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Plenty to be sheepish about...

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
Yesterday we were a pretty sheepish outfit. Shearing Day is always fun, much the same as branding.
We have plenty of food, the neighbors come to help, the grandkids have a ball, and after the long, hard day,
we all sleep well. I thought I might as well share some pictures with those of you who don’t have sheep
and have never participated in this primitive form of entertainment.

As sheep before the shearers are silent… Isaiah 53:7
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Trigger Man “riding the wave” as the sheep come up the chute into the shearing trailer.
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Oldest grand daughter taking time off from high school rodeo practice to wrangle sheep.
Note the shearer in blue right behind Smiley here. First lady sheep shearer we’ve ever had!!
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Grandpa, a retired sheep shearer himself, showing Tony the best way to sew up a profusely bleeding vein that he just cut into on this ewe’s belly.
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The crew boss. A hard-working fellow of Norwegian extraction by the name of Loren Opstedahl.
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Gramps and the Tasmanian Devil wrangling sheep.
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Just full of tricks…
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Miss Blue Eyes just loves packing those soft fleeces to the bagger.
She still was cute as a bug’s ear by the end of the day, but she smelled to high heaven!!
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A couple of steer wrestlers caught herding sheep. That’s our oldest son in the yellow cap.
The guy with him just announced that he is engaged to be married this summer.
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Some of the newly naked females at the feed bunks enjoying the sunshine.
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Trigger Man with our newest predator control agent.
Just three months old and not even half grown, she already loves and guards her sheep.
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Ranch Mom

Well-known member
Amazing pictures, I was not familiar with sheep so very interesting. :D

Nice family. It's great when you can involve everyone.
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
LB...on your " full of tricks" pic...I notice that you included....EVERYONE uses old hay twine to tie up posts, etc.

Never been a more useful farm invention than hay twine!! Great pics!
 

ranchwife

Well-known member
don't ya just love how kids can make the hardest day of work seem like a day of fun!! :D :D :D

GREAT pix, LB!! Beautiful family you have!! :D :D
 

Northern Rancher

Well-known member
Is that a pyreness pup-we just lost our old male but they are sure an incredible breed of dog-I only saw ours actually kill one yote-it bayed up in a willow hummock and tried to fight our pair-big mistake on it's behalf. They are sure gentle giants with kids though. I can see why you hate the yotes but you look like a well run sheep outfit-our place was originally a sheep outfit in the 20's-my Dad absolutely hated them-the kids had a small flock when they were into raising Pyreness pups.
 

Turkey Track Bar

Well-known member
LB:

Thanks for the pics and the memories...

As a kid, and even in college, that was me in the bag stomping wool. Is your crew out of the Bismarck area? I have some friends that just sheared and I thought they said their shearer was an "Opstedahl," but am not sure.

What kind of guard dog is your pup? We had best luck with Akbash's...liked people, hated coyotes, mountain lions, and dogs other than ours...and loved baby lambs. The little lambs would jump all of over the dogs and they'd never even growl, just get up and move when the dog got tired of being a trampoline!

I really miss having sheep...there have not been many times in my life, even in college I haven't had them, or worked for someone with them. I don't think the outfit I married into will ever let me have sheep, :cry: even though like most cattle ranches, sheep "made" the outfit. One thing I do know is I am more apt to get sheep than pigs :( but likely neither are options.

Again, thanks...looks like you had a good crew there!

Cheers---

TTB :wink:
 

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
Big Muddy: Great pics LB. In the pic of your grandaughter in red, what is the yellow thing with all the pipes? How many shearers in the trailer?
The camera distorted things a lot. That was a yellow extension cord! There were only four shearers and a bagger this time. They were going to bring 6, but one wound up in jail and another had a calving mess of his own to deal with.
NR: Is that a pyreness pup-we just lost our old male but they are sure an incredible breed of dog-I only saw ours actually kill one yote-it bayed up in a willow hummock and tried to fight our pair-big mistake on it's behalf. They are sure gentle giants with kids though. I can see why you hate the yotes but you look like a well run sheep outfit-our place was originally a sheep outfit in the 20's-my Dad absolutely hated them-the kids had a small flock when they were into raising Pyreness pups.
This is our second Pyrenees. The older one is almost eleven and we were worried that something might happen to her so we bought little Daisy here from a guy in Wyoming about a month ago. Old Snowball doesn’t pay much attention to her, but she doesn’t seem to care if she hangs around the sheep. Just let Daisy try to get close to one of the kids while they’re petting Snowball though, and she sure gets growled at.

TTB: As a kid, and even in college, that was me in the bag stomping wool.
My first job on this place was tromping wool. Only later was I "allowed" to tie wool.
We don’t tie the wool anymore and we’ve graduated to a mechanical contraption that bags the wool in big square bags that must weigh twice what the old wool sacks did.
TTB: Is your crew out of the Bismarck area? I have some friends that just sheared and I thought they said their shearer was an "Opstedahl," but am not sure.
Loren Opstedahl is from Piedmont and most of the shearers are from the Black Hills. They all have local connections though, including the bagger. If you ever listen to KBHB radio out of Sturgis at 8:00 Sunday morning, the preacher out of Sioux Falls, Michael Brandt, is Opstedahl’s cousin. Michael grew up here and he’s also a good hand in both the sheep shed and the calving barn.
Hey, have you tried starting in the sheep business by raising bums and keeping the ewe lambs? A good friend of mine, whose husband also refuses to have sheep, got started that way and now has a nice little flock that her grandkids love to help her with.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Brings back both good and bad memories...Used to be lots of sheep ranchs up here and now there are virtually none...Grandpa wouldn't get rid of all the sheep as long as he was alive- claimed they got him thru all the tough times...

My sister and I started in grade school picking up bums from a couple of the big sheep outfits-- did that all the way thru school and it was the sheep money that we used to go to college......
 

Jinglebob

Well-known member
Good pix LB! :)

Loren grew up about 13 miles south southwest of me. A good feller and his younger brother and dad all sheared at one time. Man them guys can get a lot of sheep sheared in a day!

That trailer is sure handy, ain't it? I've got a couple of neighbors who still have sheep and I used to go help, but with the trailer, it doesn't take as big a crew. I sure miss them shearing lunches! :lol:
 

Tap

Well-known member
I like the pictures LB, but reminded me how glad I was to see the last sheep go on the truck the day we sold 'em out. :wink: :lol:

Actually, I liked the sheep better than a few of the shearers. The crew boss and I got along fine then, but a few others were a different story. :shock:

Life is good. :D I sure do like my wool bib coveralls though. lol.
 

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
Hey Tap, I suppose you know that your Dad used to shear with old Gramps here, didn't you? And they were both pretty darn good at the job. It sure was nice to have that shearing check when it came time to buy groceries and it supported our ranching habit for a long time.

I even look forward to lambing every year... although I usually get over those feelings about two weeks into the season.
 

Tap

Well-known member
I did not realize that my dad sheared with R., but he sheared with lots of guys, so it doesn't surprise me. Wink Dumont was one that he had lots of stories about. Guess he was a character. He really thought a lot of Bob Cordell too. I sure liked Bob myself. Lots of unique folks from C. Crook. :wink: :lol:
 

sw

Well-known member
LB,
most of the ranches in Idaho and Nevado were paid for with sheep, I know this story. Everybody had sheep when I was a kid, none of them do now, between the loss of the wool incentive, be nice to the wolves and coyotes and bears, everybody got rid of those things. It used to be a right of passage into adulthood when you were big enough to go into the sack with enough weight to git er done and stomp it right. I can still smell Grandma's mutton cooking with 40 years and 400 miles distance. EEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. And that is after I had to help butcher the old bag. YUK. I later learned how to cook LAMB and like it alot, not some ol blue bagged ewe that was 15 years old, LAMB, now you can't find it from the US, it comes from Australia. Can't convince Hanta Yo that we need sheep to make this place pay, she did her Masters research with sheep, some of them had a death wish, others we helped to die. :oops: :roll: :roll:
 

jodywy

Well-known member
The Sheepmen in my family was my Grandfathers brother, He was a partner in Covey Bagley Dayton sheep company they had 38 winter bands of 2000 ewes each.Still a few big migatory sheep out fits in western Wyoming from 2000 ewes to over 10,000 ewes run in winter band on the high desert to smaller summer bands pastured on the Wyoming , windriver and Unita moutain ranges.But instead of trailing the 200 miles and more they get trucked back and forth, some are trailed from winter to spring lambing ranges.
 

katrina

Well-known member
Nice pictures LB.
Our neighbor has sheep, and I must admit I hate them. They are always out!!! Anyway my question is why do they blat all the time. The sheep are across the road from us and they never quit blating.... Quite annoying untill you learn to ignore them...... People who are visiting always ask what is that noise? Anyway love the pictures and you do work very hard.
 

Denny

Well-known member
katrina said:
Nice pictures LB.
Our neighbor has sheep, and I must admit I hate them. They are always out!!! Anyway my question is why do they blat all the time. The sheep are across the road from us and they never quit blating.... Quite annoying untill you learn to ignore them...... People who are visiting always ask what is that noise? Anyway love the pictures and you do work very hard.

I had some sheep a few years ago everytime you would walk across the yard they would blat it drove me nots.One wendsday I was working in front of the shop those sheep could see me and never quit blating.Wendsday's are our livestock barns sale day.I grabbed a pail of feed hooked up the trailer problem solved..If your not set up for them best not to have any...
 
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