Pat & Sharon O'Toole

Two eagles
Cow Pasture, Home Ranch
photo by Sharon O'Toole

A few days ago, some old friends of ours from California dropped by. They are talented photographers (Jan is an author too) and they happened to have their cameras handy when a pair of bald eagles landed in the Cottonwood tree between our house and Battle Creek. We think they have a nest in the Upper Meadow. Naturally, we stalked them like paparazzi, and got these photos. Thanks, Jan and Roger!

Eagle on branch
photo by Roger LaFontaine

Eagle taking off
photo by Roger LaFontaine

Eagle soaring
photo by Jan Goff-LaFontaine

Eagle with valley view
photo by Roger LaFontaine

Meanwhile, the duck was unperturbed
photo by Roger LaFontaine

Posted by Sharon O'Toole at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seamus with Antonio
Cottonwood corrals
photos by Sharon O'Toole

Siobhan with old time blacksmith, Bob Golden
Frontier Days, Savery Museum

Maeve helping Meghan sort sheep
Badwater pasture

George
Home Ranch

Dandelions
near Savery Museum

Hampshire reflections
Cow Pasture, Home Ranch

Calves on May 5th
Lemmons Place
photo by Pat O'Toole

Wild horses on Powder Rim
Powder Wash country
photo by Pat O'Toole

Tiffany, Hageman Sisters Rambouillets bought two guard dog pups
Cottonwood pasture
photos by Sharon O'Toole

Posted by Sharon O'Toole at 5:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bringing in the cattle
Upper Meadow, Home Ranch

This late, wet spring has made it a challenge to get the calves branded. Several weekends ago, Eamon and Megan came home with several college buddies who were young, strong, and ready to help with the branding. Alas, it rained and snowed all weekend. The following weekend, Bridget and Chris came home with their urban friends, who were inexperienced but willing. More rain. More snow. Finally. on Mother's Day weekend, our daughter-in-law Megan lured her entire family to the ranch: her Dad--Jeff, her Mom--Georgia, her sister--Halli, her brother--Clay and his girlfriend--Jessie. Meghan, Brian, Siobhan, Seamus and Maeve also lend several hands. At last, we had a break in the weather and branded three days in a row, with this intrepid crew. Thank you all!

Eamon, roping

Eamon, catching
Upper Meadow

see"continue reading" for more photos

Branding crew
Upper Meadow

George, Sharon, Siobhan, Halli, Jessie and Georgia hard at work
Upper Meadow

JO brand on Charolaise calf
Lemmons Meadow

Branding irons
Lemmons Place
photo by Meghan O. Lally

Chief, Siobhan, Megan, Jeff and Eamon
ready to go
Lemmons Meadow

Brian, Clay and coats on a warming day
Upper Meadow

Maeve, Meghan and Pat
Lemmons Place

Pat and Sharon
Lemmons Place
photo by Meghan O. Lally

Seamus on the tractor
Lemmons Place
photos by Sharon O'Toole

Posted by Sharon O'Toole at 5:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shearing is always a delicate dance between sheep, shearers, weather and the calendar. This year has been especially difficult due to rain and snow, snow and rain. I wrote about this for Writers on the Range. You can see this more detailed description on http://www.hcn.org/wotr/why-a-sheep-rancher-never-needs-to-go-to-las-vegas. The shearers were scheduled to come Monday, April 20th. It snowed. They started on Wednesday and sheared two days. It snowed on Friday. A week's worth of rain and snow was forecast. Since the ewes were destined to start lambing on May 8th, we decided to start them on the trail for the lambing grounds at Cottonwood, some 40 miles south. This trail can take up to eight days, but we pushed the ewes hard and they made it in five days. Bear in mind that the unshorn ewes were carrying about ten pounds of wet wool, seven to fifteen pounds of unborn lambs, and were slogging through mud. When we reached Cottonwood, we had a break in the weather and were able to finish shearing the pregnant ewes. This was the tail end of the shearing season, the shearers began leaving for the British Isles or other parts where unshorn sheep are waiting. We lost one to tick fever, so by the end, our crew was dwindling. They left us to shear more ewes in central Wyoming who were hard upon lambing, and returned to finally finish up our unpregnant yearlings on May 17th.

Siobhan and Edgar counting sheep
Badwater, Continental Divide

Meghan and Maeve, corral crew
Badwater, Continental Divide

Seamus, Sharon and Siobhan with shorn ewes
Badwater, Continental Divide
photos by Pat O'Toole

Lambing outside the shearing pens-1
Cottonwood

Lambing outside the shearing pens-2
Cottonwood

Lambing outside the shearing pens-3
Cottonwood

New lamb in shorn ewe pen
Cottonwood

Patrick Madigan, Rawlins District BLM Manager
Patrick O'Toole, Ladder Livestock
Cottonwood

Jose
Cottonwood

Siobhan, Pat and Seamus
Cottonwood
photos by Sharon O'Toole

Posted by Sharon O'Toole at 4:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In a bittersweet series of happenings, my great-grandfather's original homestead came up for sale this winter. Actually, A.W. Salisbury bought it as a remittance, which means that the homesteader sold his rights and A.W. completed the "proving up" process. After a lot of soul-searching, and scrambling, we were able to buy the property. This kept the property in the family, and protected us from the prospect of a subdivision on our southern border. It is immediately contiguous to our Home Ranch, and adds miles of stream on Battle Creek and the Little Snake River. Our family spent an afternoon painting the gate, which looked forlorn. As my friend Donna told us, "Looks to me like you've bought yourselves a whole lot of work!"

Meghan and the kids, painting

Meghan and Siobhan (Maeve hanging around)

Maeve and Seamus, supervising
photos by Sharon O'Toole

Posted by Sharon O'Toole at 4:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Faithful blog readers may have noticed a dearth of new postings on this site. Usually (well OK, ALWAYS) this means that we have been extra busy. Not to worry--as we have been fully occupied with our spring work, we still had our cameras at the ready. In mid-April, the sheep and their tenders left the Red Desert for the long trek to the lambing grounds. We survived our bi-annual dance with traffic and crossed under I80 and over the Union Pacific line with the herds, herders, dogs and wagons, and arrived safely into the Badwater Pasture to await the shearers.

Jose with Dunkin and his dogs
north of I80 at Creston Junction
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Rocky in the rear view mirror'
Crossing under I80
photo by Sharon O'Toole

You've heard of the black helicopters
South of Creston Junction
photo by Sharon O'Toole

After years of drought (other than that really bad winter in 2007-2008), we were mostly glad to see rain and snow every day, even though it made for tough trailing, tough calving and a lot of worry about shearing.

Cows and calves on April 5, 2009
Ames Field, Home Ranch
photo by Pat O'Toole

Cows and calves on feedground
April 10, 2009, Upper Meadow,Home Ranch
photo by Pat O'Toole

We bought some new sheep from South Dakota.

Off the truck
Badwater pasture
photo by Pat O'Toole

Posted by Sharon O'Toole at 2:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)