| |  Sheep-Camp
Sheep-Camp is where the shepherd stays while watching over his sheep. The following is a log of my happenings while shepherding my flock in Eastern Oregon. Please note I have created an archive of my old entries: PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THEM.05-07-08 - Lana just emailed me a link to this product Click here: Redpaw Dog Food - The Spirit of Racing - Redpaw, Inc. It seems to help dogs put weight on and keep weight on without changing their dog food. As I said before I changed Gale over to Puppy Chow 27/16 to try to get her weight up and so she can go back to work after she comes out of heat. I am going to check this new product out. If it is small enough to pack around in the mountains and you just need to add it to the dogs regular food, it could be just what I need for the herder's dogs and mine during the long hard springs and summers. I have been feeding Gale and Jorge (Herder) is also doing this with his dogs, 4 eggs and about a cup of cooking oil directly onto the top of their food. Gale loves eggs but Jorge said his dogs don't like them very much. The big problem with dogs is getting them to eat enough every-day and so getting enough digestible fat and protein into them each day.
- Neil, Mick and I moved the rams down off their pasture today. I counted the rams a couples days ago and thought I lost two, it turns out they are all there, but one is sick (old ram). I don't think he will make it. The rams were too big to fit down the race we built for vacinnating and wormed the ewes on Sat. but with a little help most of them made it down. We had about five that have horns too big to fit down any race, so we loaded out one load and came back for them. We loaded them directly out of the side of the corrals, by opening a panel.
- We also went up to the allotment this morning to check things out. Still a lot of snow and still no way to getting on it. Many more tears were shed. So, tomorrow Neil and I will fence off the wheat ground and make a race for the sheep to trail up to get onto the pasture we have fenced for them. The up side is that the sheep will be behind fence for a couple days so Jorge can come with me to take down all the fence on the stubble and Jorge's dogs will get a couples days rest. There are too many downsides to list.
05-06-08 - We are looking for our next summer intern. Neil is leaving this month. We have an opening for this summer. Please call me 541 215 9019 if you are interested.
- I have decided NOT to breed Gale at this point. She is a bit thin from working so hard (I have her on puppy food at this point to put the weight back on). Katie and I decided it would be better to buy a couple pups rather then breed her this spring. I will breed her to Greg this fall instead. Sorry for those of you who have contacted me to reserve a pup. I will keep you on the list and contact you directly when I know for sure we will be breeding her. Gale is THE BEST DOG I have ever worked or owned, I want her to live a long healthy life and it is because of this that I have to put off her next breeding for a few more moths. I am sure her next litter will live up to her reputation. If you are interested in sheepdog trialing, keep and eye on Don Helsley, he has one of Gale's pups and I am sure you will see her out on the trial field by next spring.
- I bought two new pups from a cattle ranch down in Long Creek, OR. They own both the mother and father. They are nice dogs with some good pedigrees to back them up. The father goes back to Wilson's Spot. In fact his top line is double bred Spot. The mother's bottom line has a lot of Jake Zanocco's breeding on it. He is well known in California for his cattle dogs. Time will tell if they can be sheepdogs or not. One of the pups has too much white on his head but I looked past that since these two males were the most outgoing and aggressive to come out and meet me. I named one "Dos" and the other "Buck". Buck has the white head and Dos is bigger and mostly black. I left them up with Jorge tonight. He was very happy to have a couple more pups.
05-05-08 - We took Saturday off. Yes, yes, we took a day off. Let it not be said that we work too much.
- Neil and I fenced about 100acres behind the house over that last couple days. We are getting ready for bring the sheep home for a couple weeks. I look at the mountains, with snow still on them, and cry. We should be heading in the opposite direction from home with the sheep. But, as a rancher we are slaves to the weather. I talked to Sky Krebs the other day when I picked up the blue-shoot. He said, there is no such thing as an average year. He also told me not to got the the mountains too early, the sheep scatter because the grass is not growing yet. Most people are talking about June 1st as the first day to turn sheep out. There is really nothing to be done at this point but hope.
- Neil will be missed, he has helped us get ready for vaccinating ewes and worming everyone. There are two sides to an internship here, one is out with the sheep for a month or more and the other is riding around with me trying to get things setup. Both parts are very important. Herding sheep is only a part of running a ranch. Finding grass and finding hay and deciding what to do next and building corrals and setting up the trucking and getting the Border Collies bred and getting the horse ready for the mountains, etc, etc is a huge part of internship. By the way, we are looking for our summer intern.
- I got two more horses. These are borrowed horses from a close friend of mine, Pearl Agard. She has been very supportive of my sheep enterprise, right from the start. She is a straight shooter and will tell you what you need to know. She is going to take some time to travel a bit and it worked out to take her two really good horses for a couple months while she is away. Katie and I had lunch with her and she mentioned that she was leaving her horses behind and I asked if I could take them. They are very well trained horses and one actually already backs. If you have experience packing on horse and know of a good book for me to read, please email me, eric@harlowshillswestcoast.com. I would love to get more information on it. A big chunk of our allotment is accessible by horse only. I have found good info. just by talking to experienced people but a book would be even more helpful.
- Gale is back in heat and I am going to bread her to a dog I own named Greg (Registered ABCA Border Collie). He has really impressed me working on the stubble for the herder. He has tons of natural talent and is very biddable. He has never turned off a sheep and can gather the entire flock. What a great dog. He is also smaller then Gale and has kept working for the herder day in and day out. This is very important for me. We need very sound dogs with lots of heart and great feet. The herder, Jorge, is very happy that we are going to get pups off him and Gale. The herder has worked Gale a lot in the last month and he just loves both Gale and Greg. Yesterday he told me if I took Greg away to breed Gale, the sheep would be lost to the wind. I take it that he needs him, so I have to figure out how to breed Gale at night during Greg's off hours. He is young so working all day and breeding all night may be OK for him.
05-01-08 - Neil and I went up to the allotment yesterday. It had even more snow then a couple weeks ago when Katie and I went up there. Things are not looking good at this point for getting onto the allotment. I think we will be bringing the sheep back to the ranch to graze. This will require a lot of fencing. We will be grazing very close to CRP and you cannot graze CRP without bring the wrath of the federal Government down on you, or worse the people who own the land and are allowing you to graze there. Neil is heading down to California after we truck the sheep to the ranch, so it will be just me and Jorge.
- I am still looking for a couple more herder's dogs. Please get in touch with me if you have anything for me.
- Gale is at home for a couple days. She has been up on the stubble working for Jorge to keep the sheep in line. She needs lots of rest before she goes back to work in a couple days. I am going to get her bred again very soon. We need more pups.
- We are going to vaccinate ewes and lambs again on 5-9-08. We are going to truck on 5-12-08. Please contact me if you can come out and give a hand.
04-28-08 - I rode both of the new project mares tonight. The quarter-horse, still nameless, did very well. She is kind of lazy. She doesn't like climbing hills very much and will go to great length to screw around when climbing. Little does she know, I am committed to making her a mountain horse. She will hate me more with each day. I also rode Katie's Lana (Arabian) and she was her full-self. This time I worked her down before I got on her. The saddlebags fell to one side of her and she freaked-out and started to buck and have a good freak-out. I kept a hold of her and got her calmed down a bit. Then I rode her for a while and let the other mare off to come along. She did OK but will need many more days in the saddle to get her to the point where I would take her to the mountains and feel safe on her.
- Neil and I shot guns tonight to keep in shape. I shot my .44 mag and did OK at about 20 yards. Neil has a .45 and he did equally as well. I am in the market for a Coyote gun. I shot at one with my .410 shotgun the other day and don't think I got him. Anyone out there have any ideas about good rifle for Coyotes, please email me. Remember, I am on a budget. Jorge has my old 30/30 and I don't expect he can hit anything with it either. I have been told that a .223 is a great gun for Coyotes. I don't think it will stop a bear, and Jorge will most likely run into at least one bear in the mountains. Hopefully, the LGDs will be all over the bear issue, like they were last year.
- It got up to 70degrees today and my house is covered in fruit flies. They are all over my wineglass. It seems, we may not have to move the sheep home this spring before we go to the mountains. If the sheep don't come home, then I will buy some cows to graze the back pasture. Neil and I worked today to get the fence back up in the back pasture and ready for horses if not sheep and cows. I was all ready to turn the horses out, then I took a horse out to check the rest of the fence and could see how bad a choice that would have been. There is about 100' of fence that is down, about two hills over. I never even knew about it. The grass is very nice here. I am going to call the Dave (Katie's brother-inlaw) to see if he has any cows he would like to graze.
- I have one female LGD to sale yet. She is well started but I will take puppy price for her, $400.
04-25-08 - It has been 14 years since I was bucked off a horse. Well that "winning" streak was ended tonight by Katie's horse Lana. I am really not liking horses right now. I got right back on her and gave her a work out. She bucked a bit more after that but I managed to stick to her and give her a really good ride. She is three years old now and it is time she starts working for the ranch. Katie isn't suppose to be riding right now so I will take her on as my new project, get her broke and ready for the mountains this summer.
- Another horse story, I bought a horse from a friend and she is a nice small quarter horse. I gave her to Jorge to train up for the mountains and he was doing a great job with her. We used hobbles on her to keep her close to his camp. Then she figure out how to run with them on. After just three days on the stubble she decided to take off and was found over 5 miles away, remember this is with hobbles on. I took her back to the ranch for a little training. Now, I have two horse to get trained before we head to the mountains.
- I finally got the 4-wheeler back from the shop today. Just in time too. The 3-wheeler decided to give up the fight. The sheep were running wild when I came up to the stubble to find Jorge trying to get the 3-wheeler started. I had Neil with me and took him back to the lambing camp to get his dog. Once Neil was back and helping Jorge re-gather the sheep, I left to go pick up the 4-wheeler. It is the same old bike, now with a $1500 rebuilt engine. I just hope it lasts. And I thought today was going to be a nice calm day.
- I am in the process of trying to find more grass to graze before we have to go to the mountains. You see, the snow is very late here and is not leaving on the allotment. This means I have no access to get my sheep on there. I have spent the last three days down at the county clerks office looking up parcels of land, trying to find out who owns them and contacting the owners to get permission to graze. This is big cow-country so I have to work on pasture that is NOT already rented to cowboys. This means taking the steepest and hardest pasture to graze. Neil has come down off the stubble and is spending time with me, learning the process of tracking land-owners down and talking to them. I run into lots of NO but it only takes a couple nice land-owners to turn my futures around. I have 1000 acres of scab-ground to graze at my house but the herding is going to be VERY difficult on Jorge. You see, we have equal amounts of CRP and scab-ground. You cannot graze the CRP but you can graze the scab-ground. The hard part is that there are no fences between the scab-ground and CRP. Of course the best grass is on the CRP.
- Neil has learned a lot about lambing sheep and herding sheep. Now, he is spending his time with me in the truck riding around looking at maps and in the courthouse finding information, and listening to me on the phone with land-owners. This is a great education for him if he wants to get into the sheep business. Networking is important in business. Networking and research.
04-15-08 - I hate horses. I have to be reminded of this every time I get a horse to work sheep. I was reminded of this today. I went down to the lambing camp to pick-up Neal, our current Intern, and go build new corrals for shipping out and vaccinating sheep. I grabbed a couple flakes of hay to feed the new horse, has no name yet but Jennifer P. suggest I call her Dos (two in Spanish) she is in first place at this point. So, I have hay in hand and push my way through the bummer lambs to the corral that should have held the horse. The horse was gone. I couldn't believe my eyes. This horse is only 14.1 hands tall. What the hell happened. I figured aliens abducted her. What makes it worse is that the lambing camp is fully fenced. The bridge over the creek is a pipe-bridge that cattle and sheep will not cross. I thought a horse wouldn't cross it as well but I was wrong. She went across it and then some. After spending my morning driving around looking for this horse. I finally call the sheriff and yes my horse turned up about five miles away. Apparently she was courting a miniature donkey (intact). She really wanted a boyfriend and went through hell and high-water to find one. I am looking forward to her having a donkey/quarter horse cross. That should really make my cattle-friends fall over with laughter. I changed the tire on the smaller stock trailer and retrieved my new horse. The lady that found her had several kids and they all wanted to keep her. It was all I could do not to just say OK and walk away. One more escape like that and I will not go looking for her.
- Neal is living down at the lambing camp now. He is taking care of the bummer lambs for me. We were suppose to get the new set of corrals up to day but instead we only got the old corrals taken down, leaving a night pen for Jorge. We didn't get one panel setup for the new corrals. Neal said: "You live a very exciting life." I just shook my head and spit.
- When I get up in the morning, I have a plan, then I write that plan down on paper, then I take that paper to the bathroom with me. Because that is what a plan is worth in this business.
- Gale was working for Jorge up on the stubble but I took her home today. Gale is the very best dog I have ever owned and I could see that she was the best dog that Jorge had ever worked, so he was working just her and not his other three dogs. She was bone thin and looked like she would fall over if she wasn't so tough. I put her in the truck and said, in half-ass Spanish, you need to work your young dogs to get them ready for the mountains. He wasn't very happy with me taking her but I need many more litters of pups from Gale, she is the future of my Sheep Co. She is the type of dog that wouldn't stop working until she fell over. Jorge is good with his dogs but I don't think he understood how bad she looked. I really want Jorge to get his own dogs going and not depend on mine. I will buy Jorge a couple more dogs and perhaps start them for him. That is the best I can do at this point. Mick will not work for him and Gale is to valuable to risk. If things start falling apart and he is losing sheep then I may have to send Gale up there again but I hope it doesn't come to that. I gave him about 20lbs of meat to start feeding his dogs, this should increase their energy. The Border Collies I bought for him are of high quality and good breeding, they just need him to train them a bit. Some Sheep Co. don't provide good dogs to the herders, they figure the herder will not be able to get the full potential out of them, but I think if you start with a good dog, it is easier to get the potential out of them. A dog with no potential, will never be worth the food you feed it.
04-14-08 - I purchased my first horse in over 15 years this week. I have borrowed horses and Katie owns two, I had a couple horses left that I bought when I was younger but I have not paid money for a horse since I was in high school. I don't have a name for this new horse. I am starting a naming contest for her. You can see her picture by CLICK HERE. Email me you ideas. She reminds me very much of one of the horses I borrowed this past summer to herd sheep in the mountains. Her name was Chouncy. I have no idea how to spell it but hopefully you get the idea. I am thinking of naming her Chouncy-2. Or number 2. She is a small, solid quarter horse from ranch-horse lines. Britney, you can see her photo from marking lambs, bought her and worked her for a while. She was not and is not broke. I worked her the past couple days and she is out of shape, hard-headed but calm. I put the hobbles on her and she didn't even fall down. She freaked out a bit but then went back to eating her hay. I took them off after a couple minutes and she was fine. I am going to ride her for a couple weeks before letting the herder on her. I have insurance and so, if I get bucked off, that is OK. I haven't been bucked off a horse since my freshman year in college. I am running out of luck.
04-13-08 - Please take a minute to visit the Photos Archive CLICK HERE. I have also added new photos of our marking lambs yesterday. CLICK HERE to see current photos.
04-10-08 - We are using the existing fences on the stubble and some electric fence by the new wheat. The herder is going to have to herd the sheep more tightly now. It has been very cold and not much rain here so the grass is having a hard time growing. We are about three weeks behind this spring. It seems we will not have a spring, it will most likely just turn to summer and the grass will burn off early. When you have grass that is grazed and it is cold with little water, it gets stressed. So, when the warm weather comes it goes to head as fast as it can. This means is stops growing. This is bad when you have a 2200 sheep to feed everyday. I have been feeding out hay but I am at the end of the stack.
- I am looking for two more Kelpies or Border Collies for my herder. I have two really good young dogs with him and an old Kelpie. The Kelpie is very talented but, OLD. I gave him Gale (my number one bitch) to use until I find a couple more dogs for him. He wants my pup, Jake but I wouldn't give him up. Mick will not work for anyone else but me. So, if you have a young dog that is driving you crazy and you need to find LOTS of work for it, call me: 541 215 9109.
04-05-08 - We moved back to the ranch today from the lambing camp. Katie and I will be happy to have all the comforts of home again. Like, hot showers, clothes washer and dryer. We have about six ewes with young lambs still at the camp. Along with 25 or so bummer lambs. Now the task of cleaning everything up and getting ready for next year begins.
- We will be castrating lambs next sat. Call me if you are interested in coming out.
03-10-08 - Neil and Jorge are doing well herding the sheep. I gave Gale to Neil to use. Gale is the only sheepdog I have ever had that I felt could be run by anyone without worry that she would get them in trouble. Neil's dog Pete is getting thin and he realizes that he needs at least two dogs to do the job he is doing. Aside from that, he can send Gale out 900 yards to gather all the sheep on the stubble without worry that she will miss any. Once Pete gets more experience he will be doing the same big outruns that Mick and Gale do on a regular basis. There simply is no better training then experience.
- Jorge got a count on the ewes on stubble yesterday. We have 928 ewes out on stubble. That means we have another 200 still in the lambing camp. We have about 40 ewes that have not lambed yet.
- We are going to mark lambs (castrate, ear-tag, etc) on April 5th. We are looking for volunteers to help. There will be plenty of dog work and people work.
03-04-08 - We trailed about 1000 ewes and about 900 young lambs over 3 miles up to the stubble. That was on the 1st. It was a hard day. I would say that trailing young lambs is the hardest job of the year.
- Don Helsley has posted some photos of Gale's puppies. Click HERE to see them.
- Neil (our intern) and Jorge have been out on the stubble herding the ewes and young lambs. The wind hit over 35mph and the camper was rocking.
02-23-08 - Our new intern is doing very well. He has a dog named Pete that doesn't have much experience with lambs and ewes with lambs. But, he is coming along very well.
- Lucy went home yesterday. She will be very missed here. She handles lambs and ewes with lambs very well.
- We moved the rams out onto graze today. It took Jorge and Neil (our intern) four days to get the fence fixed and the weeds burned. A few weeds can kill an electric fence.
- The puppies also left. We now have only Jake, the male I kept for myself. He is very relaxed and I think he likes riding around in the truck as the only puppy. I don't think Mick likes him. Big surprise there. Jake will some day replace Mick and I don't think Mick likes it.
- The feed truck got killed. They lost the cap off the fuel tank and hay got in. I expect to find a lot of hay in the fuel line when I get a chance to take it apart.
- On the upside, the tractor is now running again. I am using my flatbed Ford to feed out the sheep.
- We have Jen here for the lambing-school. She runs a community farm in California. She seems to be learning a lot as well as teaching us a thing or two. She was pre-vet in college.
02-20-08 - I am sick as a dog today. I have had a really bad run of luck, ending with the flu. The tractor broke down over a week and a half ago. Then the Chevy Pickup stopped running all together. The four-wheeler got killed on the circles and I cannot afford to fix it. So, I had a dead tractor, dead pickup, dead 4-wheeler and my semi-truck needs a front-end repair. I hate machines. I have never like machines, and this is why. The 4-wheeler is only 2 years old.
- The tractor got fixed today. I am sure this will be a $2000 bill. I towed my Chevy down to a local mechanic to get it going. I told the Honda shop to just sit on the 4-wheeler since I cannot afford the repair at this point.
- While the tractor was out of order, we learned to load 1100lb square bales onto a 8-ton truck without a front end loader. So, for about 2-3 hours a day, we worked on leavers to get the bales onto the feed truck.
- I got sick while burning a fence-line. I left some temp-fence up on Randy's place and it got hammered this winter. We ended up cutting it away and burning the weeds just to be able to put the fence back up. I need this paddock, about 70 acres to run my rams on. I couldn't even leave the trailer today. I think I have slept over 8 hours today.
- On the up-side, we hare getting through lambing. We have been catching lambs in the corrals that need some milk each morning and feeding them by hand. This has kept our death rate down but it is time consuming.
02-16-08 - We are over the hump at this point in lambing. We lambed over 100 ewes a day at the peak last week. We are down to 10-20 per day again.
- Our intern from last summer came to pick up his new puppy today. He was very excited to have her and I was happy to see her go to Charlie. I know she will work well for him and he will take great care of her.
- We had a lamb that was 26lbs. That was the biggest lamb ever. None of the herders had ever seen a lamb that big either. It was huge. When I get time I will upload a couple videos and some pictures.
02-08-08 - Lambing is happening very fast now. We have put about 350 ewes through the jugs. We have the LGDs pups on chains. The first lambing for LGDs can be a bit much. Lots of stuff going on.
- We are putting out over two ton of hay right now. That is expensive. We got 1 foot of snow the last couple weeks, then it melted and we got another 9". It has warmed up today. Then comes the rain. We have lambed at 160% right now in the jugs. I hope that turns into 140% weaned lambs. We keep the twins apart in groups of about 25.
- I am keeping things short because I don't have much time right now.
- I had the last female pup from Gale sold and the women couldn't get her. So, I have one female left to sale. Katie really wants to keep her.
- The website was down because I didn't pay the bill. You have to first get a bill before you pay it. This is what I pointed out to my ISP. Anyway, I paid them and the site is back up now.
01-27-08 - The Gale's puppies are loving the snow.
- We got a foot of snow or more today. Lucky for me my ewes are in the lambing camp and are now on full feed. The bad thing is that they are eating about 2 ton of hay per day. This is expensive. I have my rams out on graze, but that graze is no longer available to them. This means over the next couple days I need to get those rams into the lambing camp and on feed. Truck, chains and a trailer.
- We have had about four ewes lamb at this point. One ewe that had twins had one Suffolk lambs and one Rambouillet lamb. At least it looks Rambouillet.
- I am finding, this is my first year using Peru herders to lamb, is they are good about bring the ewes in but they don't mother lambs that well. I guess they don't have experience with this in Peru. Thankfully, we have a winter Intern coming and also a couple people are coming to the lambing school. Mothering lambs makes all the difference. You can save a lamb. You can save it with time and heat and milk.
01-26-08 - I had MY first lamb today. It was by number 5062. Notice she has a low number. This means she had an early lamb last year too.
- I now have Louis (transfer herder), Jorge (my first import from Peru) and Nilton (Jorge's half brother). I picked up Nilton from the PDX airport last night. He missed his connecting flight from LAX. I got to the airport at noon and didn't get him until after 5pm. Then a 4 hours drive home. He seems to be working OK today.
01-23-08 - As of 01-21-08, we have trucked the sheep into the lambing camp. Lambing has started. Two reasons we are in lambing camp this soon. One, we were out of feed on the circles we were on. Two, the new ewes I have, have started lambing. I was told they were not going to lamb until Feb. and well they started lambing on the circles. I ended up paying another trucker to come in a take a load of sheep for me. So, we had Krebbs Sheep Co., Gillespie Grazing Co., Harlow's Hills Sheep Co. and Mike come over with sheep trucks. Gillespie, Krebbs and myself trade hauling but I will have to pay Mike $6-700 for trucking one load of sheep for me. We lost about 6 lambs on the circles and that was too many to wait even one more day, for me to take a second load of sheep. Sometimes, you have to spend the money to save money.
- After two days I got Jorge and his camp into the lambing camp. My transfer herder, from California, Louis has been just great. He has been in the US for six years and knows how to lamb in jugs. He has looked after my sheep when they got off the trucks and trailed them to the camp on his own. With about 30 new lambs on the ground.
- We had one ewe actually lamb on the truck.
- Trey is going on the plane in the next couple days. I will miss him. Things are very busy right now. I figured I had two more weeks to get ready for lambing and here I am, it has started. I spend a lot of time in my truck running around getting stuff together. The herders want food, the dogs want food, the sheep want hay. The lambs want warmer weather.
- The Honda 4-wheeler has blown up. It is only two years old but had over 6000 miles on it. That will cost me $800. It is hard to blame the herder but I did explain to him how much this repair will cost me.
- And, my brown stock trailer has lost an axle. It seems this cold weather is breaking all my stuff. I think the equipment must know I just got my wool-check and so they are trying to break down so I have to spend it.
01-18-08 - I took Trey to the vet today for an Airline vet certificate. He has been sold to Sam on the east coast. I am very happy for Trey. It sounds like he is what Sam is looking for. There is nothing better then when you get the right dog to the right handler.
- I got another herder. He is a transfer from California. His name is Louis. He has been great. I gave him a list of things to do at the lambing camp and he has done everything and done a great job at it. The guy who transferred him would only let him go if I said I would transfer him back. That is a really good sign and I can see why he wants him back. He has a license and can think on his own. I look forward to paying this guy. That is how good he is.
- Jorge is still out on the circles with the ewes. I am going out there tomorrow to check on him and the sheep. Depending on how much feed is there, I may bring the ewes into lambing camp next week. Jorge has been running up my cell phone bill. He has over 1000 minutes. That is as much as I have. I told the translator to call him and let him know if he doesn't stop, he will start paying his own cell phone bill.
- I got home from Denver yesterday morning about 9am. We trucked some of those feeder lambs out to the feedlot. I am working on being able to keep my lambs next year and truck them to the feedlot myself from the mountain. It all depends on cash-flow. Cameron and I team drove for the first time. When you team-drive, the truck NEVER stops.
- Sophie, Nines daughter from her second litter, had her first litter of pups this past week.
01-12-08 - Lucy got a couple of her front teeth knocked out by one of Katie's horses. I took her to the vet and he said everything looked fine and the teeth came out clean. It really surprised me since Lucy has gone with all the dogs up to feed the horse twice a day since she has been here. We didn't see it happen so nobody is sure what took place. Anyway, she is fine and eating with no problem. Just another vet bill.
- We are still looking for a buyer for Trey. He is a really nice and thoughtful dog. He is going to make somebody a great small farm and trial dog. And, the price is very good for a dog at his level of training and ability.
- We lost two LGD pups out on the circle last week. A cougar came into steal a sheep and got into a full-on fight with all the LGDs. I assume the pups got too close to the cat in the fight and got killed. This happened over two nights. The first night the herder didn't see it, but the second night he was out there checking the sheep and came up on the cat in the field with the LGDs fighting it. The herder said the Guard dogs had the cat circled and were coming at it in a furry. The cat was trapped and just striking out at whatever dog got close. This must have been how the pups got it. Nine, pups mother, has several scares on her face and back now. Both she and trooper came out of the fight a bit bloody but alive. One of the pups that survived has a bad leg but will be OK in a few days. This happened in Washington state in a area that I have not grazed before. So, it took me a while to get in contact with the correct agents to get hounds out to track the cat down. After many, many phone calls I got an agent and some hounds out to the circle. They couldn't pickup a scent and so the cat got away. We have finished that circle and moved the sheep down the road about 2 miles. This will not stop the cat from coming back but I am hoping that the Guard dogs gave the cat a good enough fight that he will move onto easier pray. The wildlife agents acted as if my herder was no telling the truth about the cougar. Finally, I asked the herder to draw me a picture of what he saw, he drew a perfect picture of a cougar. Washington State recently banded hunting cougars with dogs. Therefore the cougar population has exploded in that state. It is illegal to shoot them unless they are threaten your livestock. Thank god we have such strong and fearless guard dogs. I have heard of cats that kill 30 sheep in a night. They just get excited and go crazy with killing.
01-01-08 - Happy New Year. We are going to use the Fry-Daddy tonight for dinner so I am very excited about starting the new year with fried food.
- I worked Trey a couple days ago to move the 2500 feeder lambs. He is going to make a really good trial type dog or a small-flock type dog for a Novice handler. I spoke to his current owner and she has put him up for sale. She is asking $2700 for him and I think that would be a steal for a somebody that wanted a dog that listens very well and will not blow-up on them. His personality is rock-solid and a very easy dog to have around. He goes out of his way to do the right thing.
- I have also been working Lucy a bit. She is picking up the slack from Gale being out with her pups. I warned Diane that Lucy may require a bit of tuning down before she starts trialing her again. Like her brother (Trey) she is staying very strong on the head and will not turn tale on a sheep that faces her. Anyway, Lucy is fine and going strong on the ranch. She is still not riding on the 4-wheeler but that is a small thing at this point.
- Gale's pups are all sold but for one female. I am not to excited about it since if she doesn't sell, that means I should just keep her. I had Hercillio (One of Cameron's herders) at the ranch today and he really wanted one of Gale's pups. He has gotten a couple dogs from another ranch and he really wants a pup to train on his own. I just wish I had more pups, I would have given him one. I spoke to Rusty Childs yesterday and we agreed that one good dog is worth 3 OK dogs. My herder has good dogs and I think it makes a difference.
12-22-07 - It has been a very big week. Gale had her litter of puppies. Three females and three males. Don Helsley is getting a female for the stud fee and I am keeping a male to replace Mick when he is too old to work. So, we have two females and two males left to sale. the price is $650 per pup. Please contact me if you are interested in one. The father is Don Helsley's Cap. If you are on the trial circuit out here on the West Coast you will know Don and his dog Cap very well. They are doing extremely well out here on the range sheep. The pups are classic markings. One female has some thri-color on her and so as they get bigger more pups may start to show some tri-color. We are very happy with Gale. She is doing an excellent job with her puppies. She comes out of the whelping box only a couple times a day to go up to the barn with Katie and get a little exercise. Then she is right back with her pups keeping them warm and happy.
- I just got back from Denver CO. I hauled a load of feeder-lambs down to the feedlot there. Mountain States Co-op is the company that feeds lambs out of that feedlot. The trip down was hard work, it snowed on the border of WY and UT. But I couldn't stop. I just put the semi in 5th gear and crawled along. My truck was a little overloaded at the first scale but I got through it with the dumb sheep farmer act and so I didn't get a ticket. It took a day to get there and three days to get home. Cameron and I followed each other back on the way home and we both got stuck in the same spot coming home. It snowed an inch per hour for a long time. We made it to the last truck stop before the Mountain pass and slept for the night. It got down to -5 that night. I ran my semi all night to keep warm but it was so cold that the engine couldn't heat up enough to run the heater. It was a long night. Lucky for me I didn't have any sheep on the trailer. This was my first long-distance trip in the semi and it did well. It needs more power. The newer trucks just leave me in the dust when it comes to pulling up a hill. That little truck of my can be modified to higher power and I am going to check into it after Christmas.
- We are heading to Katie's parents house for Christmas day. We are going to take Gale and her pups with us. Not sure if we should take them or leave them home where they are comfortible.
12-08-07 - I ended up using just Trey yesterday while moving those 2500 feeder lambs. He was a bit unsure of himself and who I was in the picture. The first time a dog is on that many sheep can be very confusing and a bit stressful. He seems a bit reluctant to walk onto the sheep but I will not worry about him too much at this point. I was asking him to do a big job with three other dogs and two other herders there pushing the sheep. He listens very well and seems to have had a very good start put on him. It will take a few more big jobs to start to get a feel for him and if his push increases. I really like his personality off sheep he has settled right into the farm. Of course Mick keeps trying to pick a fight but Trey is staying above the fray.
- The herder is finally starting to work the two young dogs I gave him. I had the translator out there and explained to him that this was the best time for him to put a start on those two dogs. He was depending on just one older Kelpie to do all the work.
12-05-07 - I picked up Jennifer Proctor's Trey from the Pasco Airport yesterday. He is a full brother to Diane's Lucy. He looks just like her but he is black and white instead of brown and white. He is in the back yard right now by himself with the other dogs on the outside of the fence. We have several dogs here and I don't want him to get overwhelmed his first couple days here. He is a macho man. He stands up to Mick and is acting very tough. We are trailing two bands (2500) feeder lambs about a mile down the road on Fri. I will use him and Lucy for the job. He is responding to his name so I think he will work for me.
11-27-07 - Gale is coming alone well with her pregnancy. Let me know if you are interested in a puppy from her.
11-26-07 - I was married to Katie Van Dine this past weekend. I am extremely happy.
- I hope to post some wedding photos soon.
- I want to thank the individuals that came out to help us with shearing. Thank you very much Traci Bruchok and your sheltie, Adele and David Ullman and your corgi, Lori Withnell and your Border Collies, Dave Vicklund and your Kelpie. You were all a great help and we couldn't have done it without you.
11-20-07 - We are now finished shearing my 970 ewes and 2500 feeder lambs. We also crutched Cameron's 1200 ewes and about 300 of mine. This took over 6 days with 6 shearers.
- I used Lucy for working the pens and moving the sheep from the field to the yards. I think she just about has working the large flock figured out. She has found her bite and uses it when needed. I think she really enjoys working the yards now. She still gets a little lost when she losses sight of me but she is getting better about taking her sides. I got on her a bit when we trailed the feeder lambs to and from their pasture. I don't like to get on her too much.
- Gale is getting big. I think she is pregnant. Email me if you are interested in one of her pups. I don't know how many she will have and several are already spoken for.
- I have three female pups left to sale from Nine's last litter.
- I lost Jorge the LGD just before shearing started. He got into a porcupine. It was the worst I have ever seen. Just about his entire body had quills in it. This was a great loss. Jorge was from Nine's very first litter. He was Katie's favorite dog. She took it hard. I am keeping all of the males from Nine's last litter.
- Our wedding is on Sat. and I am looking forward to it. My family will be here starting on Thursday. It has been over two years since I have seen any of them.
- I picked up the new herder on Fri. from the PDX airport. He was very happy to see me. I don't think he was sure I would be there. I put him down with Hercillio in Patterson, WA. Hercillo should be getting him trained up.
11-06-07 11-05-07 - I don't intend for this to be political. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2007/11/02/wolf-father.html Wolves are coming close to the Mountain range where I run my sheep. We already have many bears and cougars. With wolves coming quickly, I wonder how our sheep and lambs will make it.
- We are ramping up for shearing. The price of wool is very good right now. I just hope I can get my wool on a trucking heading south to Roswell for sale. The LDP rate is down, as it should be with the wool price going up. Click HERE to see the latest wool prices.
- Wanted: Very good leg crook. I had one that was make of metal, the type used on a pitch fork. It was on the end of a hickory stick. I lost it out of the back of my truck. I have never seen such a good crook as this. Let me know if you have one or know where to buy one.
- For Sale: I have four female Livestock Guardian dog puppies for sale. Email me if you are interested.
11-03-07 - We are looking for helpers for our shearing on November 10th. Shearing will last for about 5 days. We will shear 900 ewes and crutch another 1500 outside of Patterson, WA. We will then move over to Hermiston, OR and shear 2200 feeder lambs. This will take lots of dog work and people power. Let me know even if you can only make it for one day. I can provide you with a bed and food.
- I loaded out my replacement ewe-lambs on Thursdays. I used Lucy to gather and load out the ewe-lambs. There was 250 or so. She is going strong now.
- I got a call from a women in Georgia who has Lucy's brother. I think she is going to send him to me to get some of the same experience that Lucy has been able to get. I think it really helps most dogs to get real-world experience.
10-28-07 - I have hauled my first full load of sheep on my own Semi-Trailer. I have hauled sheep before with my semi and a rented trailer but this was the first full load I did with my own semi and trailer. It felt really good. I have a light semi/trailer combination so I could haul 48,000lbs of sheep on it. That added up to be about 311, 155lb ewes. It is all based on weight. I can haul a maximum total weight including the semi and trailer of 80,000lbs. My trailer is very long at 50'. Most sheep semi-trailers are 48' or less. This meant that I could leave the back most compartment on the second deck free of sheep. I put Nine and her puppies in that compartment along with their dog-house and some supplies I was bring to the herder. I also put Mick back there so he wouldn't have to ride in the truck and stink it up, with sheep shit.
- Lucy is doing very well, as are the rest of the sheepdogs. I am hoping Gale is bred. Time will tell if that is the case. I used Lucy to move 2200 feeder-lambs about a 1/4 mile down the road to a new grass-circle. She was over her head but her calm disposition made it easy for me to help her along a bit. She is not 100% on her flanks while driving sheep yet but she is getting better. I don't think the issue is her not knowing her flanks but rather all the pressure of having that many sheep to herd at once AND remembering her flanks. She got with the program about half way down the road and things went well. She also got shocked on the fence and this caused her a bit of worry and now she really do not like the fences. After a while she will learn to jump over the fence like the rest of the dogs, or risk getting shocked. I didn't use the four-wheeler and she liked that a bit better was well. Something about the four-wheeler she doesn't like. I brought the old 3wheeler home to the ranch for Katie to use with her horses so Lucy will have lots of time to get used to running next to it.
- I visited Melinda's trial this weekend and talked to many of my old friends. It reminds me how much I miss trialing with them.
- Francis Chai stayed at the ranch for the trial, as did Trudy Viklund and her friend Jen (don't remember last name). I have never met Francis before and it was a shame I didn't know him while I was trialing. He and I talked for a long time about dogs and sheep and he seems to understand the difference between what I do with dogs on the ranch as appose to trialing. He raised some interest in coming and doing a short internship with us.
- I met up with my good friends Patrick Shannahan, Sue Wessels, Karen Childs, Susan Linstead and Lyn Johnston. They are all doing extremely well in trialing and in their personal lives. It gave me a chance to feel apart of the gang again. Good friends are hard to find and I miss them all deeply. It is very easy to get caught up in my work and forget to keep in touch with everyone.
- I also talked with my good friends from our lambing camp this winter, Lana and Marti. They are moving very quickly into fulltime sheep-farming. They seemed excited about running sheep so I guess their experience at the lambing camp didn't turn them off (all the hard work and long hours while having to smell and look at me, the dirty sheep-farmer).
- Sue Wessels had Brook and Quill at the trial. These are the two dogs I ran on the Mountains last summer. It felt great to see them again as well. Just like old friends. I had flashbacks to different times on the Mountain when both of those dogs pulled my ass out of the fire and funny things that happened. Quill's eye is 100% healed at this point. I huge weight off my shoulders. To have my own dogs hurt is one thing but to have your friends dogs hurt while you are running them is another.
- Lyn Johnston bought an RV trailer to use at trials now. It is just great. He also has a pup that looks like a future National Champion.
- Susan Linstead is going to help me vasectomies about 15 ram-lambs next spring. She works at the Idaho sheep station and has some great resources.
- Gosh it was great to see everyone. I really miss you all.
10-23-07 - We are going to be shearing starting on Nov. 10th 2007. We will be shearing for about 7 days straight. Let me know if you are interested in coming out to help. Eric: 541 215 9109 or eric@harlowshillswestcoast.com
10-18-07 - I have added Charlie Martin's (Summer 2007 Intern) journal to the website. Thank you again, Charlie. Please Click HERE to read it.
- Lots and lots of fencing in the past couple days. The Herder we have with the feeder lambs is figuring out how to fence and that is less work for me.
- I moved the 300 or so ewes I had on dry-land Alfalfa to a new paddock today. It was pouring down rain. That meant I took down about two miles of fence and put up about a mile. That sounds like a lot but when you do fencing for a while, a mile doesn't mean much. When you are talking seven or eight miles then your back starts to hurt just thinking about it. With each post you pound into the ground you ask yourself how you can get a herder to do it for you.
- The Alfalfa those 300 sheep are on now, will last only about five days. Then we have to move them out to Patterson, WA. I don't think my Semi-Truck will be ready by then. I stopped by the shop today to check on it and it was still in pieces. I think my truck likes the shop and so has decided to stay.
- I am helping Cameron put his high-tensile fence down tomorrow. If you don't lower the fence in winter, the weeds cover it and push is down. So, we are going to lower about 10 miles of fence in a day. I hope we get it all done. Katie is going to come out and give us a hand.
- I bought a suit for the wedding. This is the first suit I have ever bought, that was not from a second hand shop. It is black with a bright green shirt and tie. I like green. It is the color of spring grass. Green grass means big lambs and fat happy ewes. Big lambs mean I can survive for another year. Green is good. Did you know; Green is the easiest color on the eye when you look at something for a long time. The cavemen knew that green meant survival. Green still means survival to me. I am a caveman.
- I am not sure Gale is bred. She is still kissing upto Mick's kennel. I am very protective of her when she is in heat. I refuse to let her get bred to anyone but Don Helsey's Cap. She is a lot like her mother, she likes the boys.
- Diane's Lucy is doing very well. She is figuring out the big band of sheep and the big fields. She is still not sure about herself yet but that will take some time. I would like a pup out of her some day. If I can afford one that is. I am going to move about 2200 lambs on Saturday. We will have to move them down the road about a mile onto new grass. I will use Mick and Lucy for this (it is rare that we use only one dog with this number of sheep). I think she will be fine as long as she listens and thinks. These lambs are everything from range lambs to hobby lambs. The hobby lambs are the worse for dogs. They have no fear and can frustrate most dogs. I little bite on the nose usually puts them to rights but some never get it and you don't want a dog picking on them. You just move the rest of the sheep away and hope they follow. I am sure it will be a challenge but that is why I got into this business. I am not sure if Diane will want her back before lambing comes. That is a different challenge in itself.
- We will be having our lambing school again this year. Let me know if you are interested in coming. I am sure the people from last year will tell you how much they learned.
10-14-07 - I have put that herder on a plane back to Peru. That was a very difficult day. He really didn't want to go and it took a couple hours with many phone calls to get him in the truck and on his way home. I ended up driving him all the way to Portland and put him on a plane. I hope I have heard the end of this guy, but I don't think so. I am sure he will make trouble for me even from Peru. The rule: no work, no stay. No matter how much trouble it is for me to put them on the plane back to Peru. There are many, many people who would love to come to the USA legally. This guy just took things for granted and found out the hard way, that he was not going to get away with it.
- I bred Gale to Don Helsely's Cap. She got bred twice, I hope it took.
10-06-07 - So I am into my semi truck and sheep trailer for like almost $20,000 at this point and I have only hauled one load of sheep. We got the sheep loaded on it (311 sheep). We were side loading on a hill and the truck frame got twisted enough to make the fan hit on the housing and put a hole in the radiator. I tried to fix the radiator and just made it much worse. We unloaded the sheep and put them back into the yards. Cameron hauled his load to the circles and turned around to come back for another load of my sheep. We unloaded the second load in the dark. I don't know if you have ever unloaded sheep in the dark but it is not much fun. The sheep cannot see the ramp or ground or anything. You have to put each ewe on the ramp off the trailer. I got kicked in the eye and beat up a bit in the trailer. Anyway, we got the sheep off and onto the grass circle. I still have another load of sheep waiting to move in Pendleton. As soon as my truck is back out of the shop, I will move these ewes to the circles. I look forward to the day when I move my own sheep with my own semi and all goes well. That will be a great day.
- We also moved Cameron's ewes onto the circles the next day. We got Cameron's second load of ewes off the truck at around 1am. I got home at 3am. Sheep farming is fun in the dark.
- I got to Patterson and found that the herder had not done any of the fencing we asked him to do. I was a little upset about it. The new herder will be here from Peru in a few weeks.
- We are getting another 550 lambs in tomorrow. They need to be unloaded at dawn. They we will Vaccinate them with CDT and worm them. Cameron is in Idaho so it will be me and the two good herders. This is a busy time of the year.
- Nine's pups are going very well. Their eyes are opening. I expect them to be running around the paddock any day now. I whish I had some grass by the house to graze so I could bring her closer to the house. This may be her last litter and so I want to watch them close and pick a good female to replace her, in the puppy-making department, so I can get her spayed. She is so good with sheep that I want her to live for may years of service.
10-03-07 - I have gotten a couple requests for an update on what is going on here. This has been a big week. Today I got my first fulltime sheepherder. He is from Peru and has been herding in the USA for about five years. He will only be with us for a year since his work contracts in the USA will be over after that point. He speaks very good English. He said he will teach me Spanish if I help his English. What a good deal.
- We are trucking the band of sheep off the wheat stubble tomorrow and onto grass circles in Patterson, WA. I dropped him off at his camp and told him to gather the sheep and put them in the corrals before dark. He did. What a new feeling that was for me.
- I am not 100% sure about him yet. He has been in the USA for a while and seems to know the system a bit. As long as he works very hard and does the job I will have no problem with him. I am told you can tell a lot about a herder the first couple hours you meet him. If he starts asking for stuff right away, you may have a problem. He asked me for some special food not on the list and that made me wonder a little. I said yes, if he wanted to pay for it out of his pocket. He said then he didn't want it then. Of course if he works hard and does a good job, I have not problem with buying special stuff but not the first day or week or month. I gave him a Border Collie I bought named Lance. When I came back to the camp, a few hours later he said he wanted a new dog. Lance doesn't have any experience he said. I said, I know, that is your job to train him. He says he had some good dogs with his last boss but the boss kept them when he was transferred. I called the last boss to see if I could arrange to get at least one of his old dogs for him. I know how attached you can get to a good sheepdog. I don't hold that against him. First impressions are very interesting.
- My knee-jerk reaction to the herder was to think about giving him my old dog Mick. Then I thought better of it. Mick has been with me for a long time at this point. I think he would either walk all over the herder, or the herder would end up being very hard on him. Either way, not good for Mick or the herder. The only other dog I have at this point is Gale and there is no way I am letting her out of my sight, even for a minute. She is the future of Harlow's Hills West Coast. Without her, all is lost.
- So, I am into this herder for like $400 in supplies at this point. Lets hope he saves me that much in worry and diesel this month.
- That dog I got from Diane Pagel is working very well. She is getting into shape a little more each day. I take her and Gale with me to check the sheep. She doesn't understand working the BIG flock in a BIG field yet but she is starting to. She also doesn't like the four-wheeler very much. I don't know why. As with all dogs, she will work with it if it means she gets to work sheep. This is the first brown and white dog I have ever had for any length of time. She is proving color doesn't matter much. She is catching on very fast in the yards as well. She was in over her head the first couple times pushing that many sheep up (1000 ewes) but she is working it out and is getting much calmer each time she works the yards. I have noticed that most dogs that have not grown up in this line of work are lost in the yards and out in a big paddock. They just don't seem to know where the sheep end and they loss their idea of where they are in relation to the sheep and me. The difference is between the dogs that figure it out quickly and the ones that just never get over it and so don't like this type of work. I can see Lucy (Diane's dog) starting to calm down and figure it out. I am not worried about her at all.
- I finally got my semi-truck all ready to go and and hooked onto my new Semi-sheep trailer. It is very long at 50' and I should be able to get 315 ewes on it at one time. It is a very nice older trailer (1981) and has been well looked after. I can also haul cows and pigs in it if I get a call for it. I plan to take some side jobs in order to pay the trailer off and maybe make a little cash-flow for the sheep. My Semi-truck is running like a champ since I got a complete service done on it.
- My pickup truck is running like crap now, not sure if it is jealous of the semi-truck, so I will take it in for a full service next week.
- I also had a full-service done on the Honda Four-wheeler and she is running better then new. The people at the service shop couldn't believe I put over 6000 miles on a four wheeler in 14 months. I have one word for that, FENCING. Lots and lots of fencing. I gave my old three-wheeler to the herder and he hates it. I love that bike. It just goes to show that some people have no appreciation for the classics.
- I weighed myself at the vets a couple days ago. I am back up to 197lbs. I was down to 180lbs on the mountains. I must be driving my pickup too much and not running after sheep enough.
- Cameron and I currently have a little under 2000 feeder lambs on grass-circles for the winter. We are getting another 550 lambs on Sunday. That should help the cash-flow a little bit. We teamed up with a feeder-lamb guy out of the Willamette Valley in western Oregon. This way, he pays us for the gains on the lambs and he can run sheep out here on the east-side that would not do well on the coast where he is. I just hope the check is big enough to cover the cost of the herder we have with them and all the extra work involved. I will be very happy if the lambs gain over .2lbs per day. I have done a bit of custom grazing and it usually works out very well for the owner and me.
09-18-07 - I think we have all of our started Guardian Dogs sold at this point. I have been getting lots of calls about them but I work hard to make sure that our Guardian dogs get placed correctly. I have sold Guardian dogs in operations ranging from 5 acre hobby farms to 2000 sheep operations. I find it works much better if we let the dogs grow up a bit before I sell them. Then I know their personality before we sell them.
- Goats must be an upcoming trade. I have been getting a lot of calls from goat people. My dogs have no problem changing over to guarding goats. However, I have one dog I would not sell to a goat person. I think the goats would push him around too much. I have sold him to a women to run with her chickens. I think this would be perfect for him.
- We got another 700 feeder lambs in today. I have a new Border Collie, Lucy, in for a couple months. I used her to keep the sheep up to the trailer while we unloaded. She did very well. She is brown and white. This is my first Border Collie that isn't black and white. It will be interesting to see if there is a difference. Many years ago, shepherds wouldn't keep any dogs that where no black and white.
- Our herder will be here in the next couple weeks. I am looking hard for an electronic translator. Anyone use one before and have suggestions? I have been working on my old Layton RV trailer. I have it cleaned out at this point. I also sealed the roof to keep the water out. I have to make a new door for it. I don't remember if the heater works or not. I will try that next.
09-17-07 - We drenched and vaccinated 1200 lambs in about 8 hours two days ago. The lambs arrived at the grass-circle @ noon and we started @ 1pm. It was Cameron, Katie the Herder and myself. I did the CDT and Cameron drenched. It was a long 7 hours but we got it done. Even after it was dark we kept going and got it done by 9pm. We didn't want the lambs to have to stay off grass for any longer then absolutely necessary so we pushed on and got it done. Days like that remind me why I look forward to days when there isn't much going on. Those days are few.
- Katie's sister came for a visit today so I had a good excuse to sleep until 7am and do some calling around and book work in the morning. I find that if I don't do the office work in the morning then I just keep putting it off and it doesn't get done. After they left, Katie and I met Cameron up at the Mountains and we rounded up some sheep Cameron was missing. It was after dark before we got them back to the Herder's camp and gave him some food and water for the week.
- I worked with Cameron's other herder down on the circle putting up fence yesterday. I whish I would have taken Spanish in school. I feel so stupid trying to pickup a few words here and there. I am actively looking for an electronic translator device to use. I need to learn fast. This herder is the hardest working person I have ever seen. Makes me feel lazy.
- A friend of mine, Dian sent me one of her Border Collies to run for a few months. Her name is Lucy. I just got her last night. She seems very nice so far.
- It seems I may have a herder sooner then I thought. A friend of mine is selling some sheep and will have two herders available. One that is older and a really good herder and one that is younger but can drive. You may as well flip a coin. Both are good. I have to get my old Layton, trailer out and clean it up to get ready. I was going to buy a new used trailer but decided I should make good use of the one I have. The nice thing about the Layton, other then I know everything about it, since I lived in it for five months, is that it is high off the ground so it should be good in the mountains. I never thought I would step foot in it again once I bought my new trailer but keeping it was a good idea.
- I sold one of the the started Livestock Guardian dogs yesterday. It was from Nine's last litter. What a great dog he is. I know he will do very well for his new flock of sheep. I also got some pictures of a couple pups I sold this spring. They are doing very well. I debate with myself about how many LGDs I should keep. If I could afford the dog food I would keep them all. As I always say, Keep as many Guardian dogs as you can afford to feed. You don't have to save very many lambs to pay for a bag of dog food do you?
09-13-07 - In the words of Jack Kerouac: "Home I'll never be." Some days, from 6am until after 8pm, I feel like I never get out of my truck. Driving from one place to another getting things ready, taking things down, catching sheep, fixing fence, moving sheep, doctoring sheep, getting supplies and the entire time; on the phone organizing more things to drive around and do. I look back at this summer, herding sheep in the mountains, with longing. Funny how you remember good things and forget the struggle, worry and hard work.
- I finally found the ewe I have been looking for on the stubble today. She was sick and needed doctoring but she was hiding from me. I got a phone call that she was sitting next to the fence looking bad. By the time I got there she was gone. Today I caught up to her and got her sorted out.
- I got a call that one of my Suffolk rams was outside of the fence. After, driving up to the mountains and down and to Boardman and Pilot Rock and on my way back to Boardman, I was in Pendleton, where my sheep are now. I went right over to see what was going on. Somebody hit the fence and so it was not hard for a sheep to push through it. But, my ewes never even thought about leaving. However, if you have Suffolk sheep you know how hard they are to fence. Of course I had a ram standing on the wrong side of the fence, once he heard me coming he was working hard to get back in before I let the dogs after him. Just like a kid in trouble.
- We have the feeder-lambs coming in tomorrow. I have to get down to Boardman and put the Pratleys up. Get the footbath setup, pick up the wormer, and CDT. Thankfully, we have the herder down there to help.
- Like I have said before, you need an unlimited number of dogs and wire if you are going to run sheep. Up in the mountains Cameron's herder was bring some lost sheep back to camp with his Border Collie. Then somebody started shooting a gun. The Border Collie spooked off. The herder stayed with the sheep and got them home. When he went back for the dog, somebody had picked the dog up and brought it home. So, they were short a dog. I let them use one of my new pups, Greg. I need him to get some training in Spanish anyway. I know how hard the Mountains can be when you are short on dogs. With a little luck, Greg will be fully trained in Spanish when my herder gets here.
09-12-07 - We introduced Rambouillet Rams into the replacement ewe-lambs today. We put in 4 ram-lambs. The rams are good sized, at least 140lbs. I think they should do a good job. However, I will put a clean-up 3yo ram in for the last couple weeks of breeding.
- We also introduced some Rambouillet Rams into Mador's ewes today. I helped transport the rams for her. The ewes still have a few lambs on them but the rams went to work. We are working on getting some more grass for the lambs to go onto. They are a bit small still.
- I lost one of my teaser rams to fly-strike today as well. It has been a long day. My teaser rams are a bit old at this point. I caught the fly-strike when he got hit but even after shearing him and getting the strike treated with insecticide he still went down hill. That is the thing with fly-strike, it usually hits sheep that already have some other things going on. Old ewes or sick or thin ewes seems to get is the most. Unless, they have an open wound, then it doesn't matter how good they are doing, the flies can get them.
- I have put an add in the paper for sheep hauling. I am looking for a ways to make a little extra cash-flow this year. I would also like to be able to pay off my sheep-trailer with it. We will see how many people need sheep moved this fall.
- I have submitted my application for a sheepherder. I would like him to get here ASAP. It will cost me some money to have him here but I think he will pay his way very quickly.
- Cameron and I have contracted to custom graze 2000 lambs this fall and winter. That is where the herder will pay for himself. We have plenty of grass to graze. I figure, we should not let one blade of grass go un-grazed as long as we have the sheep to eat it. I should say, as long as we can get somebody to custom graze sheep with us, to eat it.
- I am in the market for a old, but working, RV trailer of pickup camper. Email me if you have one.
- Our summer Intern has returned to school for the year. I thank you, Charlie Martin. You have been a great help to us. I expect Charlie has set the bar very high for our future summer interns. Next year I will have very high expectations indeed. All summer, I don't think he lost or broke one tool of mine. He found many sheep for me in the Mountains and helped doctor many. I showed him all my accounting and he helped me figure out our new budget for this coming year. He has a journal that I will publish as soon as he gets it typed out for me. I told him to keep the parts that he doesn't want everyone to read out. I don't want everyone to know what a mean boss I can be. In my defense, I don't think I yelled at him one time this summer. And, I don't think he yelled at me either. I know we both must have, at one point, wanted to.
- I think the lessons Charlie learned this summer are the same lesson he would learn at any small business. The business is number one and everything else is second. I tired to be a good mentor to him and I only hope I succeed and teaching him something other then how to heard sheep, run a Border Collie, complain about lamb buyers, doctor sick sheep, figure out how long the feed will last and how to load sheep on a truck. I hope he has many life lessons that will serve him well in his future. He is a very good worker and thinker. I know he will do well, whatever it is.
- Katie and I will be married soon. I hope we have our first child very soon there after. I look forward to marriage and fatherhood. What is the point of working this hard if you don't have somebody coming up after you to enjoy the fruits of you labors?
09-04-07 - I bought a total of 17 Suffolk rams this week. Most are Ram-lambs but none are under 160lbs at this point. I have a couple yearly Suffolk Rams out there and they went right to work. I also have my Rambouillet rams out there and I know they are very good workers. When I checked the sheep today, on the three-wheeler, I could see that almost all the rams where working on at least one or two ewes. When it comes time to breed your ewes, you really don't want to mess around. You need to be sure that EVERYONE gets bred. I am debating if I need to bring in leased rams at this point or not. Most of the Suffolk rams have only been in for a couple days, so they are feeling good and doing the job. I wonder how many days it will take for them to start getting tired and stop breeding. I have a total of 22 rams in there, 5 of them are Rambouillets. With that kind of ram power I should be able to breed 1000 ewes. I sorted off the replacements and put them on irrigated ground. I don't have any rams in with them yet. I am waiting on some more Rambouillet rams to come in. If they don't get here soon, I will have to take a few Suffolk rams off my ewes and put them with the replacements. Then I will start to worry a bit. I wonder how many will come off the range at the end of breeding. I would say about half.
- I finally got all the wedding invitations out this week. Katie is happy.
- It seems I am having to spend the first couple hours of each day just doing the books and getting all of my paper work in order. Not what I like, but it must be done. I recently bought Quick Books and will move my operation over to it on the first of October. My banker prefers it.
- If you know Spanish and would like to translate for me, email me.
- The Border Collies and Carlos, are coming along well. I have taken to splitting up the Border Collie pups during the day, taking one to work with me each day. I think it helps them get more accustom to being alone.
- I fixed two flats today, one on the 4-wheeler and one on the three-wheeler. I love Honda. My old 3-wheeler sat for over two months and start right up when I put gas in it. Somebody had stolen the gas out of it where I had it stored for the summer. It had a flat so I expect they didn't think it ran and so just took the gas and left the bike. The gas-line was pulled on it and drain of all the gas in the tank.
- Each day comes and you wonder if it will be a good day. The difference between a good day and a bad day is up to you. I lost the gas but the 3-wheeler was there. At one point in the day I wonder if it was a good day. Black or white.
- What the hell is going on in the housing market. I mean, I hear everyday on NPR how messed up the market is right now, but I looked at a place today that had 13 irrigated acres on it and they wanted $350,000. What a joke. I am waiting for the housing correction to make it to Milton-Freewater, OR. These housing prices are not based on how productive the land is. They seems to be based on how much money you have. Who is buying these houses and why. To be out in the "country" with one or two horse? Where are actual farmers suppose to buy land? Perhaps I should look in South America. The person in charge of the place took one look at me, in my dirty pants and worn shirt and said to themselves, "he is not our buyer". Of course I am not your buyer when you are selling land for 10 times what you could actually make off the land ranching or farming. You would have to grow drugs on that land to make the payments. As a people, we worry about where our food comes from, as a people we don't do much about making it possible for a young person to make a start.
- I am now reading the CDL book. With some work and memory, I should have my CDL by the end of next week. Call me if you need sheep moved.
- I have Tom (9 mouths old) and Travis (a yearling) with the yearlings on the irrigated ground. They are doing a great job. Livestock Guardian dogs have been sent to us by the gods of sheepherding.
09-01-07 - What a very long day it was. It all started well enough at 5am. Then went down hill. Katie and I went to the rodeo last night, to remind myself why I am a sheepherder and not a cowboy.
- Cameron and I put up the fence on the irrigated ground yesterday. I realized we were not going to be able to get the whole thing fenced in a day so we fenced off a small section.
- Today, we went down to the stubble and put up the corrals, Katie, Charlie and myself. The double-decked trailer had a bad tire when we took Cameron's culls to the sale. Once I had the trailer there, I found that I had two bad tires to replace. Isn't life fun. Katie and Charlie gathered the sheep for me while I was gone but I was gone for a long time. Once I got back, the sheep where hot and the dogs hotter. We got both my double-decked trailer loaded and the brown bummer-pull trailer (only 25 head). Long story short, it was well after dark before we got the second load of sheep into the irrigated pasture. I just hope I wake up tomorrow morning to find everyone stayed in the pasture. I also brought the LGD Travis and Tom to the pasture with the ewes. What a couple great dogs. They have been barking and so, I know they are working.
- The hardest days are the first couple, on new pasture. Anything can happen.
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