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Loading sheep

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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

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About Pat & Sharon O'Toole

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.
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