The Fall Sheep Drive
Some years the fall sheep drive is a joyful and enjoyable trip across our beautiful northern New Mexico country, alive with autumn color and yellow aspens dancing. Other years are cold, wet, and difficult. This year was one of those years. A fall sheep drive seems romantic and delightfully bucolic – and some years it is as beautiful as it looks – but other years it brings into sharp relief the hard work and challenges that come with raising pastured sheep with traditional grazing patterns.
Our flocks spend the summer growing fat as they graze the high mountain pastures east of our home place, but every fall we bring them back home to our winter bed grounds in the (relatively) warmer microclimate that is the Chama Valley. This two-day trek home is an integral part of the rhythm of life here on the ranch, a yearly event that marks the change in seasons and in the pattern of our work as we move into the winter months.
We started off the mountain early in a fine drizzle that makes for beautiful photos but is frankly challenging to work in. The sheep weren’t so interested in beginning that long walk home that first morning – they would rather stand under the trees to stay dry and wait for the sun to come out. We humans don’t disagree with the sheep, but when the time comes to move off the mountain, move we must. So with rain slickers on and not-wholly-unwilling help from our dogs, we slowly begin our descent down the trail home.
Rain is one matter but cold is another matter entirely, and when one follows on the other, it makes for rough going. The cold and damp seeps into the leather gloves and bridles, boots, backs, and bones. As the horses pick their way around puddles and rocks, weaving back and forth behind the flock to keep the sheep together, we’re hoping that the truck doesn’t get stuck on its way, travelling across the muddy access roads to bring us our lunch.
Of course, nothing lasts forever – not even the cold and damp – and the second day of our trip greeted us with a drier day and a little bit of sunshine for the final leg home. As we move through Tierra Amarilla on the last mile of the trip, the roads are still wet but there are smiles and chatter among our crew, drivers obligingly wait for us to pass as they marvel and take photos of the sheep marching unconcernedly past their vehicles, and the yellow aspens wave brightly along the road like so many golden flags raised to celebrate our arrival back at our home place.
It’ll take us a week or more to dry out and repair our equipment, but our journeying across the northern New Mexico countryside is done for another year.