The woman has no shame ...

I love this poster that The Countryman Press created to promote my new book, so I'm posting it here to show it off. In the original image that serves as the background, there is actually a slash of rainbow-colored light escaping from the cloud cover over my sheep herd as they graze along the Wind River Front. It was a beautiful, stormy spring day, and the image takes me back there every time I look at it. The combination of the fresh rain smell and damp sagebrush is heavenly.

Countryman Press's publicity guru and all-around nice guy Tom Haushalter asked me a series of questions about writing the book and what it was like to live on the range with my herd, and posted my responses over on the company's blog. Have a look here.

It's officially fall, and we've had our first snowstorms in the Winds, helping to put a damper on the wildfires still burning in forests on both sides of this valley.

Our herd, and its guardians (both burros and dogs) continue to graze on private property along the Wind River Mountains – about three miles from where the photo above was taken. Although we had acquired a new guardian pup a few months ago (Khan), we had to give him up last weekend, as we met someone who needed him more than we did. He's currently getting acclimated to his new job guarding a goat herd in central Wyoming. It's tough to let pups go, but it's easier when I know they are headed out to do the job they are meant to do.

The domestic sheep herds (including the one below) are headed off the national forests and back onto the lowlands to start their journey south to the desert for winter grazing. The dark spots near the herder on horseback are herding dogs, but the other black spots are black sheep (marker sheep that enable the ease of counting, as in 1 marker per 100 ewes), and the brighter white animals are guardian dogs. Click on the image to see a larger version.