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Show 1 I tiff ('(y ft ,'j ' by CAROL S. LEMON &J them. I believe the reason is that the deer population is going down so the predators preda-tors are turning to sheep which are easy prey." "We summer our sheep on the Cedar Mountains, winter them in the Milford fields and go south to the Mesa for lambing." "The main income crop from sheep is the sale of lambs. Wool prices are not what they used to be, currently cur-rently about 50? a pound. The lowest price we got for wool . was 8? a pound, and the highest high-est was $1.25." "The sheep population has been declining steadily in the last 20 years. I would guess that it has dropped at least 70 in our own area," Roy said. "This is due to the conversion con-version to cattle set-ups and the increase in predator problems." Roy told us of an exper-iece exper-iece he had in the winter of 1937. "There was a terrible snowstorm. In some areas the snow was three to four feet deep. The snow came in the middle of December and lasted till the first of March. We did all we could hauling in extra feed, etc., but everyone every-one lost a good share of their sheep to starvation. The overall loss was 25. Some herdsmen lost 50. My own personal loss was about 20." , .. Doug gave us some information infor-mation on the makeup of their ,BSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! We though you might enjoy en-joy visiting with some travelers trav-elers who have been spending part of their winters in the Milford Valley since the 1880's Roy Lundgren, his son Doug, and their band of sheep. "It all started when my father came from Sweden in 1886 and began herding sheep," said Roy. "He received re-ceived one dollar a day in wages, half in money and half in sheep. He worked until he had built himself a sizeable band of sheep and then went out on his own. He increas- ed his flock until he had four thousand at one time." "In 1923 my brother and I took over when dad lost his eyesight. We were partners until 1934 when he took his half of the sheep and moved his operations to Colorado. In 1963, I converted to a smaller band. We have around 800 ewes at present." "One of our problems now is predators. We loose from 10 to 25 of our lamb crop each year. Our lambing area is near Zion Park and the cougars prey heavily on 1 i t Roy Lundgren and his son, Doug, with his herd of sheep. ing, Roy and Doug, Nick Leko and the Powell brothers were at work clipping the wool from the sheep's eyes, counting, count-ing, culling, and getting ready to move on. "I've worked with sheep most of my life, too," said Doug. "I went away to college, col-lege, was in the Army, and spent some time in Colorado building houses, but I decided de-cided to come back and work with Dad and the sheep. I enjoy it." My thanks to Roy and Doug, and I'm glad to see that there will be at least one more generation gen-eration of Lundgrens working work-ing with their sheep and following fol-lowing in Grandpa Lund-gren's Lund-gren's footsteps. Here's a recipe given me by a friend, that I think you might enjoy. It's really simple sim-ple to make. Even I can do it, GRANDMA BUDGE'S COOKIES 2 C brown sugar 3 eggs 23 C oil 2 C flour 1 t. baking powder 1 t. soda pinch of salt 1 t. vanilla 6 oz. package choc, chips Mix all and spread in a greased dripper pan. Bake 30 minutes at 325. Don't overcook. operation. "We keep one buck for every 50 ewes. We use mostly the blackface Suffolk Suf-folk bucks, as their lambs grow to market-size faster and better than most others. We don't keep the Suffolk ewe lambs, but use the white -face breeds for our brood ewes mostly a Columbia-Ramboulet Columbia-Ramboulet cross. We expect our lamb crop to be around 170. By mid-season we're down to 140 and at selling time have only 110." "We cull the ewes each fall, check their teeth and general condition. Usually we keep them for six or seven years. In our set-up we use black sheep for counters count-ers one for every 75 others. This way we can look over the range and tell what's going on." "Our dogs are valuable to us when we're out on the range. Years ago herding was done on foot, now we use horses, but the dogs are still an important part of the business." ' ' "After leaving here we will spend the late winter in the Rush Lake area," Doug continued. "Then we go on to the Mormon Mesa to lamb. Up here where temperatures tem-peratures stay cold so late in the season, it's necessary neces-sary to "shed-lamb". This means more feed to buy, and other expenses, so we prefer to travel down to the Mesa and "range -lamb". In order to make the most profit prof-it , we want to lamb as early as possible, at least by the first part of April. This way the lambs will be ready and in good condition for market in early fall. The warmer temperatures on the Mesa allow the ewes to lamb on the range and pretty well take care of themselves." All the while we were talk- |