink chute)
Pat through the chute
ewe, ready to lamb
before
during
after
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