Sheep Shearing

  I was lucky enough to watch a crew of sheep shearers in action the other day.  Having not a clue, I visited the pens, across  highway 75 from Smiley Creek Lodge, on the headwaters of the Salmon River.
  The crew is mobile, heading out to locations across the Northwest to shear sheep for the ranchers.

 Some shear, some count and brand, and others gather the wool to sort it and bale it for transport.

 And it's dirty,demanding, and , physical work. 

Paid by the sheep, they can make some decent money for a day.
Then home for bit and off to the next job.

   Click on any photo to go to the Flickr gallery of large, better looking photos.

  (The flock of sheep here were supposed to be in The trailing of the sheep festival in Ketchum tomorrow, but it looks like it will be staged by a different flock.)

Sheep move up the valley.

 The weather went on to hot for a few days, 88f.
 Mornings have been to die for,
before the traffic starts on the highway, it heats up and dries out.
 A little rainstorm this evening, probably undoing most of the knapweed spraying I did today.  Yesterday morning, I was out in the field and saw a dust cloud high on the hill on the East side of the valley.  Sheep had arrived, moving up the valley.

They will head up valley all Summer, foraging and fertilizing.  That's why it's generally not safe to drink the water from any mountain stream. In the Fall the sheep will turn down valley  ending up in the South valley, and loaded on trucks.
 Ketchum used to be the sheep capital of the West. The train shipyard and holding pens were where the new YMCA stands today.

 
   That's the "Last Chance Ranch", owned by the late Steve Mc Queen.
 The hillsides have been terraced by the CCC, or civilian conservation corps, back in the 1930s.  The terracing was to prevent erosion due to the number of sheep traveling through.

 With the adorable nickname of "mountain maggots", more of Idaho's Summer visitors have arrived. 
  All attended by the shepherds and sheep dogs, 

  some will make it into the Sawtooth Valley, beneath the awesome Sawtooth Range.