Gambling on the Weather
A sheep story from a different relative:
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One of my aunts, Litha May, was a dyed-in-the-wool school teacher; she taught in small country schools
in rural Colorado from the 1920s onward. During the later 20's she was teaching on
Hastings Mesa, which is a high escarpment not far from Mt. Sneffels in the San Juan
range of the Rockies. The altitude there is 8-9 thousand feet, so it is pretty high
altitude as far as range and farmland goes.
I think it is 20 or 30 square miles of land, so she would partly board the students who lived to far from the school house to return home at night. |
| There was a young single guy up there named Lee Proper, and the two of them eventually married. Lee had land up there which he had acquired with his father shortly after he graduated from high school in Telluride. |
San Miguel River | The San Miguel River cut a notable channel across that country and had many colorfully named wayside stops such as "Sawpit" and "Placerville". There was an area of Hastings Mesa I recall named "Last Dollar". |
When I knew Aunt Litha and Uncle Lee they lived in Norwood and Lee ranched and raised some cattle there. We sometimes would have big family Fourth of July celebrations up on the (Hastings) mesa and a wayward cousin called Larry would shoot off Roman candles.
What a dark sky there was on Hastings Mesa on those 4ths!!
Hastings Mesa | Upon questioning Mom about her sister, Litha, living in Norwood, mom said that it was too cold to winter through on Hastings and, besides that, Litha and Lee had had a big sheep catastrophe up there. |
--------- the catastrophe
In Colorado, most sheep herds have a "lambing" season in the spring
at about the time the frozen ground begins to soften and dry out.
Spring lambs are then ready to market just after fall equinox.
My Dad's ranch was at 6000 feet, and there the thaw would typically start in the waning days of March. Up on Hastings where Litha and Lee ranched, thaw would not start till late April. I overheard Litha one time talking in the historical sense about why Lee bailed from the sheep business.
In the mid 1930's (I'm sure Litha named the exact year) they retired for the night on April 29 with the sheep not secured in the area local to the barn and buildings.
They awoke the next morning to the tail of a massive snowstorm that had crept in during the night. With rising anxiety they looked out across the expanse of white, thirty inches deep.
They had a few hundred head of ewes that were at full term of gestation - near to dropping lambs. A ewe in this state will weigh around 120 lbs., but more importantly, her belly is about one foot off the ground. They determined that the herd had drifted toward the other end of the property and were stuck in deep snow maybe half a mile away.
| Litha and Lee had no children, but they both grabbed whatever sledge or conveyance was available to carry all these high-centered sheep. back to the ranch yard where some shelter was available. Litha spoke with emotion unusual for a school teacher of wresting with ewes all day April 30th and still losing 70% of the herd. Nightfall is the enemy in such a situation. |
So it was that my Uncle Lee exited the sheep business that year and never returned.
Occasionally when my flowering plums have burst into bloom in San Jose on Feb 20th, I think of that April 30th before I was born.
Mitch Allies