STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Cindy Siddoway is an enthusiastic sheep rancher, having married into a family that established a sawmill and sheep ranch in 1886 near the Teton River on the Idaho side of the Teton mountains.

“We’re sixth-generation sheep ranchers and much of what we do is the same as what they did in the beginning. I love the lifestyle because I always had my children at my side as we trailed the sheep, even when I was nursing,” she said.

As the children grew, so did their responsibilities with the sheep. When son J.C. was 10, his parents let him accompany one of the herders to graze sheep on the summer range. When he was 14, he lost the pack train in the wild country near the Idaho-Wyoming border.

“I wanted someone to go help him find them,” Cindy recounted. “But my husband Jeff said, ‘No, let him find them on his own and he’ll never lose them again.’ ”

It took the Siddoway boy three days to find the missing pack animals, following tips that they probably went to the high country to get away from the flies in the lower country.

And on Saturday he proudly stood besides his mother at the Trailing of the Sheep Sheep Folklife Fair in Hailey, marketing the family’s value-added Grand Teton Lamb, which they ship all over the country.

Cindy Siddoway said herders have been with the family for more than 20 years, grazing the sheep north of St. Anthony in the spring and fall and near Jackson Hole, Palisades Lake and Victor in summer. It’s hard on them as they can be away from their families back home for a couple years at a time. But solar-powered cellphones have made a difference.

Today Cindy’s grandchildren—the sixth generation of Siddoways—help with the lambs, which drink their mother’s milk throughout the summer, while drinking clear mountain water and munching alpine forbs like sweet cicely, clover, mustard and mint during summer to give them a unique mild flavor.

“We provide two of the best products—food and fiber—without harming the environment,” said Cindy.