Navajo-Churro sheep are a 'landrace'; like all landrace breeds, they were developed by traditional means for a very specific place and use. From the Churra sheep the Spanish brought to the New World in the 17th century, the Navajo bred an animal ideally suited for the high desert and for producing the wool for their hard-wearing exquisitely woven blankets. The sheep suffered along with the tribe at the hands of the U.S. government, and there was a time during which it was thought these indigenous sheep had been destroyed completely. However, anyone who has traveled the Big Rez knows how inaccessible much of it is. The Navajo-Churro survived, barely, and is slowly being brought back, both by the Navajo and by others interested in this heritage breed's qualities.

I've always been involved in textile work of one kind or another--at present I am hand-quilting a dauntingly large bedcover made of my daughter's dress scraps--and I have always loved wool with a peculiar passion. There is something intoxicating about it which I can't really account for, but that many knitters and weavers share. Although I have little interest in making clothes, I have a deep love for handmade rugs and household textiles. So, my interest in heritage breeds, wool, rugs, and my stockdog all seemed to point to this almost unknown American landrace sheep.

There aren't too many N-C breeders on the west coast, but I found one of the most long-established ones not far from my sister's house in Sonoma county, and arranged to visit her. She wouldn't have any sheep for sale until the lambs were weaned next spring, but I wanted to take a reconnaissance trip. The directions to her ranch were elaborate, but I didn't quite understand what I was in for until I started out from my sister's on a sunny morning.

First I drove along the Russian River toward the sea. A beautiful October Sunday. The deep shadows under enormous towering redwoods were lit by the pale yellow torches of oaks and maples. Where the river valley widened the vineyards were turning ochre and violet-red. Most of the tourists seemed to have gone home.

I turned off at the road to a miniscule town, and wound up into the hills, through the gloom of the redwoods, up, up, through the town, into the dry hardwood forests, and ever up, on an ever-smaller road to the top of a ridge. Through breaks in the trees I could see for a hundred miles. It was hot up here, the thin, crackling-dry heat of fall, just before the wet storms move in. It was a long time since I had seen a house; the only signs of human occupation were this very road, the occasional cattle guard, and the No Hunting signs on the trees.

Finally I came to the described mailbox, and turned off down a rocky dirt road descending into a deep canyon. I very carefully followed the directions at each fork; I could tell that every fork was an old ranch road that went for miles, probably ending in a washed-out bridge somewhere. Bonnie was craning out the window excitedly.

At last, some miles, two gates and several funky bridges later, I arrived. Dogs poured out of the old barn and raced around my car barking. I sat there and waited for my host to arrive.

Tanya turned out to be a small, charmingly warm woman in an old cowboy straw, worn western boots, faded flowered western shirt: a cowgirl who'd been worn and baked down to the essentials. As she showed me around and introduced me to her husband and her sheep flock and her dogs, I began to gather that I was experiencing something rare and remarkable in modern American life: continuity.

The history of this piece of land is her history. When she was a girl, she was part of the crew of riders and dogs that spent three days flushing the sheep from the enormously rugged hills—two thousand acres—and funneling them toward the shearing barn. "The dogs' feet would be bleeding by the end," she said. "But they worked just the same. They had to—we needed them."

The nineteenth century shearing barn, that once processed hundreds of sheep every year, still stands, with the iron rim of the woolsack still installed in the loft. But Tanya only owns 200 acres now, just the old homestead, and runs only a small flock. The rest of the land was sold for her parents' retirement, and cattle graze there. The coyotes, and then the collapse of the wool and lamb markets drove all the sheep ranchers out.

Tanya and her husband still live in the original ranch house. If you ever wondered what those decorators who create that "country look" are aiming for, well, this is the real thing they probably have in mind—the effect of long time and hard work upon a dwelling made to be used, not looked at. The wooden floor was worn, the furniture had "antiqued" in place. On the table, fresh homemade cornbread and homemade jam, and a farm-sized basket of dry Indian corn ready to be shucked.

Tanya's line of McNabb dogs were originally from the McNabbs themselves, who ranched a little farther inland, in Mendocino. Tanya said that nobody ever registered their dogs, or cared what breed they were, as long as they could do the job. "Dogs that excelled at the work lived to reproduce. Just that simple." Her present dogs are McNabb/Border Collie crosses. But she feels she no longer has enough work for her dogs to do, and indeed her young dog looked capable of running twenty miles at the drop of a 'get around'. "She's a little nutty," Tanya admitted.

The sheep were fascinating to me. Their fleeces hung down in great shaggy straight sheets, not much resembling commercial wool breeds. Each was a different color—buff, silver, black, white, cocoa. "They don't herd together as easily as some breeds," Tanya said. "A friend tried his trial-type Border Collie on them and they went every which way." Bonnie was anxious to give it a try herself, but I declined Tanya's offer. I have become less "what the heck, give it try," with a little experience, and while it was possible it would all be calm and rational, it was more likely that the sheep and Bonnie would take some getting used to each other. This was more safely accomplished in a reasonably sized fenced area rather than an open field.

Despite being bred for the high interior desert, N-C's thrive in the extreme climate and difficult terrain of high Sonoma county too, where summers are long, dry, and hot, but the winter can bring a hundred inches of rain. Tanya thought they would adapt as well to the cool coast.

There is something very peaceful and timeless about sheep in general, and these medieval Spanish sheep in particular. Tanya partook of some of those qualities herself. "I'm the kind of person who thinks, 'why should anything change?'" Tanya said. "I like things the way they are." Maybe she sensed a kindred spirit, because she gave me two fleeces to take home with me, one charcoal and the other cream. For my winter dreams.