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Everywhere we look, there are babies on the ground.

Babies on the ground
Tiarnan and McCoy
Home Ranch, late March

Cow with brand new calf
Powder Flat

Puppy for sale (old cooler not included)
Home Ranch

Ewe and lamb
Powder Flat

The view out our window gives every appearance of winter, yet spring is indeed in the air. We hear the calls of arriving Sandhill Cranes, who are an early harbinger of spring. Yesterday, I spotted a red-winged blackbird. The most definitive sign is the appearance of babies on the ground. They are not a surprise, since we know when we put in the bulls and the bucks, but they do lift our hearts. With babies on the ground, can green grass be far behind? Well, we hope not.

The puppies were a surprise, since I really thought I had Suzie confined in the horsetrailer on all the appropriate days, but that Bobby is a sly dog.

And of course, I cannot resist showing our readers the photos of our two newest grandchildren McCoy O’Toole, born on Halloween; and Tiarnan Lally, born on Valentine’s Day.
Now if it would only stop snowing.

Cow with calves
Ames Field, Home Ranch

Cows and calves
Corral, Home Ranch

Ewes and lambs
Powder Flat

Maeve and Seamus with bum lambs
Powder Flat

Richar, Meghan & Tiarnan with lambs
Powder Flat

Ovcharka/Akbash puppy
Salomon's camp, Red Desert

Long suffering Suzie with three puppies
Home Ranch

Eamon & McCoy

Siobhan with baby chicks
Murdock's, Craig, Colorado
photos by Sharon O'Toole

The Little Snake River Rattlers have won the 1A state basketball championship. Last fall the team, with mostly the same boys, won the 6-man state football championship. Here is Ron Wille's salute to the team. The girl's team, which lost only one basketball game all season, came in third in the state.

We raise our own Rambouillet and Hampshire bucks. We breed their mothers, the purebred ewes early--around the first of October. Since a sheep's gestation period is about five months less five days, that means we are lambing now. We lamb these ewes at the Powder Flat headquarters, where we have corrals, sheds, and a crew.

It's a lot easier on everyone (except maybe the newly naked sheep) if the ewes are sheared before they lamb. The lambs don't mistake a wool tag (hanging bit of wool) for a nipple, and the ewes are interested in seeking shelter in cold weather, much to the benefit of their newborn lambs. In a few days, they have grown back enough wool to see them through some fairly cold weather. If a storm comes in, we have sheds and shelter.

We were able to bring the bucks in from their newly completed duties on the Red Desert, and were able to get them sheared too. This makes it easier in April when we shear the main line. The bucks probably don't think it's such a great idea. On the other hand, they now get to go back to hanging around until December or so--not such a bad life!

Bringing the bucks up the chute

Eutemio working the chute

Rob, hard at work

Shearing dance

Through the escape hatch

Wool handlers packing the wool

Raul at the ramp

Heavy ewes, newly shorn

Ewes and lambs, with a cozy barn

Pat and ewes look each other over

Richar and Nene

The tractor pulling the portable shed up the hill

It's still plenty wintery
Powder Flat, Moffat County, Colorado
photos by Sharon O'Toole

Recently, we purchased some new Angus cows. Eamon found the cows and coordinated the trucking. This is an unsettled time, as cow prices are high, along with every commodity. We are enjoying the high lamb prices, but not so much the high corn prices, which goes to feed the lambs on the feedlot, and the pregnant ewes on the Red Desert. We are recalibrating as fuel prices go up and up, in response to the unrest in the Middle East. This probably means that folks in our Oil Patch community can go back to work, but it also means that we will look at every place where we burn oil based fuel and try to conserve.

Pat, Eamon and cows
Thermopolis, Wyoming
photos by Sharon O'Toole

Tiarnan Russell Lally
7 pounds, 15 ounces
19.5 inches long
born at 6:01 p.m.
February 14, 2011
Valentine's Day

Maeve, McCoy, Sharon, Siobhan, Seamus and Pat
at the hospital
Steamboat Springs, Colorado

It has turned into a Hard Winter. Not one for the ages. Not one we'll tell our grandkids about. But still, truly hard winter with lots of snow, real real cold temperatures, and plenty of speculation about the truthfulness of the Ground Hog (no shadow--early spring). I was trying to convince Siobhan, 6, that the Ground Hog is a myth (while not disillusioning her about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy). We'll deal with the Easter Bunny when the time comes.

Branding the new cows
Home Ranch

Winter horses
Home Ranch

In the spirit of optimism, we bought some cows. The sheep on the Red Desert continue in their hardiness, as do the herders who tend them.

Modesto and Pat
Cyclone Rim, Red Desert

Modesto's horses
Cyclone Rim, Red Desert

Antelope in Chain Lakes
Wyoming Game and Fish Department
Critical winter habitat
photo by Pat O'Toole

Salomon heading in
Chain Lakes, Red Desert

Sheep on Chain Lakes

Dunkin (of blog fame), Dot (of National Geographic fame) and guard dog pup
Multi-species representation
Chain Lakes, Salomon's camp

Wild horses
Red Desert

Sunset on the way home
off Wyoming 789
photos by Sharon O'Toole

As Pat and I were driving home, the sunset kept getting more and more glorious. The photos might be even better, but we were in a hurry to get home to unload some sheep before dark!

From Dolan Mesa, with the actual sunset in the rearview mirror

Sunset over Espy's meadow

Over Sandman Mountain
photos by Sharon O'Toole

Faithful blog watchers know that I haven't posted much lately. Pat and I have, however, kept our cameras with us. Winter has descended with a heavy hand. Snow is almost up to the level of the deck, and we found water spraying in the bathroom of our guesthouse, the Battle Creek Hilton, the other night as temperatures dropped to 20 below. The sheep have "blown out" once so far this winter, on their Red Desert grazing grounds, which means that the wind was blowing so hard that they walked before it until conditions improved. The only thing to do in such a situation is to wait it out, then find and gather them when the weather gets better. This week, the weather has warmed. It even rained a little, which just soaks into the snow and makes the roads really slushy. So far, it is real winter, but not yet a hard winter. And the daylight hours are getting longer.

Alison the intern
Preg testing assistant
Home Ranch

Eamon and Kate
Waiting for the next cow

Heifers
Looking for a meal

Bucks--ready to roll
Home Ranch

Love at first sight
Cyclone Rim
December 13, 2010

Loading the truck onto the flatbed: a mishap
Powder Flat

Deer in winter
near Slater, Colorado

Elk
Just down the road

Uncle Chris with McCoy
Christmas at the Home Ranch

Siobhan, Seamus and Maeve
Christmas morning at Grandma and Pop-Pop's house

St. Francis
Christmas morning
Home Ranch

Laura and George

Major Salisbury

Lifetime Little Snake River resident George Ralph Salisbury Jr. died at his home on the Ladder Ranch on December 25, 2010.

George was born in that home on March 7, 1921 to George and Emma Terrill Salisbury. His grandparents all homesteaded on the same landscape, and he said when he was growing up, he had 21 first cousins in the community. He attended schools in the area, and graduated from Rawlins High School in 1937, at the age of 16.

George received a Bachelor of Science in Forestry and Range Management from Colorado State University in 1941. He said his parents sent him to college to find a good wife who was not related. After graduation, he married Laura Eleanor Kinne in Riverton, Wyoming.

George worked briefly for the Taylor Grazing Service, but was soon called into action in the U.S. Army. He served as Commander of Battery C, 399th Armored Field Artillery
Battalion, 8th Armored Division, under George Patton in the European Theatre. He achieved the rank of Major and was awarded the Bronze Star and a purple heart.

George returned to Laura and the ranch in 1945. He was a stockman, raising both cattle and sheep. He valued land management and took equal pride in healthy rangelands and fisheries.

George and Laura had three children, George III, Charlotte and Sharon. He offered unconditional love, and wisdom and guidance.

He served his community and state in many capacities, including 20 years as a Carbon County Commissioner and 13 years as a Representative to the Wyoming Legislature. He helped craft landmark legislation, including the severance taxes which fund Wyoming government today, and rural health care legislation. He was a water buffalo, and served on the Select Water Committee. His efforts were key in the development of the High Savery Dam, which delivers water to Little Snake River irrigators.

He was President of the Wyoming Board of Agriculture and was inducted into the Wyoming Agricultural Hall of Fame in 2009. He was one of only four honorary lifetime members of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. He was also a long-time member of the Wyoming Wool Growers Association.

George was the third generation on his family’s ranch, and he was proud that three more generations live on that ranch today. He helped place Conservation Easements on the mountain ranchlands, ensuring that they will remain intact and in agricultural production.

Working with youth was important to George, and he was active with both 4-H and FFA, along with Laura. George was the deacon of St. Paul’s Episcopal Parish in Dixon, Wyoming.

George was always a long-term thinker.

He is survived by his daughter, Sharon Salisbury O’Toole and her husband, Patrick, Savery; his grandchildren Sherri S. Mathaller (Rob), High River, Canada; Joseph R. Salisbury, Sacramento, California; Meghan O. Lally (Brian), Savery; Christian Gros, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Bridget O’Toole (Chris Abel), Denver, Colorado; and Patrick Eamon O’Toole (Megan), Savery.

He was the doting great-grandfather of Matthew Marthaller, High River, Canada; and Siobhan Lally, Seamus Lally, Maeve Lally, and Patrick McCoy O’Toole of the family ranch.

George was predeceased by is beloved wife of 63 years, Laura; his parents, brother Earl DeVitt Salisbury, son George Robert Salisbury and daughter Charlotte Emma Salisbury.

George’s funeral services will be held at the Little Snake River Valley School on January 3rd, 2011 at 11 a.m. Father Doug Wasinger and Father Warren Murphy will officiate.

Donations in George’s memory may be made to the Carbon County 4-H Foundation, Box 280, Rawlins, WY 82301; St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Box 60, Dixon, WY 82323; or the Noyes Clinic Home Health Service, Box 307, Baggs, WY 82321.

McCoy with Great-grandpa George
Home Ranch
photo by Megan Stocklin O'Toole

Squaw Mountain
photos by Pat O'Toole