What Chris REALLY thinks of his Farm-Wifey...

A memory popped up on my phone the other day.

My friend Marie McClaren came out to visit us last year. She was bringing some of her employees from Kemmerer, Wyoming to Denver, Colorado to do some paperwork for their A2 Work VISAs.

They all stopped over in Laramie, the night before, to eat dinner and take a break before the long day of navigating government bureaucracy.

Marie's family typically employs several sheepherders every year from South America, usually they come from Peru, and they speak mainly Spanish.

Some of these employees return for several seasons and a couple of them have been working with Marie's family for over 20 years!

Marie and her mom work very closely with these employees to lamb out and move thousands of head of sheep across forest service land every Spring, Summer, and Fall. They drive their camps up onto the mountain and bring them supplies every week. They spend countless hours with them around the clock. Needless to say, Marie is pretty close with these sheepherders and they are like family to her. Being able to speak their language is a key part of her family's operation.

Spanish-to-Spanish or Spanish-to-English conversations are some of those things most people don't expect to experience in Wyoming. But for Marie, a Wyoming born-and-raised kid, having full-blown Spanish conversations with a group of Peruvian sheepherders is an everyday thing.

I came into my knowledge of the Spanish language in a much different way myself.

I grew up in an area heavily populated with immigrants from Mexico (Southern California) and I was lucky enough to learn Spanish starting from a pretty young age through the school I attended.

It comes in handy every once-and-a-while out here in Wyoming, and this awesome visit from Marie and her crew was one of those times.

Marie and one of the Sheepherders named, German (pronounced Her-Mon), who was pretty fluent in English, translated for the other two guys, Nic and Oscar, when they didn't understand something, and Marie and I translated for Chris when he didn't understand what was going on in the conversation (he doesn't remember much of the high school Spanish classes he took back in the day).

At one point in the evening, Marie and I went to move my sheep out in the pasture next to our house and German, Nic, and Oscar stayed back to help Chris with installing a new wood deck on his flatbed pickup.

Chris was on his own to try to communicate with these handy Peruvians....

Marie and I set up the new electric pen to move my sheep into, and we let the sheep out of the old pen.

They didn't quite go the direction I had intended at first, so I sent Jameson and Pip around to redirect the flock into the new pen. The dogs didn't quite get ahead of them in time so we made a couple of loops around the pen before we got everyone squared away.

I guess this loop-de-loop made quite a show for the group of guys.... Marie and I heard shouts and hollers from across the pasture.

German, Nic, and Oscar were cheering us on!

When we realized this, Marie and I started laughing.

Eventually, we got the sheep into their new pen for the evening and we started heading back to Chris's truck.

Suddenly, we heard a roar of laughter coming from the group of guys.

I thought "Great! They must be getting enough communication done to find something to laugh about together!"

When Marie and I got back to the pickup, Chris gave us the low down.

Nic said something along the lines of "You have a good wife, no?"

And Chris, thinking he was responding about our dogs Pip and Jameson, after their less than efficient job of getting the stubborn flock into the pen just moments ago, said "Meh they're alright."

This caused the uproar.

We all had a good chuckle and we headed out to dinner on the town in Laramie.

Maybe one day Peter and I will polish up our Spanish and head out to work a lambing or grazing season with the crew out at Marie's family's place. I'm sure we could learn a heck of a lot from this hard-working family.

A girl can dream can't she...?

Want to learn more about Marie and her operation?

​I interviewed her about Working Dogs on my podcast a couple of years ago.

You can also check out her blog and website where she books overnight sheep wagon stays on her family's ranch and historic homestead,

the Rock Creek Watering Hole.

You can also meet Marie in person at the Wyoming Wool Festival in July!

Marie is on the planning committee, so she will be helping put on the Second Annual Wyoming Wool Festival this year!

Peter and I will be there teaching a wool felting workshop too!

Marie and I will be thoroughly enjoying the tours, educational events, awesome lamb meals, dancing to the live music, and hosting booths for our businesses at the vendor fair.

Come hang out with us and learn about everything Wool, Lamb, and Sheep in Thermopolis next month!

Have you ever had a mix-up in a different language BJ?

I would love to hear the story!

Reply to this email and tell me about it.

We are SOLD OUT of summer grill bundles!

Thanks to everyone who kicked off summer with a bit of grass-finished goodness with us!

Stay tuned for our Pastured-Pork Sausage Special I'll be launching next week!

I have some sad news BJ...

I will NOT be at the Downtown Laramie Farmer's Market this year.

I am pretty bummed about it, but in better news Helen Keck of Sybille Creek Farms, who helped me run my booth last year, got a full time job working for Platte County Law Enforcement!

She won't be able to come help me run my booth this year, but she will be out serving the community full time in her new role!

Please send her a congratulations at Helen@sybillecreekfarms.com!

And if you need to stock up on farm-fresh goods, you can still order on our weekly text group or my online store.

Just reply to this email to get set up with our weekly pickup location in Laramie.

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Hope you have a fantastic weekend!

-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew

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