#sheep ranch

Herbert and a lamb friend.

I said I'd draw him so here's a digital painting I did on my phone. No layer modes were used and all colors were hand picked by me. No direct references either. Probably will be a big accomplishment for me for a while.

Some backstory on Herbert: I made him for a short fictional story assignment in one of my classes last year. He is a farm dog on a sheep ranch. He's old but still loves his job. He is a Belgian Tervuren :3

Master list

It was a summer afternoon when you felt a difference in yourself. The medication no longer gave you strength. Standing made you tired. For the last week you had sat on the porch swing and watched Joel tend to the sheep. Ellie would sit with you in the evening and read your favourite books to you as you slowly drifted to sleep before Joel carried you to bed.

On this particular afternoon you had made your choice and called Joel to you.

"Joel, I want you to do something for me and I don't want you to argue."

He would never know why or how but he knew what you were about to ask him.

"Tell Ellie to stay put tonight." You asked.

"You know she won't." He replied quietly.

"He's right. I'm not going anywhere." She was beside you. She had grown into the most magnificent eighteen year old in your eyes. Strong and headfast you had no doubt she would do well. With a nod you hold out your hand to her. Joel walked silent to the kitchen pouring out the bottle of pills into the counter and crushing them with his knife. He let a tear fall from his eye and he poured them into a bottle of Bourbon. He shook it and returned to you a glass in his hand.

"I didn't want to..." He started, your hand brushing his cheek stopped his words and he leant into your touch.

"Ellie, you make sure you look after him. Make sure he lives a long life." You pleased with her.

"No y/n I ain't gunna-"

"Yes you will Joel Miller. For once will do as your told!!" Your voice was strong for the first time in a long time. All he could do was nod. He poured out a full glass of the brown liquid and you gulp it down as fast as you could. Joel moved across the room, switching on his record player and placing your favourite song on. The record scratched into life and all three of you listened to the gentle music. Ellie held your hand, tears already falling.

"Ellie, my sweet girl, you are the bravest person on the planet and the best daughter anyone could have wished for." You say trying to comfort her.

"I wish you had been my real mum, I mean all my life." She replied, sniffing and rubbing away her tears on her sleeve. Joel stayed quiet, eyeing the bottle beside you.

"pour me another." You ask him. He does it without argue.

"Joel,"

"Don't say it. Don't say anything. You drink that then I'm taking you to bed like any other night." His heart was breaking again, the seams you had fixed falling apart. You nod and finish the second drink. You keep it would be enough and nod to him.

Ellie gave you a final hug. You whisper in her ear. And she nods. Joel takes you up stairs laying you in bed and covering you in the quilt and laying beside you. He counted each breath. His fingers holding your wrist until the beat of your pulse ended. In a daze he walked back downstairs. Ellie stood at the kitchen sink.

"where is the bottle, Ellie?" He asked, desperate to be with you again.

"It was her last wish, Joel. She told me to pour the rest of this way and remind you that her last wish is for you to live."

Hating every word she said he turned and walked out of the house, dropping to his knees in the grass and sobbed.

------------

Three years later

Ellie stepped out of the empty ranch house, every happy memory she had locked inside. Her heart broke its final break. She was now nothing, she would survive until she didn't anymore. Killing monsters, cordyceps or human alike.

Perhaps one day she would see Abbie again and she would go through with her revenge. Yet again perhaps she would just walk away.

Thoughts of her life danced in her mind as she stepped slowly across the grass to your grave below the oak tree. Joel's next to you. Ellie felt the weight of your side arm on her hip and Joel's rifle over her shoulder as she looked down at the fresh flowers decorating the plots.

"I'm sorry, I did my best." She said a tear falling down her face.

"Bye mum, Bye dad."

The end.

Lost our oldest ram today, he suddenly got very sick and despite trying to get him to drink and eat and using drench he succumbed to his symptoms today. We laid him to rest with the bones of his wife Angela. He lives on through his their son Castiel.

We now have 3 lambs 2 rams and 4 ewes!

(I'm thinking of lobbying to rename Andrew Adriel which means 'flock of God's which would be appropriate cuz he's the main ram we have and then I could lobby to name the rest of the ewes celestial names)

Sheep Ranch is the 5th, and most amazing, the new golf course at Bandon Dunes – the spiritual home of golf in America. Links golf at its best.  Situated in Oregon, the course opened in June 2020. Golfers will love the course – see the drone footage and tell us what you think.

#GolfAdventurers #SheepRanch #BandonDunes #Linksgolf

On to the wilds of Patagonia. The landscape - desert and mountains, something like Montana or New Mexico. The weather - howling winds but clearly it is springtime - lilacs, peonies, forsythia and clematis are blooming. It is light out until 9:30 in the evening! Very surreal coming from Minnesota where it gets dark at 4:30 right now.

El Calafate is this little town in the middle of nowhere - the closest gas station is literally 200 miles away. But because of the nearby glaciers, tourism has become its main business and its population has gone from 3000 to 30,000 in the last 20 years. You walk down the six block main street and it’s full of restaurants, cheesy gift shops (plus one very fancy, tasteful, expensive gift shop), and clothing stores selling outdoorsy brands. Parading up and down the street are tourists, some of whom look like legitimate backpacker types, but most of whom seem suspiciously like outdoorsy poseurs in designer down jackets and hiking pants. Hey - it is not really down jacket weather - it was sunny and high 50’s on our first day in town. You could make an allowance for wind chill, but it’s still not down jacket weather by Minnesota standards.

(Stepping down from judgy soapbox)

Oh and dogs. The town is overrun with dogs on the loose. Our guide said not all of them are strays; apparently most of the locals don’t believe in leashing or fencing their dogs. They all seem pretty sweet and friendly. But the guide said “DON’T make eye contact or the dog will follow you around for the rest of the day!”  As an example I walked to the grocery store and these three guys were lounging around in front of the entrance. At first I thought their owners were inside shopping and had left their extremely well behaved dogs out front. But no, all three were still there when I left and indeed, were there again this morning when we drove by. I can only conclude that this is their hangout, kind of like when a panhandler lays claim to a particular corner.

In the afternoon our group got together and were initiated into the rituals of mate tea.  Mate is traditionally served in a hollowed out gourd, sometimes with fancy silver accents.  There also is a fancy metal straw that is flattened out at the top - this helps to strain the liquid and keep pieces of the tea from going up the straw into your mouth.

The gourd is loosely packed full of the tea and then whomever is serving it adds small amounts of hot water, replenishing it as the tea is drunk.  Mate is something that is shared between friends.  The person who prepared the mate will offer it to someone else, but it should always come back to the mate “leader” between sips, rather than being passed around in a circle.  Everyone uses the same straw - germs are not a concern between friends.

So we all got a chance to try it.  You can guess from the below, what I thought of it:

The next day’s excursion was to a small sheep ranch outside of town. It was established by the owner’s great grandfather who emigrated from Scotland in 1905. I can only imagine how harsh it was back then - it seems like an awfully rugged lifestyle even with today’s modern conveniences. We gathered in the ranch house, and had coffee while Gerardo drank mate tea which he shared with our two guides.

I have to admit I was suspicious of his attire, it seemed like a Ralph Lauren version of ‘Patagonian rancher guy’. The beret, the nice sweater vest (which we learned had been knitted by his mom), the corduroy pants. The house seemed kind of like a museum or a movie set also:

We went outside and saw our lunch being roasted over an open fire:

We saw some of his herd in the pens and there was a short herding demo - the dog was not as expert as some I’ve seen but we found out it was a new pup that was still learning.

He herded a few of the sheep into the shearing building and did a little demo of shearing a sheep’s face to get excess hair away from its eyes, then talked with us about some of the challenges he faces. His herd is about 800 sheep, very small compared to some of the huge ranches in the area. The previous week he had had about 50 sheep and lambs killed, most likely by a pack of the local dogs that has gone feral. He’s trying to advocate for the town to do something about its dog problem, but that’s an uphill battle.

So he’s looking into other ways of protecting the sheep, like getting a special guard dog (the herding dogs can move the sheep around, but won’t necessarily fight off predators). Another possibility is to get a propane “cannon” that will set off an explosion at intervals to scare away predators.

I think the most interesting story of the morning was when he was talking about breeding the sheep. They try to time it so that the lambs are born in the spring; rams are kept away from the ewes at other times. But how do they know which ewes are in heat and ready to be bred? They turn loose a ram that is infertile. Even though the guy is shooting blanks, he knows which ewes are in heat. AND they spray the ram’s belly with colored chalk. The next day they look at the herd and the ewes that have chalk on their back, those are the ones that they pull out to be bred by the real stud. Ingenious.

We also got a demo of how Argentinian cowboys take down a predator.  The tool is a long rope with a heavy ball on each end.  The cowboy swings the rope and flings it at the predator; if done correctly the rope wraps itself around the animal’s legs and brings it down.