D8 Heritage Ranch
D8 Heritage Ranch ~ There are 8 of Us…
and a menagerie of critters… and so many things to learn, explore, try, sample, grow, craft, make, design, do, (attempt to) organize, cook, BBQ, sew, and see… and now I’m going to try and catalog it all too… wish me luck!
I love “Heritage” ~ Family history, heritage animals, heritage crafts and skills, timeless bits of knowledge, Heritage sums up So many important things in my life. I love animals and ranching - its in my blood. I grew up on a Registered Black Angus Cattle Ranch where we now live and I work with my parents, I started a Ranch Meat Store here in 2018, it has grown quickly and we have learned so much. We also have the heritage of shepherds in the family and in 2017 I tracked down a sheep company that had purchased rams from my great-grandfather, we bought the beginnings of our small Rambouillet herd that grows more each year. I LOVE to Learn and Try a little bit of everything good and often messy! I admittedly tend to have more plates in the air than I can keep spinning… but I’ve always joked Heavenly Father knew I wouldn’t like being bored and work best when I have a list to keep me going… so He blessed us with 6 wonderful kiddos and more things to (want) to do than I can ever finish. It keeps me going (most of the time)!
However… I’ve found that as I learn some new thing, and enjoy it for a while, then I move on to something else, when I circle back to thing A or Z… I can’t always remember everything I learned about it the first time… so I decided in all my “spare” time at 10 pm at night… I’d start a website to catch all the things I learn, save links, and things I’ve made, recipes, designs, patterns, PDF’s, ranching tips, best ___ to use for ___ and and and… anyway that’s how this is starting! Hopefully it’ll help someone else, but if not, well I’ll be able to find the basic facts of what I’m looking for, (I really hate reading tons of blogs to find the few basic facts I’m needing, so I do my best to keep the instructional parts that I call the “D8 Essentials”, short, sweet, and to the point), and next time I circle back to projects A… to Z and beyond, I’ll be able to find what I’m looking for too, I hope!
My 6 Ranch kiddos may add some fun things as well, each have their own talents they shine in, D ~ is a champion welder and helps Grandpa work on rebuilding Classic cars, his favorite animals are snakes and chickens; A&B ~ help me & Great Grandpa in our Gardens, started our turkey endeavors and hope to run a Zoo someday (their room is beginning to look like one now…with a Russian Tortoise, Toad, and Banana Slug); N ~ enjoys working cows, helping build anything with wood, dogs, riding 4-wheelers, gophering, and is a great all around hand; E - loves animals, cooking, and doing whatever I am doing; Little S ~ is a shepherdess at heart and loves helping with the sheep, washing wool, chickens, and is our little songbird. If you are lucky, our personal BBQ Master, my handsome husband who can’t quit his day job as an attorney yet, to follow his dream of publishing books… or his MASTER abilities of smoking in the back yard… just might share some of his “Best BBQ EVER* recipes”, tips, and tricks. *that’s the Ranch Kids and my opinion… yep we are biased, but you’d be too if you try it!
Hope you enjoy!
~ Chelsea
Our Heritage ~ My “Why”…
Raising sheep is not an easy task, there are long nights during lambing, and trying to keep them healthy when they seem to get all kinds of maladies, there is a joke about “Why do sheep walk around with their heads down all the time? They are looking for a place to die.” While that isn’t 100% true, they can be a challenge. Shearing, hoof trimming, de-worming, etc… when I have others help me work the flock, they frequently ask me “Why do you raise sheep?”
As I’ve thought about it, here is my “Why”…
My Great-Great-Grandpa John K Madsen began and ran one of the largest Rambouillet sheep operations in Southern Utah back in the early 1900’s. His daughter Pearle and her husband Bill continued the Madsen Rambouillet’s. Pearle wrote a book called “Nickel From a Sheep’s Back” A biography of John K Madsen. You can download and read a 1st edition draft. She later printed a nice copy with lots of photographs.
Pearle & Bill’s daughter Billye was my grandmother. She and her husband Jerry, started a cattle ranch, but she always loved having sheep around too. Their home was full of decor and art about sheep. My father took over running the ranch and kept some sheep here for her until she passed away. So I grew up around cattle and a few sheep, that’s me bottle feeding a bummer lamb in the photo to the left.
When my husband and I returned to the area to help on the ranch, our kiddos were too small to do much with the cattle, so after reading Pearle’s book, I found a breeder who was still raising Rambouillet and had bought a lot of Ram’s from John K and Bill. I called them and we purchased 7 bummer lambs to start our little flock in 2017. Our flock has grown to over 30 ewes. Our girls love the lambs and are the newest Little Shepherdesses in the Family. They can walk out through the sheep singing and talking to them and they will follow the girls just about anywhere. They say love of livestock can just run in your blood… and it is either that, or environment… but the love of sheep continues (well at least in the females… some of the boys aren’t quite as enamored ;-).
Click on the book to read an archived original edition of
“Nickels from a Sheep’s Back”
