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sheep herding in Wyoming

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chowhound:
And here is the third and final article:

Peruvian herder spends Wyoming winter alone

By CHRISTINE PETERSON Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Sunday, February 19, 2012 12:00 am | No Comments Posted

Sheepherders: a final look

It's not so much the cold or the work that bothers Pedro Castillon, but the loneliness. He is one of nearly two dozen Peruvian sheepherders working either alone or in pairs in southwest Wyoming. Each day he struggles to fill his hours in the desolation of the high desert.

In early August, as a part of a special look into the isolated lives of sheepherders, Star-Tribune reporter Christine Peterson and photographer Dan Cepeda spent three days living with Castillon and his half-brother as they herded in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Peterson conducted the interviews in Spanish because the sheepherders speak little English.

They revisited the herders at a ranch when they gathered together in early October to sheer, separate lambs for sale and gather herds for winter.

On Feb. 1, the Star-Tribune met Castillon one last time while he spends winter living with only sheep, dogs and horses as company. You can read this final installment in today's Lifestyles section.

OUTSIDE KEMMERER -- Pedro Castillon loaded his tiny DVD player with a highlight reel of soccer goals from the 2012 World Cup.

He told us to watch. He'd seen it countless times, and his favorite goal was coming. He rattled off a player's stats. Pedro's partial to Spanish players unless Peruvians from his native country are playing.

"I wish I had a TV to watch soccer, with cable or Dish," he said in Spanish. "I haven't watched many games in the last six years."

Six years he's been here, herding sheep in southwest Wyoming, isolated by mountains and deserts.

For Pedro and nearly 20 other Peruvian sheepherders working Julian Land and Livestock, dealing with the loneliness often proves a harder task than herding itself.

In August, I set out with Star-Tribune photographer Dan Cepeda to explore the herders' lives through the changing seasons. In the summer they sleep in tents in the mountains, in the fall they gather to sheer and immunize and in the winter they live in the desert in traditional sheep wagons.

Scenery changes for them. So does the weather and sheep behavior.

What doesn't change is the loneliness - the separation by language, culture and distance.

Pedro is about halfway through his winter stint, herding about 900 sheep in the desert about 30 minutes outside of Kemmerer.

It was late afternoon in Pedro's wagon, the sun setting behind clouds of gray.

The highlight reel done, Pedro started watching the final championship game between Spain and Holland. It played in the background while he started dinner and boiled noodles.

"Cook, chop wood, make sure water is OK for the horses, take care of sheep. That's my day," he said.

*****

Most herders work in pairs. Pedro spent last summer and winter with his older half-brother, Firman Casas. This fall he told the ranch owner Truman Julian he wanted to go home, then changed his mind at the last minute. Everyone had already taken their herds out in pairs and Pedro by himself.

We spent three days with the brothers in the mountains in the summer and then visited with them again at Julian's ranch in October. Even when they were together, the herders talked about the loneliness of living in a different country and so far from their families.

On Feb. 1, Dan and I wanted to spend time with Pedro to see what it's like to be that isolated.

"You don't need to make conversation," I told Pedro when we arrived. "Do whatever you would normally do."

Then we realized: For a man who spends nearly every day with only dogs, horses and sheep, he wanted to talk.

"Did you know Machu Picchu has a lot of gold? I want to find gold there. There's also gold by my village," he said, measuring rice into a cup and mixing it with a bit of oil.

I did not know that, I told him.

He took off his Carhartt jacket and brown, alpaca scarf.

"Do you have children?" he asked, waiting for water to boil. "I want to go home and marry my girlfriend and have a child."

I don't have any kids, I told him, and asked how many he wanted. He said at least one, a boy.

"I don't like this potato peeler. It's old and doesn't work as well as the other one I had," he held it up to show me. "My brother has that one."

*****

Pedro's sheepherder's wagon is perched on a hill about 30 miles southeast of Kemmerer. The road leading to it changed from asphalt highway to dirt to rugged two-track through sage-covered prairies.

Piles of snow drifted behind bushes, smooth from constant winds and surrounded by bare, dry dirt. From his spot on the hill we could see for miles to distant, snow-capped mountains. An unseen train drove by in the distance, the only sign of civilization save a smokestack from a farmhouse several miles away and tiny outlines of other sheep camps.

He greeted us with a kiss on the cheek and hug. He asked how we were and how long we could stay. He smiled, creasing the corner of his eyes and showing a silver-lined tooth.

He was listening to a soccer game on his short-wave radio. Two Spanish teams, Barcelona and Valencia played each other.

Pedro had lived in the camp for just about a week. He arrived in the high desert in November, and since then has moved from place to place every week or so. He's made his mobile home livable and sets it up the same in each new place.

Thick, black canvas draped from the bottom of his wagon. Hay lined the ground underneath giving his two herding dogs, Guerrero and Bobby, a place to sleep.

Frost covered part of a butchered sheep hanging on the outside of the wagon. The cold weather keeps the meat fresh and that one would feed him for more than a week.

He welcomed us in, climbing in first then telling us to join.

Dan and I sat next to each other on one bench, in between his bed and water cooler. He sat a couple of feet across from us.

The tiny wagon inside accommodates a sheepherder's practical needs. Two benches line the sides at the beginning, a double bed fills the back half and wood stove sits in the corner.

Pedro sat on the bench near the stove while lamb slow-cooked in a pot.

He sorted through a cardboard box for vegetables, pulling out two chilies and slowly and carefully deseeding and chopping them. Next he found an onion, then carrots.

I'd never seen anyone take that long to deseed a chili or peel a carrot. His movements were slow and methodical, almost lethargic.

It was as if he knew the task could be done quickly but needed to fill more than an hour. Cooking is a big part of his day; he can't waste the chance to be busy.

*****

After lunch, Pedro started his chores.

He cut chunks of drifted snow with a shovel and put them in a blackened half barrel. He mixed the new snow with the slushy contents and dumped another couple shovel-loads in.

Under the half barrel sat another partial-barrel with the side cut out. He built a fire with dead sage-brush branches and stirred the snow again, melting it for the horses.

"They will drink it all overnight. They drink a lot at night," he said.

His two herding dogs followed close behind and jumped at his legs as he walked back to his wagon. He patted them on their heads and talked absently to them. He works through the rest of his chores - feeding the horses oats, washing his hands, chopping wood - as slowly as he cooked his lunch.

"The views are nice, but to be alone is very sad," he said as he climbed back in his wagon.

"I don't have anybody to talk to and I get lonely."

It's hard to decide what's worse: freezing cold isolation in the desert or warmer, dirtier loneliness in the mountains. Cell phones work here and the herders call each other several times a day.

The days are longer in the summer. In the mountains Pedro would wake early, move sheep, do some chores and take a nap.

No naps in the desert.

"If I sleep during the day I can't sleep at night. Nights are long out here," he said.

Sometimes the coyote hunter will come by. Pedro insists he come in his wagon for a drink: a sip of whiskey, wine or Boone's Farm flavored apple wine.

He had already finished his whiskey, it soothed his sore throat. Our afternoon drink would be Boone's, what he referred to as champagne. It was another way to break up the day, and it gave him dishes to wash, another chore.

Before dark he left to move his sheep. It's the job he's paid to do but it doesn't take more than an hour or so of work in the morning and evening.

He left on a horse and soon disappeared over a hill. Horse and rider reemerged behind a slow-moving wall of sheep. One sheep had died, he said. He doesn't know why, perhaps an illness.

He left the sheep at the bottom of a hill near his trailer. They would graze and sleep there for the night, coming up to his wagon in the morning for a grain supplement.

Back in his wagon, the lengthy cooking process began again.

Pedro thought about playing his saxophone for us. He bought one several years ago to practice during his down time.

His throat hurt a little and he decided not to play that night.

Maybe tomorrow, he would have plenty of time.

Luvlylittlewing:
Eric, these are great!  Very informative.  Thanks for posting the articles for us!  :-*

Front-Ranger:
There's also some information tucked away in the Social Events Forum in a topic called Sheep Herding in Colorado--Bringing 'Em Down!

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