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Hitching Up the Team

Chief and Commander

 

 

Here’s our good Percheron team, which helped us feed the sheep all winter. They are living their best life now, with lots of grass all around. Eamon took them for walkabout recently. They are truly gentle giants.

hitching up

Rhen holding the reins

Eamon and crew ready to toll

 

 
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Posted by on June 16, 2023 in Animals, Family, Folks, Friends, Horses

 

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“Spring” Sunset

March 22,2023

 
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Posted by on March 22, 2023 in Nature and Wildlife

 

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Fall Work

Chandler counting cows through the gate

 

October is one of our busiest months. The cows and calves, and the ewes and lambs, along with yearlings of both species, have spent the summer on the Medicine Bow and Routt National Forests. Our off-date is October 1st, so we stage the bands of sheep and gather all the cows we can find and bring them down to pastures near the Home Ranch headquarters. It has been a warmish fall and some of the cows are hiding out. Eamon and the cowboy crew have been backriding every day, but the best incentive is cold weather, which reminds the cows that it’s time to get the heck out of the Forest. We migrate along with the deer and elk as instinct draws the critters downward. This time of year, all the sheep and all the cattle are close to home. We work them through the corrals. The lambs are separated from the ewes. Often we sell the lambs this time of year, but this year we still have feed so we will keep them a little longer. The lambs are weaned and switched to a different bunch. The calves will be with their mamas a couple of more weeks, and then it will be time for them to be sold, as feeders or as replacements. It’s noisy as night, as the newly weaned lambs and calves call in the night, and the guard dogs who are now close to home bark all night to warn us of various impending dangers. To be fair, usually the coyotes are howling which makes the guard dogs even more on alert than usual. Tomorrow, we’ll start the sheep on the trail to our fall pastures, some 20 miles to the west.

Meghan, bringing down the cows

lambs in the corral at sunrise

 

Hampshire ewes hanging out with the bucks for March lambing

Theo working sheep

at the Home Ranch corrals

cattle in the Big Meadow

yearling ewes in Loco Canyon, with guard dog

fall colors with the Petite Tetons (the Mountain Formerly Known As Squaw)

 
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Posted by on October 19, 2022 in Animals, Cattle, Sheep

 

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