Pat & Sharon O'Toole: Long days, short nights: docking

June is our busiest month, and it seems especially so this year. Our usual tasks this time of year include docking the new lambs, making up the summer bunches of sheep, and staging them for the trail to the National Forest grazing permits. We also brand the last of the calves and put the cows and calves on their summer grazing permits. We have a series of private and leased pastures where we move them along. In the meantime, we try to keep track of the bulls, who are escape artists as they know it is ALMOST time to join the cows.

Now that it is July, take a look at some of the photos that tell June’s story.

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Setting up the docking corrals
Cottonwood BLM pasture, Carbon County, Wyoming
photo by Sharon O'Toole

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Bringing in the ewes and lambs
photo by Sharon O'Toole

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Into the corrals
photo by Sharon O'Toole

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Assembly line docking
photo by Sharon O'Toole

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Docking crew in full swing
photo by Sharon O'Toole

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Meghan counting tails
photo by Sharon O'Toole

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Most of the docking crew
photo by Sharon O'Toole

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More docking crew
photo by Sharon O'Toole

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Modesto the sheepherder, Wade the trapper, Meghan (with Seamus) conferring
photo by Sharon O'Toole

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Lunch wagon
photo by Sharon O'Toole

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About Pat & Sharon O'Toole

Pat and Sharon O’Toole are ranchers in the Little Snake River Valley near Savery, Wyoming, right on the Colorado-Wyoming border. They raise cattle, sheep, horses, dogs and children. Pat “immigrated” from Florida in 1970. He attended Colorado State University, where he met Sharon when both worked for the campus newspaper. Sharon grew up on their ranch, where they live and work with her father, their daughter, son and granddaughter (soon to be grandchildren!). Pat is a “water buffalo” and has served in the Wyoming House of Representatives (1986-1992), on the President’s Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission, and is the current President of the Family Farm Alliance, which advocates for farmers, ranchers and irrigators. Sharon is an author, poet and journalist. She writes extensively on Western issues and is a columnist for “The Shepherd” magazine. Pat and Sharon are the parents of three children: Meghan, 27; Bridget, 26; and Eamon, 20.

Pat & Sharon O'Toole

Long days, short nights: docking

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