Sheep season came and went in April and May here, though it will be back again in the fall when the shepherds are moving flocks down into the desert for winter grazing. I try to document the shepherds, their dogs and the sheep every year when they pass through — I think it’s such a beautiful way of life but I also genuinely care for my local ranching community and the surrounding ranching communities and to document their work and lifestyle is an ongoing personal project for me. I thought I had been photographing shepherds for nine years but Robert reminded me that I have actually been photographing shepherds for closer to thirteen or fourteen years! When we lived in Arizona there were Basque ranching outfits that hauled ewes down to lamb and graze on the alfalfa crops that surrounded the USFW satellite station we lived on, on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation in the lower desert of Arizona along the Colorado River. I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of photographing this subject, it’s so pastoral and peaceful and Idahoan.
have you shown these photos to ernest?? there’s some fine-looking working dogs in this post……
xx
Ha ha ha!!! I will! He’ll probably ignore the images and start chewing on my foot…
is the pup in these pictures the same kind of dog as ernest?
These are working Great Pyrenees dogs in these images — from the same kind of sheep ranch stock Ernest is from.
Oh Jillian! I have missed you so much! The is a book called “The Shepherd’s Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape”-James Rebanks, 2015. It’s on my library list, I have not read, but I want to. Have you read?
I am so sorry about your poultry deaths. Have you considered getting an intern to live/work?
I have missed you guys, too! As soon as I came home from all my May travels I needed to rest but I couldn’t wait to catch you all up on life. It’s been such a beautiful springtime here.
I will definitely check out this book title. Thank you for mentioning it.
YES. We would like to do an internship program here but we’re kind of in an awkward place wherein I can’t handle everything here on my own…but I also can’t handle it all while tasking a helper/intern/assistant. I don’t know if that makes sense. I need Robbie to be home to be task-force for me (that’s total wildland fire lexicon but hopefully you know what I mean). The thought of having someone here full time to help me with farm operations kind of exhausts me. I need someone but I also need someone to handle that someone for me.
We’re working on a no-loss livestock system here with Ernest’s help. He just needs to grow up first!
It’s always a good day when you see posts from The Noisy Plume. Sorry about your poultry.😞
Bless you darlin! This isn’t the first massacre we’ve had. Living and dying is kind of all part of having livestock…but clearly we need a better defense system here. It doesn’t help that our bird coops are right up against BLM land on the edge of our property. Our birds get hit hard. But Ernest is going to end this predator game for us, I have a lot of confidence in who he is going to become as a grown dog.