Cheyenne: The people I've worked for, I started lambing for them, well during covid. So five years ago, six years ago. And they have sheep and cattle, and that's what my daughter Ellie, she's nine, jer and I just finished doing. We trailed the sheep. It's roughly 50 miles. It takes six days, and there's 1200 head of sheep. And it was her and I and my little dog. And  we'd have maybe one person come kind of help throughout the day. But I laughed, because I helped the same people move their cows yesterday, and we didn't even move 10 miles, maybe, and it took six people, and we didn't use dogs, because the cows would fight the dogs. But I mean, I was like, I can literally move. 1200 head of sheep was just my nine year old daughter and a dog, compared to these 300 and some cows and calves running back. 

I kind of like sheep better most days, because they're just so much..They just like to, they go, I mean, like, I've got video up at Bear Trap, when they come off the hill and they're just, like, fluid, just a bunch of sheep going down the hill, and cows are like, scattered run back, you know? So,  it's funny how even just handling livestock is different than the  sheep. And then there's days when sheep frustrate me, like the little lamb that wouldn't go under the barbed wire fence. And  the wire was that high off the ground, and he would not go under that to get back with the sheep. I was frustrated and saying bad words. 

Aubrey: Of course. And I love that visual of the sheep moving down the mountain

Cheyenne: Yeah, they're like water. 

Aubrey: How beautiful. And I love that you do this work with Ellie. What does she think about it?

Cheyenne: Oh, she loves it because she gets to be out in nature. 

Chele: She's done it, she's done it her whole life. 

Cheyenne:We homeschool, so she's never been in school, she's always along with us. And, my husband and I been married for 18 years on the seventh [of July] and 17 of those years, we move to the mountain every summer for three months, and we ride a cow camp. And so we live up there with no electricity, no water. And Ellie, from the time I was pregnant with her until I had her in a front pack, and then she’s on her own horse. And, I mean, that's what we do every summer. 

Chele: She don't know anything different. And she loves it. 

Cheyenne: And she's a good hand, I tell you, what, if you give kid an opportunity to do something, you know, make ‘em. I mean, if you ask them, “I don't know, I don't think I can.” You just say, “Nope, you git.” 

My husband Jesse always laughs about the time Ellie was five. And we have radios so we can kind of radio back and forth at different drainages, trying to find cows, bulls or whatever. And that was the summer I broke my ankle, and so I was just in the pickup and trailer, and I'd kind of drive around and I'd open gates or do what I can. I wasn't supposed to be on my foot at the time. And so she was in one drainage going down the creek, and he was in another, and he found a bull. And of course, this bull’s just going along real slow, and Jesse's like, “Okay, Ellie says you take this bull and you stay behind it,” because bulls just wanted to go down the creek. “So stay behind it. Don't ever leave it.” So here's Ellie, little five year old kid, just on a good, trusty horse going down the drainage, taking this bull. Well, the bull decided I'm going to go up over this drainage, not running, just walking. And so when Jesse went back to find her, he's radioing and radioing, and pretty soon he follows the little tracks. And we found her, and she said, “I just followed the bull like you told me to do.” 

She wasn't worried, and we weren't really worried either. Because, I mean, you can track stuff, and it's not real wild, but just, you know, stuff like that. “I got it, I can do it.” 

Note: The transcript above has been condensed from its original audio recording to improve the flow and readability of the story.