ISSUE 1

December 2023

---

the reindeer express

---

Their First Snow!

Winter recently arrived at the ranch and the Reindeer got to experience their first snow! While we dreaded the list of daily tasks ahead of us, they spent their day joyously prancing around and playing with each other. The joy they expressed put smiles on our faces, making a snowy day much more enjoyable.

With heads tilted back and tails straight up, mouths open catching snowflakes, we couldn’t help but watch and laugh. Each enjoying the snow in their own personal way. Diamond ran and ran, prancing as if she was going to take off. Monroe enjoyed rubbing her face on the backs of the other girls, soaking up the cool wet snow on their backs. Nena was rooting her nose through the snow and then throwing the snow stuck on her face up into the sky, watching it fall back to the ground again. Twinkle pawed at the snowflakes falling out of the sky, not knowing what to think about what was happening. Elle (pictured above) ate snow to her heart’s content, as you can see with her sporting a magical snow mustache. 

The boys, Pepper and Buckee spent their day chasing each other, grunting, and throwing snow covered trees around. 

It was an unforgettable day at the ranch!

---

meet the reindeer

---

very carey christmas tree lighting

We are so beyond proud of our girls Twinkle and Nena. They withstood and persevered through a lot of firsts on this trip. It was their first time going for a ride in a trailer since they were delivered. They loaded with ease and while a little freaked out upon arrival, calmed down quickly after being unloaded. Immediately following getting out of the trailer they were met with excited kids in awe, but never once faltered or acted scared. They both walked with grace to their display pen and entered with ease, also their first time in the display pen surrounded with Christmas lights. Within minutes there were excited screaming children rushing the display, but to our amazement they handled it very well. They were both very aware and not sure of everyone, but tolerated it well and stayed calm. We know now that we don’t go anywhere without our ropes to keep people at least 6 feet back. Sorry girls, we are learning with you. Towards the end of the event a car alarm sounded off 5 feet behind the display. Both Shaylin and I readied ourselves to spring into action, thinking Twinkle and Nena would try their best to escape the display. To our amazement they both looked at the car with tilted heads, hardly moving. Whew!

Shaylin and Eric spent the night talking with various guests about the Reindeer, enjoying themselves watching the reactions of all the guests. It was amazing to see the excitement on not only the faces of all the children, but the adults as well. Even Santa was excited to see his Reindeer!

After the event we decided to wait until most everyone cleared out. We were a bit nervous about how the girls would react upon leaving the display. Again to our amazement nothing happened and they walked out as they had walked in, even stopping on que to meet a little girl that was late to the event and hadn’t gotten to meet them yet. They stood true while the girl and her mother got to ask about them and look at them for some time. The little girl’s mother was beyond grateful that we stopped so her daughter could see Santa’s Reindeer.

The last test that Twinkle and Nena would face this night was loading back into the trailer. This was probably the one step that had us the most nervous for the night. After the trailer ride down there I thought they would put up some resistance. But they jumped right in the trailer easier than any time before, “we are ready to go home”. We are so proud of our girls and ourselves for providing a great first event!

---

construction continues

Since the beginning of June there has been no shortage of construction projects to do. That still continues today. We have been up against multiple big deadlines to get certain things completed. Having met all deadlines up to getting our Reindeer here, we took a step back for a little bit to enjoy our hard work and spend time working with our new Reindeer. We are here to tell ya that we probably spent too much time in this state. But we are hard at it again!

Through October and into November we ran water to the pens from the house. Before this we were having to fill a barrel with water and gravity feeding it to fill water troughs in the pens. This took us about 2 hours to complete every night to make sure the cows and the bulls had fresh clean water everyday.  After getting the water line in the ground and frost free spigots installed, this cut our time to change out water down to about 10 minutes in each pen. In the process of installing the water line we thought it was a no-brainer to run electrical at the same time. This would enable us to plug in tank heaters to keep the water from freezing during the winter months. It took us a little over a month to complete this project. Slow by most standards, but when you live in a rural place like we do, getting parts is a difficult task. Parts runs consist of a few hour drive and can only be accomplished on Saturdays, due to everything being closed on sundays.

With December here and the snow flying we have been putting in work to replace temporary shelters with permanent ones. Progress has been slower than we would hope due to weather slowing us down and preventing help from making it up on the weekends due to bad roads. But we are making progress a little at a time. We are hoping to have our first permanent shelter move in ready in the next week or so and move on to the second shelter. Once these two are complete, we will move the Reindeer into pens with permanent shelters and remove the temporary ones. 

After the two main shelters are complete we will begin construction on the quarantine pen shelter. This along with various other construction projects are scheduled to be completed before the spring as weather allows.

---

looking to the future

What is going on for Sawtooth Reindeer for the month of december?

We are looking forward to taking the girls to more events around the state for the holidays. Getting to watch the joy in the eyes of people that come to see them has warmed our hearts and kept progress at the forefront of our minds.

We are currently working with the county we live in to obtain the proper permits to start allowing guests out to our ranch for up close and personal engagements on our ranch tours. This will give us a safe place for people to touch our Reindeer without exposing them to harmful things through proper sanitization measures.

We are looking forward to our Christmas event here on the ranch this year! Reindeer and Santa will be in attendance for all to see. We are in the beginning stages of working out all the details, but we plan on providing an event full of education, treats, and a memorable experience for everyone in attendance.

If it keeps snowing like it has been for the past couple of weeks, we will get to experience the joys of figuring out how to remove snow from inside, as well as outside our perimeter fence. This is a task that we know will be arduous, but must be done. We have a small tractor that will help in this operation, but without a cab and only a small bucket it will be a slow cold process. But we look forward to the challenges ahead and figuring out ways we can make things easier to accomplish.