As the calendar moves into October, our thoughts turn once again to planning and executing one of the cornerstones of the ranching year at Shepherd’s Lamb: moving the sheep. The 30-mile trek that we and the sheep make each fall from the high mountain pastures where they’ve been passing to the summer to the winter feeding grounds near our home place is one of the biggest events in the ranching calendar. It also serves as a reminder that this flock is, ultimately, the center of all our activity and enterprise.
Everything we make and do, from selling blankets and hand-dyed yarns to crafting Rio Grande-style tapestries and hosting weaving classes for our student community, depends on maintaining the health, well-being, and vitality of our flock and the range lands they graze on. Without a high-quality wool crop, we cannot produce our popular yarns and weavings; without a healthy flock, we cannot count on an abundant wool harvest; without healthy ewes, we cannot grow and maintain our flock with their strong lambs; without the abundance of grasses and forbes flourishing under responsible grazing and pasture management practices, our flock cannot thrive. This annual event reminds us of the foundation of our business and the root of all our success: our commitment to healthy land and a healthy flock.
As we follow the sheep down the mountainside, led on by the old ewes who have made the trip at this season so many times in their lives that they know the way as if by instinct, we pause for a moment to reflect on how this ritual of the ranching year embodies the core of our business and way of life. This year’s lambs, no longer small and grown fat on the high mountain grasses over the summer follow their mothers and the younger ewes down the mountainsides in a long wooly river. As they wade through the brown grasses of autumn countryside, pass yellow waving aspens, and feel the faintest nip of approaching winter on the breeze, they unknowingly reenact a seasonal movement of livestock that has been part of the rhythm of life for pastoral people around the word for thousands of years. This journey for us is a silent word of thanks for the opportunity to be a part of this life, and as we follow the flock we experience a deep sense of gratitude for these creatures, and for this land of enchantment that makes all our work possible.
