A Sheep Camp Christmas

Dear Family,

I got your cards and package today. The camp tender brought them along with my supplies. He also brought me a canned ham for the holiday. I hung your cards up in my wagon to bring you all closer to me. I know it will be long after the holidays before this makes its way from me to you.

Although I miss you all, I feel something very special in solitude during this season. This evening blesses me with its beauty. The quiet surrounds me. So still and cold! Nothing lies between me and the heavens. The stars crowd the sky. The only other light is my poor lantern.

I am alone in these gray hills. From this camp I do not see a ranch or a mine or even a road except the dirt track leading down towards the valley. The trees that were golden in the fall are stark and bare. The few junipers look more black than green even in the daylight. The sagebrush stands gray above the snow with stems of dried-up summer grass clustered at its feet.

The snow is only a few inches deep. It is so light and fluffy that the cold eats it away. Each day a little more is gone even though it does not melt. The sheep and my horse easily nuzzle through it for food. My boots squeak on it when I walk.

The sheep are all bedded down in a sheltered hollow of the hills. The big dogs stand guard with them. I can hardly make them out, so white against the snow. The border collies stay close to me and to the stove. Our little wagon is cozy as long as I feed the fire.

I saw wild horses today. They came to drink at the springs where I water the sheep. My old gelding nickered at them, but they did not threaten to take him from me. I think he would come back anyway. They have no sweet grain for him, and he is fond of his treats.

The coyotes yip and howl from the distant ridge. I would like those sly hunters if they would leave my sheep alone. They will stand as still as a statue, head cocked to listen for some mouse beneath the snow, then spring up into the air and dive after their prey.

They say that pumas live here too but I have not seen one. They would go where the deer go. I do not see deer now although I often did in the summer. We have migrated in different directions I think.

For now, I will keep watch in these quiet hills as shepherds have since before the first Christmas. With the New Year, I will begin to move towards the ranch. The sheep will stay near there until the new lambs are born, and the ewes shorn of their wool.

Stay safe and, when you look at the night sky, think of me until spring when I will come home to you, so far away from the sheep and the desert.

Always my thoughts of you warm my heart,

Xavier