An Early Arrival in the Sheep Pen
A White Bluffs rancher discovers a newborn lamb in the dead of winter, weeks before the season begins.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Joe Schuster reports that when he went to feed his sheep Monday morning, he found a baby lamb. The mother is one of a band of 30 ewes belonging to J. W. Sinclair of Beverly that Mr. Schuster is caring for this winter. The regular lambing season does not start until February or the latter part of January. Because of the start she will have in growth over the regular run of lambs, this one of Mr. Sinclair’s, if he weathers through the winter, should command a fancy price next spring. Mr. Schuster says the rest of the band is expected to lamb within the next two weeks.
“Because of the start she will have in growth over the regular run of lambs, this one of Mr. Sinclair’s, if he weathers through the winter, should command a fancy price next spring.”
Early lambing was a high-stakes gamble for local ranchers, balancing the risk of winter mortality against the potential for premium prices at market. Today, the White Bluffs and Beverly areas have transformed from livestock-heavy landscapes into sites of major historical and environmental recovery, far removed from the small-scale, weather-dependent ranching that once defined the valley's economy.
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