Click here to return to the homepage of Western Folklife Center
« February 2008 | Main | April 2008 »
Esmerelda
Home Ranch corral
photos by Sharon O'Toole
Antonio and Didi have her blindfolded
The saddle is on!
The blindfold is off
Didi hands the rope to Antonio
Antonio leads with his horse Antonio--a wild horse we adopted
First expedition with the saddle
I reported recently that I had counted 13 dead deer and an elk between Savery, Wyoming and Slater, Colorado. A couple of days ago I was driving down the road and came across Wyoming Highway Department employees who had the grisly task of picking up the road kill. In the first three miles (of the seven miles I had surveyed), they had already loaded 22 deer and the elk.
The winter's toll
Wyoming Highway 70, mile marker 15
photo by Sharon O'Toole
It slide the next day--no one was hurt!
Our porch, Home Ranch
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Easter lamb
Home Ranch
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Raven
Home Ranch
photo by Sharon O'Toole
I cast my clever raven gaze
about, sitting still except
to turn my head and look.
A scavenger life—it's not easy
to make a living every day.
Garbage is good—a feast
to fill the belly.
Easy peckings.
Dog food. It's a balanced diet
except they bark so
and run after me.
Ha! As if they could fly.
Eggs are the best.
Fat slow sage hens
flap up and try
to draw me away.
What do they think—
that I'm a coyote?
Songbirds try to hide
their tiny eggs
from my raven eye.
Ha! Only a snack,
quick but tasty.
Those newborn lambs—
now there's some bang for the buck,
Good luck for my beak.
I seek those napping babies
sated from the first suck
of mother's milk.
Land, hop, outsmart
those big white canines.
Coyote thinks he's clever
But he alarms the dogs,
not me. Ha!
Just a quick peck to the eye,
a stiletto to the brain
quick as a wink.
That woolly baby disemboweled
I spy with my raven eye—
dinner.
Trickster, indeed.
Caw! Caw!
Shamrock in hayfield
east of Baggs, Wyoming
photo by Sharon O'Toole
We are still waiting for the January thaw. We have seen some signs of warming as the snow settles into a wet dense mass. On sunny days, the south slopes bare off, only to be covered again in the next storm. As the plowed drifts on the sides of the roads melt, they are revealing the toll of this winter's bitter weather. In a five mile stretch near our headquarters, I counted 13 deer and one elk--victims of road kill. Our neighbors have a similar count in dented trucks and cars. The deer are hanging on the rights-of-way, seeking stubby grass as it starts to poke above the snow crust. The Wyoming Game and Fish reports that there may be a 50 per cent death loss in the deer herd north of Baggs. They tagged a good number last fall so they could track them as the oil and gas industry ramps up production in the area. We hear that some elk are dying on the Red Rim, southwest of Rawlins, as they consume toxic lichen.
Our days are brightened by the arrival of our early lambs. We raise our own rams, so we put the bucks in with our purebred ewes in October for a March lambing. For the first time in over 30 years, we are lambing them out here at the Home Ranch, instead of at Powder Flat. The corrals are drifted under there, and it is easier to keep just one infrastructure up and running. Our Peruvian sheepherders are doing a great job improvising lambing jugs in the horse barn, the cow barn, the calving shed, the granary, etc. etc. The sheepherders north of Wamsutter continue to care for the range sheep through trying conditions. The sage is starting to emerge from the snow drifts on the Red Desert--a welcome sight for man and beast!
Hampshire ewe with her new lamb
Home Ranch
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Lamb in snow
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Oscar and Jose loading an early lamb
Red Desert
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Angus cows on feed
Roberts Pasture
photo by Pat O'Toole
Feeding cows in the Lower Meadow
Home Ranch
photo by Pat O'Toole
Siobhan with Suzie's puppy
Horse barn
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Seamus, Pat and Antonio
Chivington Place
photo by Jim Roberts
Winter in the Routt National Forest
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Hahn's Peak in early March
Routt National Forest
photo by Pat O'Toole
Hawk on the post
Terrill Corrals, north of Powder Wash Camp
photo by Pat O'Toole
Hawk on the wing
Terrill Corrals, north of Powder Wash Camp
photo by Pat O'Toole
Coco, knocked up by a wild horse
Red Desert
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Sunset south of Baggs
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Slush star
Dodge pickup, Red Desert
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Here is the latest news from our nephew Kevin Lidstone, who is serving with the 82nd Airborne in Iraq. He is scheduled to return to the United States in mid-March.
Greetings Everyone,
Well, what can I say. We are done. I just got back from our last patrol, we sat on a roof top for 3 hours trying to catch bad guys doing bad things and didn't see a god damned thing. We should be back in the states in about two and a half weeks and we can't wait. Amazingly it seems as though the last 14 months have gone by fast, and I'd do it all again. I know we made a difference where we can, would have liked to make a difference in areas we were unable too and we're leaving here with a few regrets. I wish we could have gone into Sadr City and cleared it out, but that's politics and when the Iraqi government tells us we can't go in there it's self defeating to the reconstruction process to eschew what their elected leaders decide. It would have meant more casualties, many more I'm afraid, but it would have been worth it in the long run. Alas, we were able to effectively render the militia nearly inoperable, catch some pretty bad guys and improve living conditions sector wide. We were able to bring school supplies, medical supplies, electricity and trash services to a few million people. We were able to curb sectarian violence, dramatically reduce extra judicial killings and kidnappings and put the iraqi security forces on their own two feet. IT's hard to believe that it's over and in a strange inexplicable way I'm going to miss it. I'm willing to bet that in 10 months I'll be itching to get back over here and pick up where we left off, though I hope we won't have to. Well, it isn't quite over yet but I want to thank y'all for your thoughts prayers letters and packages and I look forward to seeing all of you in the near future.
Peace,
Kevin Lidstone
The opinions expressed in the Western Folklife Center's Deep West online journals are those of the online journal participants and not the Western Folklife Center. The Western Folklife Center does not moderate these journals and as such does not guarantee the veracity, reliability or completeness of any information provided in the journals or in any hyperlink appearing within them.
