I had to run to Thermopolis the other day… a town of 4,000 or so situated on the Big Horn River where the World’s Largest Mineral Hot Springs flow. It was a run for baling twine sent from Riverton, another hour away from Thermop. It takes me about 1.5 hours to drive to Thermop and…
Author: Carol
Elsa at work
Elsa at work The Bounce. Keep ’em moving. Going in for the bite. Get around, Elsa! Note my shadow… I wanted to post a few pictures of Elsa at work. She has learned so much since she arrived on July 2 of last year. Many times those first few weeks, I wondered if she was…
One more time…
Once again, we were on horseback today. This time to gather the steers off our BLM lease ground. We will be selling them on Monday, so we have to gather, retag, and weigh them. Today was a big gather, though 2 weeks ago we also gathered this pasture and brought home our cows and calves. …
Good grass year
With all of the rain we’ve had, it has turned out to be a good grass year! The stock should all be fat and happy! Our haying season has begun as well, turning all this great green bounty into winter feed. Daniel is our mower man, happily cutting hay down all day long. As long…
D revisits puppy soccer
When the pups were small, we played a game I called “Puppy Soccer”. It encouraged their chasing skills and was extremely fun to watch. I videoed it once and put it on YouTube. You can find it there or search my blog for it. I wondered if D would remember it… Dally has played it…
D dog
I’ve only met my English Shepherds…well, I’ve met two 8 week old pups…but my pack are all I know personally. The internet has been an amazing resource for learning of other English Shepherds. And between the 12 I’ve met, their ability to take things in stride has been remarkable. D came to us at one…
D’s story
When Lucas and Elsa had their litter last November, one puppy stood out due to his coloring. Drifter, as I called him, had a drift of white snow on the right side of his face. Not simply a wide blaze, a bald face, atypical in English Shepherds. Among the four males in the litter, Drifter…
June in the mountains
Six foot tall Brandon stands in the snowdrift that blocked our way to our mountain pasture.
Visit to the mountains
Our assignment, which we did accept, was to go to our mountain pasture and put up our lay down fence. Our pasture lays along a stockdrive, which means many ranches trail their sheep and cattle along the wide gravel road on the way to their individual mountain pastures. We have sections of our barbed wire fence…
Stories
Well, branding went just peachy! No one got hurt, we had plenty of food and drink, it was a cool, overcast day, and the rain started after lunch! We were a little short on help since it was on a Wednesday, but the 21 people who were there stepped it up and handled things well. We…
Whew…
The view from above…Elsa rests at my feet during a break on a long day of gathering. Never far from where I am, this is typical Elsa. If I’m on horseback, she’s at my horse’s back end on the left side…95% of the time. I didn’t teach her that, maybe that’s where the shade always was! …
Reality
For every person that watched Roy Rogers or Clint Eastwood or Robert Fuller or Lee Horsely and thought, wow, I wanna grow up to be a cowboy… the shine wore off of the romantic version today. We fought hard today to get 175 pairs out of the badlands. We are exhausted, sweaty, sore, and in…