Pat & Sharon O'Toole

February 3, 2010

Loading sheep

Pat and Eamon loading the truck
Powder Flat, Moffat County, Colorado

Last fall, we trailed two bunches of sheep to the Powder Wash country. Normally, we would winter the coming yearling ewes at this ranch west of Baggs, while we trailed the rest of the ewes north to the Red Desert. This year, we were doing landscape reclamation work on disturbed energy production lands in the Powder Wash area, and we needed more hooves on the ground. The reclamation work is done for the season, and the Powder Wash country is pretty snowed up. We decided to truck the ewes north to the Red Desert to join our other ewes. We brought the sheep into our headquarters at Powder Flat, where they climbed onto three semi trucks for the trip north.

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Nene, Antonio and Megan
Powder Flat corrals

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Bringing up the ewes
Powder Flat corrals

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Pepe and Jose
loading the trucks

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Smells like money
photos by Sharon O'Toole

Posted by Sharon O'Toole at 4:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 2, 2010

Winter buck

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Critical winter deer habitat
near Slater, Colorado
photo by Pat O'Toole

Posted by Sharon O'Toole at 3:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 1, 2010

Puppies for sale

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Siobhan and puppies
Home Ranch

Suzie (after a year's break) has a new litter of puppies, born December 17th. We plan to keep two for the sheepcamps, but I am shamelessly promoting the rest for sale. They are registered, working parents, and very photogenic--along with Siobhan. We also have two litters, with four still available, at the sheep camps on the Red Desert. Those guys are about the same age, purebred, but not registered. The great thing about raising puppies is that we can have fun with them, but don't have to suffer through adolescence!

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Black & white female puppy

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Red and white female puppy

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Black and white male with short hair

Posted by Sharon O'Toole at 1:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 27, 2010

Audubon Wyoming and the O'Tooles

Audubon Wyoming recently featured several Wyoming ranchers with whom they are working. They included a feature on our family. To see this article, go to the following link:

Download file">Download file

Posted by Sharon O'Toole at 4:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

About Pat & Sharon O'Toole

Patrick and Sharon O'Toole are ranchers in the Little Snake River Valley on the Wyoming-Colorado border. They represent the fourth generation on the six-generation family ranch. The O'Tooles raise cattle, sheep, horses, dogs and children on their high country ranching operation. The transhumance operation stretches from north of Steamboat Springs, Colorado to Wyoming's Red Desert.

Pat has served in the Wyoming House of Representatives, the Western Water Policy Commission, and is currently President of the Family Farm Alliance, representing irrigators and water users in the western United States.

Sharon is a writer and poet. She writes extensively on western issues, and the relationship between landscape, animals and people. She is widely published as an author, essayist and editorial commentator.

Sharon's father George, 86, is still on the family ranch. He lives in the house he was born in, and remains active in the day-to-day life of the ranch. He is a decorated World War II veteran, a former member of Wyoming's House of Representatives, and former President of Wyoming's Board of Agriculture.

Pat and Sharon have three children. Their daughter Meghan and her husband, Brian Lally, live on the ranch with their children, Siobhan and Seamus. Daughter Bridget lives in New York City with her husband, Chris Abel, where she works in public relations. Son Eamon is a student at the University of Wyoming, studying natural resources and history.

The blog traces the activities and life on the ranch, from the mundane to the fabulous.