I wasn't raised in this, but, you know, once it gets in your blood, you just, you have to do it.

God gave us dominion over these animals for our food.

And we're just exercising that dominion.

None of us are getting rich at it, I'll tell you that, so, you know, the concept of rich ranchers, thats, thats a thing of the past.

Not too long ago, the wool market was so low that we didn't even sell that year's crop.

We just kept it in the warehouse.

Last winter was very severe.

We had a blizzard come through and the sheep scattered.

We ended up losing a total of about 400 head.

I guess we're really optimistic.

I always say next year is going to be better than last year, so I think maybe we just get those good years enough to keep us going.

You're not making the money like they, like they did when Albert's grandmother started this.

They used to fund the whole operation for the whole year just on the money they got from the wool.

And now you're lucky if you can get enough to pay the shearers.

The mid 1940s, there was about 60 million sheep in this country.

That was the apex of sheep production in the United States and it's gone in a precipitous, almost vertical decline down to where we are today at about 5 million head of sheep in this country.

So you can see on a percentage basis how big a decline that was.

If you look back in history, wool was the major component from World War I, World War II and the Korean War.

All American soldiers wore some sort of wool type based uniforms.

It's warm, it's fire resistant.

It's stain resistant.

From a practical standpoint, it just seemed like the ideal fiber component for soldiers and for uniforms.

It was deemed as a strategic commodity, which meant it got price support from the American government, so if you raised a good quality product, you got paid for that.

And so it made people strive to raise high quality wool that the American industry could use.

Right after World War II, synthetic fibers, nylon, rayon, orlons have kind of taken the place of it and that really started the decline of the sheep numbers throughout the United States.

And the fact that, about 3 or 4 million G.I.s came back from Southeast Pacific and had been fed mutton consistently and those G.Is came back to the United States in a mass and said, “Don't eat any more lamb, don't need any more sheep products.” It was nasty and left an indelible impression upon probably two to three generations of of American consumers.

We're still suffering the side effects of that.

Once that cascade effect started, once you start losing sheep numbers, pretty soon you start losing sheap shearers and pretty soon you start losing infrastructure.

The whole thing just kind of cascaded altogether and I'm not sure there's another animal species that has that sort of a story.

Catch a lamb.

Catch a lamb?

Love up on the lamb.

Its not all about money.

I mean, money's good, but it's not all about money.

Wheres Misty at?

Probably almost any time, the land would be more profitable if you were looking to sell it.

Theres Misty.

Right there.

Hi cutie.

I mean, I look at it a lot as heritage, so I'm not sure the heritage is going to continue, but I'd like to see it continue on with one of my children but we'll see how that plays out.

I don't have very many friends in the farm life.

Right now I'm in early childhood education.

I'm an infant care provider, but I like working on a ranch, too.

Youre able to be out in nature.

It worries me a little, like last winter, the heavy wind and rain and snow storms.

It worries me about that financially, but I look forward to it.

If it came down to it, I would love to take over and be the next generation of it.

I would just like to see the sheep industry itself continue, so that would just be one small part.

That and its a good way of living.