Jackie Dorothy’s recent piece on the sheep industry in Wyoming got me to reminiscing about my own youthful days as a mutton conductor. While I was growing up, the ID ran both sheep and cattle.
Carbon County is not only the original site of the Garden of Eden, but was once the sheep center of the known universe. The old sheepmen would tell me that Carbon County once produced more wool and lamb than the continent of Australia. That ratio has flipped in the intervening years.
I remember learning how to cuss from cowboys, but learning how to cuss in Spanish from sheepherders. Mine was a pretty well-rounded education.
My preference was always toward cattle though, for any number of reasons. One of which is a truism passed along by my granddad that sheep are the only one of God’s creatures born looking for an excuse to die. Cows, in my experience, are just better survivors.
My resumé includes herding sheep, shearing them, docking tails, harvesting Rocky Mountain Oysters, tromping wool and watching sheep die for no apparent reason. We kids were always afoot when moving sheep, shaking a coffee can of gravel and traipsing behind the woollies.
We were horseback when moving cattle, but walked behind sheep for endless miles. In my young brain, I thought that shaking the can of gravel made it sound like rattlesnakes were on the heels of the sheep, and that kept the bunch moving. I suppose I never felt sufficiently “cowboy” doing that kind of work.
I will, however, give sheep plenty of credit for being tasty. A good leg of lamb or a plate of chops is the reason humans are given incisor and canine teeth. All those coyotes that killed our sheep agreed with me.
Speaking of coyotes, they are the reason that Dad finally got out of the sheep business. He tried everything to keep them from murdering our sheep. He even bought a helicopter to hunt coyotes and that didn’t even make a dent. Coyotes are smart as hell, and they just kept out-thinking us.
Dad threw up his hands and said, “There’s gonna be a coyote around to piss on the corpse of the last man on earth.” He got rid of the sheep and we went to straight cattle. That was a glorious day, in my opinion.
Years later, I was president of the Carbon County Cattlemen and we merged with the Carbon County Woolgrowers to form one organization, the Carbon County Stock Growers Association. It was pretty big news at the time.
Fast forward a few more years, and I’m in the governor’s office attending the first joint convention between the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and the Wyoming Woolgrowers at the Hitching Post in Cheyenne. That was pretty big news, too. Cowboys and sheepherders, letting bygones be bygones, sitting down to break bread together.
As expressions of solidarity, the cow folks ordered lamb chops, and the sheep folks ordered prime rib. The meal progressed pleasantly until the entrees were served. Shortly, the cowboys started snickering, then laughing out loud.
I sat next to a card-carrying cowboy who lifted a lamb chop to show me the fat rind, with this still legible, “...duct of New Zea…’
Paul Smith, owner of the Hitching Post, was more mortified at this culinary faux pas than anyone. He likely comped rooms and chow to sheepmen for years, in penance.
As I write this, I’m wearing a Pendleton wool shirt that will outlive me because of its durability, and I’m drooling over the thought of good Wyoming (NOT Australian) lamb chops served with mint jelly. And I’m grateful to Jackie Dorothy for jogging memories of my time as a mutton conductor.
