The
normal route I drive home from my cabin takes me through several mountainous
sections of property owned by the Sieben Ranch.
The ranch is vast, encompassing some 115,000 acres in Lewis and Clark
County and is primarily a sheep ranch.
Yesterday,
on my way home from the cabin, I and the truck immediately in front of me were
forced to a complete stop when a flock of sheep—hundreds of them—began flowing out
from a narrow valley, up a steep embankment to my right, and across the highway
immediately in front of us.
Weird
this is, I really enjoyed sitting there watching the spectacle. The sheep remained a tight mass as they
surged across the roadway. They looked
like an enormous raft of seafoam driven forth by wind.
After
a minute or so the last of the sheep crested the downhill side of the
road. They were immediately followed by
three dogs and a herder on horseback.
The dogs and herder urged the last few stragglers across the highway and
cleared our path again.
The
herders working the sheep for Sieben Ranch are interesting. The ranch hires Peruvians. The herders, from the rugged Andes Mountains
of South America, are tough, unflappable, but care a great deal about the sheep. The herders keep watch over something near 1,600
sheep split into three or more flocks.
I managed a couple photographs with my smarter-than-me-phone before I drove on.
—Mitchell Hegman
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