Transition Time
Working sheep in the mist
Home Ranch, Carbon County, Wyoming
photo by Sharon S. O'Toole
We are in a time of transition. We have left the high country, and are now working the livestock at the ranch. We are preparing to ship calves, lambs, cull cows and ewes, and we plan this year to sell some of our sheep. Yesterday we vaccinated calves and Friday we put the first load of lambs on the truck for the feedlot in South Dakota.
Summer finds us in the mountains, but soon we will be trailing for our winter country in the desert. What we call the desert is actually high rolling country mostly covered with sagebrush. Generally, this country is lower and usually doesn’t snow up in the winter. A lot of the snow that does fall blows off and exposes the dry standing feed that grew up over the previous summer.
Castle Rock near Powder Flat
Sweetwater County, Wyoming
photo by Pat O'Toole
Of course, we share this feed with all manner of wildlife. Today, Pat and I drove through some of our winter country, 65 miles west of the home ranch. Within a half mile area, we saw elk, deer, antelope, a coyote, a bunch of rabbits and some wild horses who had left the Herd Management Area to the north. After all my worrying about the drought, we have had an exceptionally wet fall. It mostly came after the growing season, but the reservoirs are full, and the ground has a good base of water saturation going into the winter.
We are told that about 10,000 gas and oil wells will be drilled in this country in the next few years. It is where we lived for eight winters before our children started school. We were herding our own sheep, and living in a cabin without electricity or running water. I might add it also lacked a cell phone, a fax machine and a computer, so the world was farther away.
The BLM recently informed us that on a rocky hill on our private land, we could find some Indian petroglyphs. This was news to us, so we were excited to look for them. This is in an area where much of the lichen rock has been stripped, mostly illegally, for materials to decorate urban buildings. This is a particular peeve of mine. We can only hope that these ancient etching will not fall victim to these rock thieves.
The seasons roll on.
Petroglyphs and Lichen
photo by Pat O'Toole
Hole in the Wall
Sweetwater County, Wyoming
photo by Sharon S. O'Toole
Sandrocks Scene
photo by Sharon S. O'Toole
