Willow's Rest

TMT on Friday, because, Well, I Forgot (Can I Say I Was Busy?)

2012-01-27T18:15:00.000-05:00

How could I forget? I look forward to Laura's TMTs!

1. How do you search for and then choose a trainer?

I start with word of mouth. My first trainer came to me that way. I also go by what I see of a trainer out on the trial field, which includes accomplishments and handling style. I won't go to a BIG NAME just because they're a big name and everyone else is doing it. I learned this from my horse showing days, when the woman I showed for had a dressage clinician come out reguarly and I was expected to attend (paid for by the woman I rode for). That particular clinician was an excellent dressage rider and I didn't dislike her, but we didn't click. She just set me on edge for some reason I can't explain. It wasn't a lack of skill or any specific behavior, but just the fact that we didn't click, and so I know I didn't learn as much from her as I could have had we had a connection, so to speak.

I've carried that over into working dogs. I've gone to trainers who wouldn't be considered big hats but who were good teachers and who clearly knew what the big picture was supposed to be, even if they weren't out winning everything in sight. Granted, one will likely outgrow such teachers, but that's okay, because it's when you're getting started that you really need the good teachers. Later, when you have something of a clue, you are more likely to get it when dealing with a really good handler who maybe isn't the best teacher, if you know what I mean.

And of course if the trainer is one whose values (toward dogs and livestock especially) don't meash with mine, then I won't even bother. If the training methods are ones I'd never use, I wouldn't bother. The one thing I won't do, no matter how successful the trainer, is compromise my own ethics when it comes to the animals I'm working with.

2. The dog world is small and... uh... talkative. After choosing a trainer how do you handle those people in your life who don't believe in that trainer/trainer's methods and criticize them to you?

Depending on who the person is and what their specific complaint is, I might engage them (i.e., tell my viewpoint) or I'll just ignore them. It is a small world and there's planty of backbiting. I particulary dislike when folks start throwing the blame and snide comments around, and really it just makes me wonder what underlying problem exists, which may have nothing to do with the actual training practices themselves (that is, one individual's personal issues with another).

That said, if the person doing the dissing is someone whom I respect and trust, then I'll probably listen, but I still will do my own research and decide for myself.

3. Do you believe that a person's personal life should influence your choice of a trainer? (i.e do you believe a person's choice to be a party animal outside of work would affect your choice?)

That depends. If what they do in their personal life doesn't go against my own moral and ethical standards then I don't really care. What's most important to me is how the behave in the context of working with me and my dog(s). But, for example, if I know that someone is routinely abusive to dogs or livestock, then I wouldn't touch them with a 10-foot pole. If the person is the greatest trainer on the planet, but has, say, defrauded people or behaved in a way I wouldn't want to be associated with, then no, I wouldn't consider them as a trainer.

If the person has different political beliefs, parties on the weekends (as long as they're not doing illegal stuff), or similar behaviors, it wouldn't really bother me unless it specifically affected our training relationship.

4. When you have a break through moment with your dog, do you feel that moment makes your connection stronger with that dog and makes the next step in training easier?

Hmmmm...I don't know that breakthrough moments necessarily improve my connection with a dog, but they probably improve my training relationship with that dog. Breakthrough moments to me imply that a struggle has ensued (for whatever reason) up to that point, and so in that sense, yes, breakthrough moments definitely improve the relationship (and maybe I'm just splitting hairs over the meaning of connection vs. relationship here), but my overall connection with a dog involves many different levels of interaction, and only one of those is training.

I do think when the dog (or human) has an aha! moment, it does refresh the relationship and probably makes the next steps easier simply because both of you gain a sense of accomplishment from the breakthrough and then can build on that.

5. Do you stick with just one trainer, or do you go to multiple sources for help?

I haven't had a regular trainer in years, but generally I would stick with one trainer and then go to clinics to expand my horizons, so to speak. I think trainers who insist that their students go nowhere else are deliberately limiting those students. In the beginning, especially, I think it's important to have consistency in training; at that point in a newbie's training life trying on a bunch of different trainers could just result in entirely too much confusion. But at some point it makes sense to expand one's horizons, and trying out different methods is one of the best ways of developing a method that works best for you. When you start making those excursions is pretty much an individual thing, but I think it makes sense for everyone to see what's (who's) out there and avail themselves of the trove of knowledge that exists. You just have to be sure enough about what you want to be able to discard the parts that don't work and keep those that do.

If it's Thursday, it must be time to reveal a little more about ourselves.

2012-01-19T13:36:00.001-05:00

1. What is one lesson you've learned this week?

Hmmmm...that's a tough one. I know it all already, lol! Maybe that some times you just have to pay the late fine if you want to finish the book....

2. Who or what might you have been in another life? What might you be in a next life?

Where do you come up with these? I hope I was a good person in a past life and that I'll be an even better person in a future life. I could think of animals I might have been, but given how many animals are treated, I'd rather not go there.

3. What unusual things do you like the smell of but don't usually admit?

I don't know that I wouldn't admit it, but I love the smell of a pipe. And I actually like the smell of coffee, although I can't stand the taste, or the smell it leaves on someone else's breath. I kind of like the smell of bleach, and a sweaty horse's body, or really any smells around a stable. As I was staking cut wood last night I realized that I should have included the smell of freshly turned earth and the smell of freshly cut wood.

4. What are your thoughts on continuing on vs. retiring when a trial run is going badly? How do you decide? Where do you draw the line?

I probably tend to retire sooner rather than later with a young dog. It's too easy for them to learn bad habits if you let them just keep floundering. I set sheep a lot and I have to say that I see a lot of cringeworthy runs that people just let happen. You know, if the dog is blowing you off at a distance, it doesn't make sense to think "Oh well, he'll listen when he gets closer." You're just reinforcing the bad behavior. With an open dog, if the run isn't a complete disaster, and assuming the trial host isn't pressed for time, I might continue longer. There usually the real problem is time, and if it looks like I'm not going to, say, complete the drive, I might retire, but if it looks like I could make it to the shedding ring, I'll keep going. Then again, the open dog isn't learning bad habits (necessarily) if I let it keep going a bit longer.

5. This is a call for questions or subjects you'd like to talk about - I'd appreciate suggestions (and please come link up so that I'll be sure to see your post), so here's your chance!

I'd like to see people's tips on living frugally and sustainably. I know there are websites for this, but I'm still interested in the ideas my friends have found useful about ways to save money or the environment.

I'm sure there are other things I'd like to know, but I'm a bit brain dead at the moment....

TMT, New Year's Edition

2012-01-05T21:54:00.001-05:00

1. What is your favorite new toy? I know you have one, so you might as well go on and fess up.

Actually I don't have one. That is the life of a living-constantly-on-the-edge freelancer. I did buy a cast iron Dutch over a month or so ago so I could try the no-knead bread recipes in the book my sister sent me, but admit that I haven't made any yet. My cell phone has stopped charging properly, so maybe I will finally step into the realm of cell phones that allow you to check e-mail and post to Facebook, but only if Verizon gives me one for free.

2. If you're going to be caught under the mistletoe, who would you LEAST like it to be with?

Well, I don't really have an answer for this. I don't do a lot for Christmas, so mistletoe really isn't something that crosses my mind--it's certainly not something I'd have much opportunity to stand under and then worry about who I wouldn't want to kiss....

3. New Year's Resolutions - for your dogs - share!

Very basic resolutions here.
* Get them sound and keep them sound.
* Start Kestrel in training in another month or so (once *she* stops limping).
* Keep working toward soundness for Pip. I'll need him big time come May. So not only do I need to get him sound, I also need to get him fit. The Bluegrass is four 12+ hour days, and he's the best dog for the job.
* Work Phoebe and Lark more so they can be backup set out dogs.
* If the dogs stay sound, and if I can inch my financial situation from precarious to a bit more secure, then perhaps in the fall I could even go to a trial or two.

4. New Year's Resolutions - for yourself - share!

* Exercise more.
* Find additional freelance clients, preferably ones who pay well.
* Alternatively to the above, finally find someone who wants to hire me full time or even part time to write or edit (just knowing I have X $$ coming in each month would be nice).
* Develop some sort of social life up here. It's nearly my year anniversary in the new place and I spend most of my time right here on the farm. I don't even leave the house to go to work.
* Learn to meditate. I think it would help me manage stress and maybe even stress eating. I could use a little centering.
* Have a garden that actually grows veggies that I can then put by for the winter.
* Related to the above, continue to work to improve the soil (using the term loosely) in the garden area.
* Write more, and keep up with my blog better. The two sort of go hand-in-hand, though I might try doing some personal writing on the side as well, and I need to push my cousin to get her family research down on figurative paper (told her I'd help with that).
* Try to enjoy life more and banish the melancholy.

5. How did you handle the holiday food situation?

That was relatively easy. I didn't have any big parties to go to, nor did I have a bunch of family gatherings. Instead I worked over the holidays. One neighbor sent me a Christmas meal, and I went to my elderly aunt's on Christmas day, so although I had good food, I just didn't have any real opportunities do gorge. If you don't count the apple bread one neighbor sent me, and the cranberry orange bread and lemon poppyseed bread another sent my way. Oh and the eggnog spiked with bourbon (I know it's been decades since I had any of that!). Okay, so maybe there were some excesses, but certainly not as excessive as they could have been! And seriously, as someone who basically lives on homemade soups in the crock pot, eating someone else's cooking was the best treat of the holiday season!

Ann gives us her version of TMT...

2011-12-22T19:01:00.001-05:00

What Kind Of Handler Are You?

I am a lazy handler I guess. I don't like drilling. I don't like micromanaging. I want to get a job done, either at home or at a trial, with a minimum of fuss.

What is your perfect dog?
The one that does exactly what I need it to do, all the time!

Do you like a dog that is really on the muscle?

I can't stand this phrase and I think it's overused, and certainly interpreted differently by different people, at least as far as I can tell. To me, a dog that's on the muscle is being too pushy and not listening. I don't mind a pushy dog but combined with not listening is not something I'd want to deal with all the time. There's a time and place for it, but it's not every time nor every place. And generally it's not on the fetch at a trial. Dogs are supposed to help us with low-stress, efficient management of stock. A dog on the muscle most of the time is unlikely to be doing that.

Do you like a dog that needs a steady stream of whistles?
I abhor a dog that needs a steady stream of whistles, but I think the operative word here is *need.* The only time a steady stream of whistles is likely needed is if you're trying to win an open trial and your lines need to be on the order of "millimeter tolerance," to quote a well-known big hat. I still don't like to hear it on the fetch, though, and to me a silent or near-silent gather is golden.

Are you a maximal or minimal whistler?
That depends (see above). I tend to whistle very little on the gather. One reason I got into this habit is that my first open trial dog that I trained myself doesn't like a lot of commands. Since I know that more commands are necessary on the drive, I compromised by leaving her alone on the fetch. Well, that, and the two biggest bobbles I ever made on the fetch (once at the Bluegrass and once at the National Finals--hey, if you're gonna do it, may as well do it big!) were because I decided she was a bit offline and insisted she "fix' it. And you guessed it: Both times she was right and I was wrong, and my intervention caused a missed fetch panel. Score two for me! I did learn my lesson, though. I think.

Do you like a natural dog that feels the sheep and just needs a little direction here and there?
Yes, I like a dog that can read the sheep and respond appropriately, with or without me. There are times, especially at home, where I have to send the dog for sheep that are out of my sight. Other times when a student's dog has sent the sheep to the back of beyond and I don't want to walk all that way to get them, etc. I have to trust that my dog can go out blind, find the sheep, deal with whatever is presented in a fair and efficient manner, and bring them back, all on her own. It's nice to have that quality and to know that your dog really is saving you time, worry, and work. On the trial field, I know a lot of folks prefer a loose-eyed dog they can put anywhere, but then you get back to that pesky constant commanding thing, which I don't like. I want my dog working as a partner with me, especially at the shed and pen, and let's face it, a natural dog is going to read and react to the sheep a lot faster than I can read them and then tell a dog what to do....

Do you like a dog that prefers certain type of sheep?
No. My dogs need to work whatever is presented to them. The first time I went to the finals, Twist had never worked range ewes. We had one practice on the practice field, and off we went. She handled the range sheep just fine. I like a dog who can learn from new sheep how to handle them. That means if you're trialing, then you might not be successful the first time you encounter sheep that are new and different, but a good (natural) dog will figure out how to work unfamiliar stock so that the next time out on that same type of stock the dog will have figured out how to handle them (and the handler will also perhaps adjust handling to accommodate the differences in the stock).

Do you like a dog that wants to partner up and be a really good team player?
Yes, taking care of my livestock (especially) and trialing shouldn't make me unhappy, and if I rely on my dogs to help me with both of those endeavors then they need to partner up with me. I don't want to have to fight a dog to get a job done, at home or at a trial. I don't want to have to beat a dog into submission (or any variation of that), nor do I want to have to constantly nag a dog or be ever vigilant so that the dog doesn't take a mile every chance it gets. Not for me. The dog's job is to make my work easier, period.

Do you like a dog that really knows what s/he wants and you, as a handler really has to manage?

No. See the above. Working livestock isn't about what the dog wants. It's about the efficient and humane handling of stock. That's what I want, and therefore the dog needs to want to make me happy, generally speaking.

Do you want push?
I want push when it's needed, but I don't want to be constantly riding the brakes. When I want things to be hurried along, I expect the dog to push away. When I want slow, calm work, I don't want to have to constantly remind the dog to slow up. This ties in with the dog that can read stock and react appropriately and also partner up with the human to get the job done.

Do you want a good listener?
Within reason. I want a dog that thinks for itself but is willing to take my input, right or wrong. It's okay if the dog gives me a dirty look when I screw up, but ultimately if I insist on something I expect the dog to comply, and if I was wrong, then I'll take the blame (while the poor dog is fixing my mess). I know my dogs well enough that if one refuses a command, I'll take into account that the dog may have a reason and may adjust my plans accordingly. It's that partnership thing. But I also don't want to have a long, loud discussion about it if I really want the dog to take a command.

Do you want try? (Not tri.)
Definitely. Nothing is worse (especially in a tough work situation) than a dog that has to be coaxed to work. I'd rather have the dog trying and screwing up than not doing anything at all or being perfect but very hesitant. A dog with heart who will give everything it's got to you when the going gets tough. That said, my first trial dog was one I had to give a lot of encouragement to. He lacked confidence. He was also very kind to his sheep and could settle the most bug-eyed scaredy sheep that had been molested by the previous dog. He taught me to *handle* because it was my handling and force of will that got us around trial courses. The best compliment I ever got from a judge was after a run in which things fell apart for a while through no real fault of my dog (different dog). We got it back together. I don't remember if we placed that day (this was in a eastern pro-novice class I think). As I came off the field, the judge said to me that he was very impressed with my calm quiet handling of the situation. That's what I learned from that first dog who needed to be coaxed (calm and quiet was the only way to work him), and it has served me well at home and at trials ever since.

Do you like a dog who gets the job done, no matter the sheep, but it’s a big job to get that dog listening?
There are times, especially at home (say, loading a trailer) or when setting sheep for a trial (for the latter mainly when moving the whole flock up into the pens, etc., where they don't want to go) that I really want the dog to get the job done. That doesn't mean, however, that he's allowed dirty grips, hanging on, etc., but I will pretty much just give a "Get 'em up!" command and let him figure out how to make that happen. When I do that, though, I recognize that some yeehaw! type behavior (not tail-up-in-the-air silly stuff, but rather rougher work than what I might accept under normal circumstances) might ensue. I still don't want to fight the dog to get it to listen. I think it's entirely possible for a dog to get the job done and still listen. The work just may not be as pretty.

Do you want it all?
Of course. But there are things I'll compromise on; that is, there are some things I definitely want more than others.

Can you have it all? Since I don’t know enough to know what I don’t know, what do you want? What do you like?

I don't think you can have it all. There is no perfect dog. That's what I meant about compromise. If the dog has most of what I want, then I'll work with or around the parts I don't like. To me the most important qualities are a natural and thinking dog who wants to do the right thing and is willing to partner. I like a speedy dog, but one of my best work and trial dogs was not particularly fast. I want a dog with confidence, but also self restraint. A dog that will protect itself (and me) when needed, but can also finesse difficult stock without resorting to teeth as the only tool in the toolbox. For example, the same dog should be willing to take the ram head on if he's being an ass, but should show restraint around a ewe with a newborn lamb, even if the ewe is also being something of an ass, and of course it should be even more careful with little lambs. A dog that can respond appropriately most of the time to all the different situations it might encounter on the farm or at a trial is probably about as close to perfect as you're going to get.

Early Christmas Present--Another Tell Me Thursday

2011-12-08T18:09:00.000-05:00

Sigh. I keep thinking I need to set aside time to keep this blog updated. It's sad when it takes a blogger friend to get me to do any posting. My early New Year's resolution (yeah, I know, it's not even Christmas yet) is to blog on a regular basis. Everyone is welcome to hound me if I don't.

Now on to the important stuff!

(Thanks Nana for the spiffy new widget!)

1. What are your plans for the holiday season?

Working. Freelancing generally means no paid holidays, but I'm grateful I have work to do, and I just took on an extra project that's due right after Christmas, so Christmas = work. And anyway, I haven't done much of anything related to Christmas in quite some time. Even back when I was still celebrating it, I tended to work over the holidays because it's always really quiet in the office then (at least when you're in a regular non-home office) and you can get a ton of work done! And I'm hoping to take plenty of nice long walks with the dogs.

2. Do you decorate? If so, what have you done so far?

I don't decorate anymore either. I think that started when Moses the Horrible entered my life and it just became easier not to bother. With a bunch of dogs and cats, trees and the like just don't stand a chance anyway. Less pressure to take stuff out and less pressure to take it down and put it away. Stress-free living!

3. a. Favorite recent dog photo? b. Photo that shows your mood today (or one word)?

My current favorite is this one, because Kes looks like a little mischief-maker:

This is my mood, a little old biddy sitting alone on a rocker:

4. There's been a discussion on the BC Boards about "don't train for the novice classes... just train for open and the rest will fall into place." What are your thoughts on this?

Well I made my position pretty clear over there. Open should be the goal, and if you have a good mentor, that person can help you recognize and capitalize on "open training moments." But you still have to crawl before you can walk. As long as you aim to walk sooner or later, it's okay to crawl at the start.

5. What are your top five cannot-do-without-them dog items?

1. I must have my little flat-sided metal pails. Even if Richard R. teases me mercilessly about them whenever he sees me at a sheepdog trial.

2. Cow hooves. They are relatively cheap, don't take up a lot of space (though they hurt like an SOB if you step on one in the night), and the dogs love them. It saves furniture (mostly), shoes (mostly), and stuff from little (or big) gnawing teeth.

3. Lark can't live without her winter horse blanket style jackets. Mexican blankets as winter bedding for everyone else. Twist votes for her wicker dog basket. She sorely misses her beloved Moses (not to be confused with Moses the Horrible) basket that Willow very kindly chewed beyond usability.

4. Leashes. My dogs are almost never on leash, but if you look in my van you'd think either (a) I have a leash fetish, (b) I'm a leash hoarder, or (c) both.

5. Metronidazole. I never leave home without it. (I actually take a bunch of first-aid-related stuff, but metronidazole is the one thing I'd truly be sorry to be without.)

And if we don't get another TMT before the holidays, Merrry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Winter to everyone!

Time for Another TMT, or I Haven't Been MIA, Really

2011-11-03T11:29:00.000-04:00

It's been a while! I missed a couple because I had to head out on Thursdays to set sheep for the Lexington SDT and then the Water Cress SDT. If you gotta miss TMT, doing it for a sheepdog trial, even if not competing, is about a good a reason as you can have!

Kestrel stayed home with Laura (who was kindly farmsitting) for Lexington, but I took her along to Tennessee and she had a grand time playing at the top with two great puppy sitters, AKA pen workers!

Otherwise, I'm just plugging along here. I need to go get the ewes from the top pasture and bring them down to the rams, but have been too trifling to do that yet. But I will make the time for Tell Me Thursday, lol!

1. What are you thankful for this week?

I am thankful that I spent years in a career that lends itself to freelancing. In this economy it has meant the difference between sinking and swimming (or at least floundering along).

I am also thankful to be alive. That probably sums it up.

2. How do you deal with a squeaker/shrieker/noisy dog?

I kill it. Oh, not an option? Well, let's see. In the case of friends' squeaker/shrieker/noisy dogs, I move them into my bedroom at night, which seems to solve the problem. I've gone so far as to put a dog in a crate in the van, but if the weather is suitable for that, then invariably my windows are open, so I still end up hearing it. I wish I could learn to tune it out like I have learned to do (mostly) with the guard dogs, but all I can say is that I am THANKFUL not to have a squeaker/shrieker/noisy dog!

3. Barbara wants to know: what would you say is ONE skill or attribute needed to be successful?

Perseverance. Luck helps too, of course, but that would be two, so I'll stick with perserverance. The common theme that seems to run among those who are successful is that they KEPT TRYING, no matter who are what seemed to be barriers to what they wanted to do. Of course, I think it also helps to know when to say when, but if you are not willing to persevere in the first place, you'll never accomplish anything.

4. Pippin wants to know: what are your favorite games?
Kestrel asked if she could be a guest blogger to answer this question. I said sure.

Kestrel: "The bestest game in the world is the one mom calls "Remora." It's where I hang on Ranger's mane and try to stay attached no matter what he's doing, even if he's flanking around sheep. It's really fun. Kind of like the carnival rides mom says make her want to hurl. Oh, and I get to practice spitting out hair whenever I do finally let go. My second favorite game is racing after the big dogs telling them off. My mom calls it yapping like a damned fool. Is that a compliment?"

5. What are some of your strategies for dealing with winter?

Make like a bear and put on an extra layer of fat to see me through. Oh, I guess I already did that, or forgot to take it off after LAST winter. I'd say that my strategy would be never to set foot outside except under great duress, but in truth, my real strategy is to save money on heat by keeping the thermostat really low. It means I'm well acclimated to the low temperatures and in fact often can't tell the difference between outside and in. Every night is a three (or more) dog night. Acclimation, baby!

Are the questions getting harder, or is it just me?

2011-09-29T11:32:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'm playing this week, but my apologies in advance for the lameness of my answers....

1. What movie do you love but are too embarrassed to admit you love it?

Gosh, I really don't know. I watch only highbrow stuff (kidding!), so how could I be embarrassed by any of them?

2. Ann wants to know: How far do you drive/travel to attend trials, clinics, lessons? How far is too far?

Well, when I was gainfully employed at a good-paying job, I even went so far as to drive to Sturgis to the National Sheepdog Finals. If I had the money, I'd probably drive 8-10 hours, though not on a regular basis. But I certainly did go through periods when I was trialing every weekend and traveling up to 6 hours or so to do so. Before I had livestock of my own, it was pretty easy to just head off wherever. The catch for me now is old animals and a farm. Going away for any length of time means finding someone to care for stuff here. So even if I were flush financially, I think I'd be limited by the need for someone to mind the farm....

3. What is your theme song (circa Ally McBeal)?

Um, I don't know. The song that goes through my head is usually related to something someone has said to me recently. For example, someone suggested Karma as a good puppy name. For the next week I was singing Karma Chameleon. But I don't find myself attaching theme songs to particular activities. I guess I'm just boring that way.

4. Laura S wants to know: If you had to choose a new dog activity, one that you had never done before, what would you choose?

Um, probably dock diving. It just seems low key enough and fun enough for all concerned. But of course it would help to have a dog who likes to swim and doesn't drop like a stone from the end of the dock.

Otherwise, just having a great place to go hiking or swimming with the dogs on a regular basis (daily would be awesome) would make me and the dogs happier than any organized sport.

5. What would your dog choose (or scribe, if you're Pippin)?

For at least some of them, that would probably be an eating contest, lol! Seriously, though, I think most of them would choose swimming or hiking, especially if a good squirrel chase could be thrown in on a regular basis. Oh and Twist would like her own five acres, set aside just for digging for "mice."

Taking a Break for TMT #9

2011-09-15T13:01:00.001-04:00

While I'm eating my lunch, I'm going to play!

1. If you're not at the 2011 Sheepdog finals this weekend what are you planning to do?

The list is so long. I was planning to go get hay (squares and a round bale), but that might not be possible if it's raining. The other big project is to ready the Elam Currin pasture for habitation by a guard dog and work on the pond where the sheep go to drink to make it a little more sheep friendly. Gates still need to be hung here, and since I can't manage to fix my wheelbarrow I was planning to borrow the neighbor's so I can clean out the sheep loafing area under the tobacco barn lean to. Oh, and the dog yard fence needs to be finished too. In other words, I will be trying to do the chores that are always piling up and never getting done. I didn't buy views of the finals anyway, so I won't be tempted to sit inside and watch, even if the weather isn't great (at least I won't be sweating like a pig while I work, right?). Oh, and a puppy might be arriving. Anyone want to take bets on how much I get done?

2. One item you NEVER walk onto the trial field (any trial field, or training class will suffice) without?

That would be my lucky stick. The one with green (now blue) tape around the middle to hold it together where someone splintered it sorting sheep at a gate (I have no idea how). Okay, I have actually walked onto the trial field without it, when the occasion called for me to use my nice crook, but I always feel a little bereft if I don't have my old taped-up stick with me. (And if I see Laura's sunglasses lying in the grass, I pick them up, lol!)

3. Katy wants to know if you have a pre-run ritual that you observe?

Not really. I try to get my dog to watch a few lifts before our run, and I will take the dog on a short walk to see if pottying is needed and just to have a little quiet time before heading to the post. Oh, and I always have to have a last drink of water before I go through the gate. (I ttry to get the dog to take a drink too, though not of my water).

4. How old were you when you had your first real kiss?

Really? You want to know this? I don't know. A teenager certainly. I couldn't even tell you who it was. I must have been real impressed by the whole thing.

5. Bonnie wants to know what you do for yard mud control during the winter?

There is no such thing as yard mud control here. If I'm out in the yard and it's been raining, I do try to avoid the pits the dogs have dug, because falling into one filled with muddy water is no fun, and generally means a twisted ankle. I put a sheet down by the back door so that most of the mud gets wiped off the dogs (okay, at least from the bottoms of their feet) as they come through the door. Beyond that, I live with the dirt. (Heh. No comments from the peanut gallery named Laura.) Hey, this is the country and it's a farm. Mud is a fact of life, except when we're in a drought (which seems to be most of the time lately), in which case I'm very happy to see mud in any form because it means we've had rain....

Woo hoo! TMT rolls around again!

2011-09-08T16:42:00.001-04:00

It's that day of the week again, the one we all look forward to, thanks to Laura over at Crooks and Crazies!

1. What is the biggest thing that grossed you out over the past week?

Probably the portajon at the trial, after about a day of use. 'Nuff said. Followed be sheep snot. And then there's the daily grossness of multiple spiders (big, freaky-looking ones) and spiderwebs (big, sticky, and um, freaky looking) plastered to my face as I take the sheep through the woods twice a day to and from their new pasture. I'm getting slightly inured to the whole thing, but still 8 pounds of silk and icky spider plastered across my face twice a day is pretty gross. I guess the spiders/spiderwebs win for the cumulative grossness....

2. What do you feed your dogs?

Most of them get Diamond Naturals. Phoebe gets Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream, and Jill gets Wellness Super 5. Some also get raw meals. All get various toppers, including eggs from my hens (see Laura's post), cottage cheese, yogurt, canned fish, you name it.

3. If you could move anywhere where would you live?

Wales. I adored it when I visited there and could so see myself, my sheep (or sheep I'd get there since I couldn't import mine), and my dogs living there just fine. If I couldn't have sheep, then I would probably move to the Amalfi Coast of Italy.

4. What is the funniest thought that occurred to you (or thing that happened to you) this week?

Need you ask? Laura the Skeered looking after my poor, harmless chickens. The thought is always good for a laugh, and her descriptions of the goings on usually make me laugh so hard I cry. I look forward to Laura farm sitting for me because I know that belly laughs are soon to follow....

5. If you couldn't have your breed of choice what would be next on your list?

There's a bunch. If it had to be a small dog, probably an IG, maybe a wirehaired fox terrier (just like the one I grew up with, natch!). If a large dog, well, I've always wanted a Scottish deerhound, but an Ibizan or Pharaoh hound would work too. Heck, really any dog would make me happy, as long as it wasn't all gross and slobbery.

Hello? Did an entire week go by and I just didn't notice? Two weeks?

2011-09-01T11:59:00.000-04:00

But yes, I am taking a moment to join back in with Laura Carson's Tell Me Thursday, after missing last week. So here we go. Wheee!

1. What five things can't you live without?

Can I list chocolate five times? No? Alrighty then...

1. Chocolate (it's gotta be first anyway)
2. Fizzy water (seltzer water)
3. A to-go cup (that one's for you Laura! Hee.)
4. Sleep (and I never seem to get enough)
5. My critters (I can't imagine a life without them)
**And a bonus item**
6. Books (Seriously. I'm pretty much never not reading one.)

2. How do you transport your dogs? This question suggested by several peeps, including Mara.

I, too, am the Queen of the Van Dogmobile. Mine is a newer, slightly larger model than our intrepid TMT leader's, but then again, I spent like a gazillion more dollars for it. It's a 2005 GMC Safari mid-size van. A dinosaur. The last of its kind. The seats are probably in pristine condition sitting in the hallway in an old farmhouse in Elizabeth City, NC, where I lived when I got the van. It's stuffed full of crates and the other necessitites of a (formerly) semi-nomadic life, including baby wipes, batteries, toilet paper, and a rain suit (and much, much more!). When the border collies started spontaneously multiplying, I realized that carrying them in a Honda Civic wasn't the most practical approach, so I found a used Astro van. I drove it into the ground, and it died on me (um, Laura, it was the transmission...) in the middle of nowhere between Raleigh and Windsor at night, full of dogs, on the way back from a sheepdog trial. Fortunately I had AAA and I was within the 100-mile tow range (just barely). The dogs got to ride in the van on the back of the rollback; I rode in the cab. And there was a very nice policeman who parked his car behind my van, with lights on, until help came, since I hadn't quite made it off the highway. Yep, those were the days. I plan to drive this one into the ground, too, though I'm not putting as many miles on as I have in the past. And that reminds me that I must check the oil before heading to the land of no cell phone service and no houses within walking distance this weekend (also known as Donald McCaig's Highland SDT).

3. What role does obedience play in your training or running of your dog(s)?

One reason I like what I call a natural and thinking dog is because, well, the dog thinks for itself. Sometimes that works against me, but more often than not, it saves my butt. I'd rather know that I might have to have a, ahem, discussion with my dog about why it really should take the command I'm giving than have to worry about telling the dog what to do constantly. That's really been the toughest adjustment about working Ranger: He prefers to be an obedient dog who does what he's told. Most of the time anyway. But I don't think he has a greatly developed sense of thinking for himself, which is strange because I try to train all my dogs in a way that encourages that. Of course it never helps when I end up laughing at a dog who is doing something disobedient (that would be you, Pip). Like Laura noted with Nick (still thinking about that flank you insisted on at Donald's?), I have on occasion insisted that Twist take a flank, always with a bad result and a dirty "I told you so" look from my dog.

4. At what point do you start putting commands on your dogs?

Some people would say my dogs don't have commands. C'mon, it's because they're such good, natural, thinking dogs that I don't have to tell them what to do, ever. What? You don't believe that? I start with very few commands because I don't want my chatter to distract a youngster from learning to feel and really work the stock. If I just use my body pressure and the pressure/movement from the stock, I can get a lot accomplished without ever saying a word (okay, except for the somewhat commonly used "Hey!", which can mean anything from "What the hell do you think you're doing trying to pull that ewe down?" to "Hello? Anybody out there?"). In fact, my youngsters probably think "Hey" is the main command needed to work stock. Anyway, I never really think about when I start using voice commands. It really depends on the individual dog. If the dog is very natural and sensible right out of the box, I might add commands sooner rather than later. But really I don't have a formula for when I start putting commands on--it just kind of happens.

5. Do you talk to strangers in elevators? Question posted by Laura #1

Well, that depends. I won't just strike up a conversation for the sake of doing so, but back when I actually lived a life where I could find myself in elevators with strangers or barely acquaintances, I'd talk to someone if the circumstances seemed to encourage it (say, we were attending the same meeting or had some other connection, however artificial). As a corollary to that, in some situations I might even have felt compelled to make conversation, for example, if I was on the elevator with one of my company's clients and that person knew I worked for said company, but that's one of those non-spontaneous command-performance kind of things (as in, if I want to keep my job, must make nice to the clients!).

If it weren't for Laura, well, this blog would still be languishing, I'm afraid

2011-08-18T11:35:00.000-04:00

Yay! It's Tell Me Thursday, thanks to Laura at Crooks and Crazies.

So here we go.

1. Who is your newest dog? Where is he/she from, and why did you choose this particular dog/breeding? This question posted by Jodi.

My newest dog isn't so new anymore. Ranger turned 2 at the end of July. I was working with the bitch and thought she had some very nice attributes, and I also knew the sire, although he wasn't the original sire that was discussed. Because the bitch's owner moved back to Utah at the time the bitch (Chris) was coming in heat, I ended up keeping Chris so that Robin could breed Zac to her. Then I ended up keeping her and whelping the litter. There were just three pups, so I got the last one in exchange for keeping Chris and whelping and raising the litter. Chris is largely farm bred, Zac is a son of Robin French's Spottie and Nancy Schreeder's Link.

I am beginning to look around at planned breedings and put my name on some lists. See below for what I want in a dog.

2. What traits drew you to this dog or breeding? (also by Jodi)

Hmmmm...good question. Not for his looks, lol! As I said above, I saw things in Chris I really liked and thought that Zac's more sensible/biddable nature (though still with plenty of push) would make a decent cross. Interestingly enough, Ranger has pretty much zero eye and is nothing like any other dog I have. He's been a challenge to train because he's not what I'm used to, but as Pat Shanahan told me once, the different dogs are the ones who make us better trainers! Unfortunately for Ranger, my income is tiny and so I'm not trialing, which in turn removes a lot of the incentive for training a lot. Maybe things will turn around before he's too old.

Like Laura, I like a natural dog (that is, one that can read sheep and respond appropriately without input from me) with plenty of push, but who also wants to partner up with the human. I want a thinking dog who will do his/her part once he's figured out what the task is. A dog I can trust to do the right thing when out of sight. Sensible. I like a bit of eye because I think it's a big help when shedding and penning (and doing chores at home when you don't have a handling system). A natural outrunner. Not afraid to join the fight if need be. Did I just describe Twist? I want another one almost exactly like her, but without such a wide outrun. Puppy gods, are you listening?

3. What's on your feet right now?

My feet are currently nekkid! That's one of the small pleasures of working at home.

4. What are you reading right now?

The current book in the bathroom is The Girl in the Blue Beret, by Bobbie Ann Mason. It's the story of a retired and widowed airline pilot who returns to the field in Belgium where his B-17 crashed on his 10th mission during WWII. From the dust jacket synopsis: "Marshall's search becomes a wrenching odyssey of discovery that threatens to break his heart--and also sets him on a new course for the rest of his life. In his journey he finds astonishing revelations about the people he knew during the war--none more electrifying and inspiring than the story of the girl in the blue beret."

Recently finished: The Wind in the Woods, by Rose Senehi, a thriller set in the Green River Valley of North Carolina, and The Lake of Dreams, by Kim Edwards (who wrote The Memory Keeper's Daughter). For any horse lovers out there, I also recently read Renegade Champion: The Unlikely Rise of Fitzrada, by Richard Rust. It's the story of an Army horse who went rogue and was slated to be destroyed, but was bought by an Army colonel for his daughter, who eventually turned Fitz around and became one of the first women to compete (and win) nationally on the jumper circuit (this was when the Army still fielded Olympic riding teams and women were largely confined to handy hunter classes). It's a great true story about a girl and her horse and overcoming obstacles. Okay, I'll stop myself here.

Laura should know better than to ask someone like me about books....

5. What upcoming trials are you looking forward to? If you don't trial dogs I'll take whatever activity that you're looking forward to.

Donald McCaig's Highland SDT. Not because I'll be running a dog (I'm not), but I'll be setting sheep. Donald's is my absolute favorite place to go. The beauty, the Cowpasture River, so many stars at night (I live in a rural area, but the star viewing here doesn't hold a candle to the star viewing there). No cell service. Time spent with my good friend Debbie, who works the pen. Setting sheep at a trial is hard work, but going to Yucatec Farm has so many benefits for the soul, that I look forward to it every year. And of course, it's thanks to Laura that I can go away and know that the farm, the critters, and the old dogs are all in the most excellent of hands!

Me taking the polypays out in the early morning at Donald's.

Simon and Pip, the unsung heroes of many a trial (Simon is Debbie's dog and works the pens).

Simon and Pip doing their thing at Longshot Farm. Simon pushes out, Pip picks up. You can see me in the distance walking to the set out, and Debbie is back in the pen, moving the next sets forward. Simon and Pip know their jobs and just do them while Debbie and I do our thing. (You can barely see Pip in the upper right at the tree line--I stole these photos off Facebook, so sorry for the small size.)

I will try to get some photos of the beauty of Yucatec Farm this year and post them to this blog after the trial.

It's Tell Me Thursday over at Crooks and Crazies...

2011-08-11T10:27:00.003-04:00

...and that seems to be the only time I post anymore, but it's better than nothing, right?

Questions for today:

1. In sheepdog training (or lets call it *any* type of training), how do you keep from taking yourself, your dog, your lack of progress too seriously? posed by Ann

That's a tough one. Right now, the fact that I have essentially no money and can't trial and have dogs who are fine for doing the chores means that it's pretty easy to just blow off lack of progress. I keep saying I'm going to just put the youngster up for a few months. But I find I can't really do that. So simple chores still happen. My lambs are over at Robin's, the ewes need to gain weight, and it's been freakin' hot, so easy enough not to worry about progress. I've just got Ranger who needs training; everyone else would really just need tuning up, so there's not a lot of pressure to do anything. Of course, that's sort of a cop out, but I imagine if I had trials as an incentive, I'd work harder with Ranger and probably what I consider a lack of progress right now really wouldn't be.

2. How many crates do you have? For reals.

This may not be an exact count, because I'm not sure how many are in the garage (2 or 3), so let's say approximately 24, not including cat crates. That's really just a little more than 2 per dog, and my crates double as chick-raising crates as well, so they do multi-duty around here. And then there's Jill's indoor X-pen, which is her de facto crate in the house.

3. How do you keep your dogs in shape?

We used to take long walks to the river several times a day, but I got to the point where I just couldn't take the gazillions of ticks they (and I) were picking up, so now we just don't exercise. Since we're not trialing or doing anything terribly strenuous at home, it's not a big deal, but I at least need to do something over the next month to get Pip and Phoebe in a bit better shape, since they will be the set out dogs at Donald's trial, and it's really not fair to them to expect them to work three long days when they've been slugs most of the summer. That said, Pip, after a couple of months of soundness (no doubt as a result of doing next to nothing overly physical), was limping again the other day. Sigh.

4. Who is your favorite movie/tv star eye candy at the moment?

Well, that's a tough one since I haven't been going to the movies or watching much TV. But Liam Neeson always qualifies as a fave of mine, so he's got my vote for this Tell Me Thursday.

5. What is your livestock situation? Have your own? Borrow? Herd the cats? (You can subsitute other equipment for livestock if you don't work stock with your dogs).

I have my own: sheep and chickens (because, you know, Lark and Pip LOVE to work the chickens, and they do come in handy when the chicks and some of the big chickens are slow to go in the coop at night). I have a small flock of sheep--seven mule ewes, six tunis ewes, the BFL ram, and 20 lambs, a good number of which I will be keeping back for the breeding flock this year, assuming I have enough pasture to justify it. I have a Suffolk ram lamb coming sometime in the next week or so. I have more chickens than I have sheep; it's easier to count crates than to count chickens....

Sorry, no photos today--for some reason Blogger isn't allowing me to upload and I have work to do so can't fiddle around to try to figure it out or just to outwait the dam* system till it decides to cooperate.

Hey, I'm on Time (For Once!)

2011-08-04T11:43:00.000-04:00

(1) How did you get into border collies (or whatever your dogs of choice are)? What started it all?

Sorry for those of you who have heard this, oh, like a gazillion times, but Laura asked....

I was living on my own in Fredericksburg, VA, and was recently divorced. I had always had cats because I traveled fairly often for work and they were easy to leave with someone checking on them every other day.

I grew up with all sorts of dogs and knew that someday I wanted a dog. And that someday became now. The local paper, The Free Lance-Star published weekly a list of pets available at the "Pet Assistance League," (PAL) a group that took any breed off death row.

I used to peruse the listings and I had been thinking about getting a dog. One of my favorite dogs growing up was a Belgain Tervuren named Shai Fox. She used to go everywhere with us when we traveled the countryside on horseback (along with our wire-haired fox terrier named Nip).

Anyway, I knew I wanted a herding breed. This was 25 years later and I had recently seen Tervurens and didn't like the changes that had occurred over time, but I seriously consider a malinois, since they seemed less affected by the show ring.

To make a long story short PAL listed a bouvier and I went to see her. We didn't click. But my mom, who was with me and who was a sighthound fan, saw a little Italian greyhound. She couldn't stop talking about it, so I agreed to go back with her the next day so she could adopt him.

While we were there, the woman said to me, "I know you said you weren't interested in a male dog, but let me just show you this fellow." That was Indy, a border collie x aussie. He passed away last year at age 17.

That's Willow in the very back (Kat in the middle). About four years after getting Indy, I decided to move the North Carolina. Indy was a very sociable dog and had dog friends to play with at two of my neighbors' houses. I wanted him to have a buddy when we moved, and so I contacted Appalachian Mountain Border Collie Rescue, and Willow entered our lives. I still didn't have any ideas about working dogs--Willow was my jogging and rollerblading partner (Indy was too random for those activities--he'd go along great for days or weeks and then one day decide to cut directly in front of me chasing something and I'd fall and end up with a major case of road rash.

Anyway, after I moved my vet had a client who had a border collie that she couldn't care for. That border collie belonged to her husband, who had died of cancer. The dog had been left to develop all sorts of OCD behaviors out in her yard. Because she traveled fairly often, he was boarded at the vet's a lot. He had surgery to remove a lick granuloma (one of the obsessive behaviors). So my vet talked me into taking him. I did so with the idea of fostering and rehoming, but soon realized that he had issues that pretty much made him unadoptable (i.e., fear biting). But when I got him, he came with his pedigree and I mentioned it to the person I'd adopted Willow from. I sent her a copy and she recognized the lines he came from and suggested I try him on sheep at Carol Calhoun's place, which was about an hour and 20 minutes from me. I did so. Farleigh was a bit of a wash out, but Willow took to it like a, well, border collie to sheep. And the rest is history.

Here's Farleigh looking very grey about the muzzle. Um, and shaved in his "Liberty Lavendar Dog" incarnation, lol!

(2) How many dogs do you have? All dog math variations accepted.

Nine border collies and two LGDs. There, I admit it. No special math.

(3) What do you do for a day job?

Day job? What's that? Living hand to mouth.... If anyone knows of any work for a freelance writer and editor, pass it my way!

(4) What questions would you like to answer (or ask)?

Um, you're asking me to think. Don't know if I can do that. Can't you be nosy enough for all of us?

(5) What was for dinner last night?

Not hot dogs, for once! Actually Peggy took me to George's and I had a lovely spinach salad. I was desperate for something fresh and green. In fact it was a banner day for eating for me. Since I had to go to Jim's in Raleigh to pick up Joan's clothes, I stopped at Greek Fiesta (a new place near where he lives) for lunch and had dolmades, felafel, taboulleh, and tzatziki sauce with pita bread. A yummo day. Today, sadly, it's back to PB and honey and whatever I can scrape together for dinner.

Better late than, oh, never mind!

2011-08-01T15:34:00.003-04:00

Forgive me, but I was in something of a crunch last week, but I did want to play, so here I am arriving late to the party (late to the party is nothing new after all!).

1. Most embarrassing trial moment

Ha! Emabarassing trial moment? NEVER! Seriously though, like with fights and everything else unpleasant and in the past, I tend to put that stuff out of my mind. But there is one recent event that I still dwell on at times (usually when I'm exasperated with the little dear). I've thought about it because it's almost time for the Highland SDT and I actually thought about running Ranger in nursery (um, a 350+-yard outrun).

I can see Laura smirking now. Why? Because she was kind enough to set sheep there for the P/N class last year so I could come off the top and run Ranger. Okay, to cut Ranger some slack, he had just turned a year old, and the outrun was long for an eastern P/N class (it was maybe 200 yards, would you say Laura?).

I still cringe to think about it, and when I tell you the story, you'll understand why.

First some background. I am an open handler. People pay me good money to set sheep at trials because they can count on my and my four-legged co-workers to do a good, consistent job no matter how awful the sheep might be. I am a good trainer. I have been to two finals and qualified for a few more. Not trying to brag, but just to give a little background here.

So I come down the field and Ranger and I walk to the post. Now remember, we've JUST COME FROM THE TOP. You know, WHERE THE ENTIRE FLOCK IS. We were JUST THERE.

Okay, so back to the run. I send Ranger to the right so he can't kick out too far (ha! she of the wide-running dogs--which Ranger most definitely is NOT--is using a time-honored strategy). Of course you know what's coming. If I remember correctly, Ranger barely made it past the fetch panels, maybe half way out, before cutting in. He wasn't even LOOKING for sheep. Oh, no, NOT. LOOKING. AT. ALL.

What was he doing, you ask? Well, he was looking at me. How is this possible? Because when he started to cut in and I tried to stop and redirect, I think he thought that I was telling him it was PLAY time. Yes, my dog was out there bounding around, looking at me instead of looking for sheep, his tail waving happily in the air. His body language was saying "Wheeeee! We're having fun out here in the middle of this big field!"

What's worse is that once I left the post I still couldn't get him to lie down and look back for his sheep. I had to run 2/3 of the way out there, all the while knowing that everyone was watching my moron of a dog leaping and bounding about as if he was having the time of his life.

I did finally get him out and around his sheep, but it pretty much went downhill (can you believe that's even possible?) from there and we exhausted the sheep (of course we couldn't even manage to do that with any sort of finesse).

Thank DOG I didn't have to hang around the handler's tent but instead could slink my way back up to the top, trailing my shame behind me....

Ranger in a slightly more serious trialing moment (because no one captured the ignominy that was Donald's trial, thank goodness):

2. Favorite whistle

I love, love, love my Arnold whistle. Of course Dave Arnold no longer makes whistles and I lost my favorite one of the two I had. (I was walking the dogs, pulled my sweatshirt off over my head, and apparently lost it then. I searched and searched and searched in the area where I pulled off that shirt, but never could find it. One of the saddest days....).

Aside from the cheap plastic whistle I learned to make noise one, the Arnold is what my first trainer used and so it was the first one I tried. It's shaped something like a kidney, but I don't blow it out of my mouth because I hold it with my teeth (which probably isn't a good thing if one is feeling stress while working one's dog--jaw fatigue is sure to follow).

I have tried a couple other whistles and there are some I might even like, but what I'd really like to do is convince someone with an Arnold to sell me their spare(s). I do have a copy in brass, but it's not quite the same. Still, it's better than nothing. And Bordercollics Anonymous doesn't have a photo, so you'll just have to imagine what it might look like. Then again, since no one seems to have them, what's the point of a photo? It's not like you'd be able to go find one after all!

And I'd really love to learn to finger whistle (for those times when I'm not doing anything that would prevent me from wanting my fingers anywhere near my mouth), but I seem to be a hopeless loser when it comes to that skill. Of course maybe if I really put my mind to it instead of just bemoaning the fact that I can't....

So there.

What a Way to Resurrect!

2011-07-21T22:14:00.003-04:00

Yes, it's been a year (or thereabouts) and I've been meaning to start posting again, but haven't gotten around to it. At least not till Laura forced my hand. So here we go!

So the question is this: "If you were a sheep, what breed would you be?"

To be honest, I've been thinking about this all day, and short of just saying something stupid, like "a sheeple," I'm a bit stumped. But I must come up with something!

So, I'll confine myself to sheep breeds I have owned, or at least worked with. That narrows it down a bit.

And the winner is: Scottish Blackface!

(That would be the two in the front.)

Yes, I admit that I got rid of mine because they truly were a pain in the patootie. But you have to admire their independent spirit. And the fact that there's a thin sheep under all that wool!

Here's what the OK State Sheep Breeds site says about the Scottish Blackface:

"The Scottish Blackface is an attractive, hardy, old breed whose origins are lost to us. It is likely that the breed developed in the border area of Scotland and England.

I can live with description, even the "old" part, since that's getting to be true too!

And it says this, too:
"There are small flocks scattered across the USA but this robust little breed has remained a minor breed."

So, we Scottish blackface are rare individuals, unique amongst the larger crowds of sheep in this country.

And lastly, this:
"The Scottish Blackface are excellent on brushy hillsides and can be useful for improving pastures. They are very adept at regaining condition after lambing or a hard winter."

I skipped the part about good mothers, blah, blah, blah, but I do think that I can improve a pasture if I try, and anyone who knows me knows I'm an easy keeper!

What I like about the breed is their independent streak. They know what they want, and they just go do it, no matter how irritating that might be to their human. That "mind of their own" trait can be exasperating, but it's what makes them survivors--in adversity, on bad forage, in harsh weather.

I aspire to be that sort of independent minded survivor type!

Ranger's Growing Up!

2010-06-30T19:13:00.001-04:00

For those of you who aren't on Facebook, here's a video of Ranger taken today. It's hard to believe he will be a year old at the end of July. I am not working him more than maybe twice a week, but you can see that he's coming along pretty nicely. Thanks to Barbara Shumannfang for being videographer today.

In other news, we've finally had a break in the heat wave, though unfortunately no rain to go with it. Still it was a welcome break to have temperatures in the 80s today, and they're supposed to stay there for the rest of the week. Yahoo!

Breezy Hill Farm SDT and more

2010-06-28T18:27:00.003-04:00

I went up to Virginia this past weekend with one of my students, who was making his trialing debut in novice-novice. The word for the weekend (well, actually, words) was hot, hot, hot. When I pulled out of the farm on Sunday afternoon at 3:30, the temperature guage on my van read 101 degrees. My student's truck recorded a temperature of 103. Either way, that's hot. Fortunately, Breezy Hill is aptly named, and for most of the weekend there was a slight breeze. I guess it helped make life less miserable than it would have been without a breeze....

Twist and Pip ran well in open, with Twist taking second on Saturday, thanks to my brain fart at the drive away panel (that's twice at two different trials now, and it's a mistake I haven't really made since I was a new open handler). Pip had a leading score on Saturday that held for quite a while, but the sheep worked a bit better later in the day, and he eventually dropped down to something like 7th. On Sunday, Twist had an unfortunate incident with the sheep racing back to the set out and splitting. Since that alone would have put us out of contention, I chose to retire rather than plug away with it as hot as it was. Pip ran next-to-last and the run before his had lost sheep to the pond. One of those sheep ran up to the corner of the pasture and hid there. In the interest of saving time, the choice was made to leave that single sheep there. Unfortunately, the cross drive was toward the pond and the baa-ing sheep, and even on a good day, the sheep tend to bolt in that direction after making or missing the drive panels. This time, they had added incentive in the shape of their buddy calling them from afar. Pip was able to catch them, but only after they had gotten to the other side of the pond, at which point the only way to bring them back was across the dam, which meant the dog had to stay directly behind the sheep and couldn't fix the line of that leg of the drive. As a result that entire drive leg was completely offline. Despite all that we stil managed to pull off a 5th place finish. The run after us had the exact same problem, only he retired because one of the sheep threatened to leap into the pond, and he didn't want that to happen. So it was an unfortunate decision that made Pip's job much more difficult, but I was proud of him for make a supreme effort in that heat and saving the run, even at the cost of a lot of points.

The real star of the weekend was Phoebe. Someone scratched from the open ranch class, so I put her in on a whim. I haven't been working her, and it has been at least 8 months, and maybe more like a year (can't remember exactly) since she's run in a trial. I was expecting the worst, but she went out and surprised me and lost just 11 points on her run to win the class. There may be hope for her yet. I'm thinking that maybe the best thing to do with her is NOT train and just trial, holding my breath, and see what happens!

Unemployment
The news on the job front is not good. Thanks to Congress (or at least a majority of members) deciding that those of us on unemployment are making the debt unacceptable, no more extensions will be available, because you know, we just need to get off our lazy asses and go get a job. I live in a state with the second highest unemployment rate in the country, and I have been busting my ass trying to find a job (all over the country), but apparently I'm really just a leech sucking the lifeblood from financial solvency of the United States. I want to work. I've even offered to take lower pay to the tune of one-third less than what I used to make. I've lived on unemployment--I can live on next to nothing. But even the people who pay next to nothing apparently aren't hiring. And now we hear that at least some potential employers have a policy of not even considering unemployed people, because, you know, they have no way of knowing if we are truly the victims of a bad economy or have been let go for cause. Sheesh! I'd like to let Congress know that when I have to accept food stamps and Medicaid, then I doubt I'll be costing the federal government any less than I did when I was still eligible for unemployment.

Brighter News
I am doing some freelance work, but of course it's not enough to pay the bills and I have to leave at least some time open for job hunting and applying to jobs. But it's better than nothing, and maybe potential employers will see it as me working vs. me being unemployed and not immediately toss me into the reject pile for the latter sin.

Willow
And even more good news: After her illness/liver problems and coming off chemotherapy, I decided to stop treating Willow for her mast cell cancer. I weighed the pros and cons of what I had been doing, and after talking to my regular vet decided that it made more sense to deal with the cancer from a palliative standpoint, given Willow's age (she just turned 13), her heart condition, and my financial status. She had recently developed another tumor on the back of her leg, which I had gotten my regular vet to check out. It was big enough--and angry enough looking--that I could see it when she walked in front of me. Fast forward approximately 6 weeks, and suddenly I stop noticing it. So I gave her a closer examination, and the tumor had shrunk dramatically. I rolled her over to check the tumor on her inner thigh, and it too had shrunk significantly--almost completely gone. So I had to take Lark and Kat in for rabies vaccines last week and decided to take Willow along to show my vet what was going on so he could make a note in her record. He tempered his comments with the caveat that he is not an oncologist and that most tumors he deals with are in horses, but said it appeared to him that Willow's immune system finally kicked in and was attacking the tumors. He said that if they continued to shrink and stayed that way for 6 months it was entirely possible that they wouldn't come back. So keep your fingers, toes, and any other relevant body parts crossed that Willow's immune system has indeed awakened and decided to do battle with her mast cell tumors and that they will go away and stay gone.

Everyone Else
All other critters are pretty much just chugging along. I worry about everyone (outside) in the heat. I'm running the a/c with the thermostat on 85 and still the unit seems to run most of the time. I don't even want to think about the next couple of electric bills. But so far the sheep and chickens are weathering the scorching heat and the weatherman is saying that we're to get a break mid-week, with temps dropping back to the mid-80s. I sure hope so.

Now I need to go refill waterers--it disappears fast!--and get everyone fed. We sure could use some rain. All the extra we got this spring has long disappeared, and this intense heat is just scorching the pastures. Sigh.

NC State Championship Trial Update

2010-06-03T20:37:00.003-04:00

No, this blog isn't dead. We've just had something of a hiatus while I concentrated on job hunting, lambing, and other stuff. The lambs were all born, but sad to say I still haven't found a job. I'm doing a little freelance work here and there, but unemployment rules make it difficult to actually take such jobs. I'll discuss that in another blog entry, though, as this one is meant to be a brag on Pip and Twist.

(Photo by Dan King)

(Photo by Michelle Dobbs)

Thanks to unemployment, I haven't been trialing much this year. Dr. Ben's trial is only the second trial we've attended in 2010, and the first one, Sherry Smith's up in Church Hill, MD, we ran in because we were there setting sheep. But despite the fact that we haven't been trialing much (or maybe as a result of it), we had a pretty good showing this past Memorial Day weekend.

I was asked why I wasn't running Kat: Don't worry, Kat is by no means retired. It just so happens that Pip got moved up to second open dog when Kat injured herself right before Edgeworth, and as I already have some points on both him and Twist, it made more sense to run them and try to get more points. I doubt I'll get enough to make the finals this year, but fate just has a way of doing that to a person sometimes.

Dr. Ben's field is terraced, which can be tricky for young, inexperienced dogs (and even some seasoned dogs). The right side is even steeper than the left, so on hot, humid days like we had this past weekend it made more sense to send dogs to the left to help them conserve energy in the heat. Unfortunately for me and Pip, this caused some problems.

On Saturday I walked out on the field before the sheep from the previous run were exhausted--or should I say Pip ran out on the field ahead of me and unfortunately locked on those sheep. I could tell by his body language before I ever sent him that he was going to try to go to the exhaust. However, the exhaust is well covered and is on the way (in a roundabout way) to the top, so I went ahead and sent him left. Sure enough, he kicked over toward the exhaust, but as soon as he realized no sheep were there, he continued on around and made it to the top and lifted his sheep nicely and brought them on down the field. His shenanigans on the outrun cost him three points.

The rest of the run was pretty nice, lines pretty good, panels made, shed completed, and pen made with a few seconds to spare. We ended up with a score of 82, which landed us in 13th place at the end of the day. The high score of the day was a 90 (Mark Billadeau and Peg).

Twist ran later in the day, around mid-afternoon. I was sure she'd give out on me about the time we got to the shedding ring, since she really isn't as fit as she should be. The sheep bolted to their left before Twist even made it around ot the top, and I was afraid I'd have trouble because the set out dog was moving too, and Twist has done enough set out that she tends to defer to the dog already working. But the set out person stoppped her dog and Twist flanked on around and got her sheep and brought them down the field nicely. The fetch and drive went really well, until we got to the cross drive panels and I realized too late that we were a little too high. That miss cost us at least 4 points and dropped us to 14th for the day, still in the money though.

I was most pleased with Twist's attitude. Over the fall and winter she had seemed rather sour at events like the international shedding clinic with Tommy Wilson. But this past weekend she seemed much like her old self, which made me very happy. Especially given how hot it was, as she would have had every reason to give out on me.

On Sunday, Twist ran first and we had a decent run. I didn't blow a whistle to her until she was at the fetch panels. We lost 5 points on the fetch, but I was quite pleased with her mostly silent gather. Her fetch might not have had "millimeter tolerance" on the center line, but she kept a pretty straight line and did all the correcting of the line herself--something I think is a valuable trait to have in a working dog. Her packet of sheep tended to be a bit herky jerky, very reactive to the least little movement on her part. That's unusual, as generally she can settle sheep. It made for a lack of smoothness throughout the entire run, and especially in the shedding ring where the sheep refused to really settle.

On the drive away, she resisted my attempts to flank her to the right (the sheep were quite heavy to the left toward the exhaust). After seven years of trialing this dog you'd think I'd have learned by now that pretty much most of the time if I head them toward panels, Twist will take them through. Oh, and as if just to spite me, at one point she stopped, gave a sniff, and squatted and lifted her leg, as if to say, "This is what I think of all this." That was a first! (What was that I said about an improved attitude? lol!) But back to the drive away. In this case, though, the panels were offset, with the inside panel back slightly further than the outside panel. I knew this and was watching the sheep closely and flanked Twist when I thought they had passed that inside panel. We did a nice tight turn--right in front of that darned panel. That's a mistake I haven't made in a long time!

Our cross drive was nice, as was the return leg to the shedding ring. In the ring, we were to make a split, taking the last two sheep on the head. Every time I got them lined out a little and moved Twist the least bit, the lead sheep of the back two would turn. I finally got a small gap and called Twist on through, with that same sheep turning at the exact moment I called Twist. The judge counted it as taking them on the head, thank goodness.

Then I made my "fatal" strategic mistake. In order for Twist to regather in the ring I had to send her around to the far side of the ring. This means she ended up opposite the sheep with respect to the draw to the exhaust. I actually stood there for a second when I realized that in the heat and at the end of her run Twist wasn't likely to catch them quickly if they bolted to the exhaust, especially with her being in the exact wrong place to have much chance of stopping them. In hindsight, instead of walking toward the pen as I flanked her, I should have walked back into the shedding ring and in front of the sheep and tried to hold them long enough for her to get around at least to the side of them. But I didn't, and as a result they bolted and she didn't catch them until they were almost at the exhaust. We timed out as she was bringing them back to the pen. I don't know where we ended up at the end, but I don't think we were too far out of the placings, even with all the mistakes and lost points.

Pip ran in mid-afternoon, around 3 p.m. It was good and hot by then, but he's white so I really don't think he gets as hot as the darker dogs. (See, there may just be an advantage to being mostly white!). I figured (hoped?) that on this day, having already successfully gathered the sheep off the top the day before, he'd do a nice outrun (which is what he normally does) and maybe we'd manage as good a run as the day before. As soon as we got to the post, he was looking toward the exhaust. Gah! When he looked that way, I told him "No!" and then when he turned to look back up the field, I said "Look." I've worked with him a lot at home to teach him to look for sheep in the direction I'm facing, even if he can't see them. So as he was now looking up the field, I sent him. And the little sucker immediately kicked over toward the exhaust. This time, instead of just letting him go and waste time running along the exhaust fenceline and then on up the field, I called his name twice. This is something I also do at home whenever he wants to run too wide (his mom is a wide outrunner, so I've been very conscious of trying to prevent that with him). He pulled back in, but then hit a terrace about a third of the way up the field and looked like he was headed for a cross over, so I stopped him and gave a redirect. He kicked out nicely at that point and went on around to get his sheep and lift them beautifully.

On the cross drive, one sheep turned to face him. This is where we had problems at Sherry's trial (despite him having no trouble setting sheep all weekend), so I was a little worried here, but he kept walking right in to her, and she turned, at which point he looked over at me as if to say, "See? I've got it under control." The rest of the run was clean and uneventful, and we ended up with a score of 81. Those 8 points we lost on the outrun killed us not once, but twice. First, it dropped our score from what would have been third of fourth to ninth. And second, it left us with a combined score of 163, which tied us for fourth for the double lift final, for which only the top three dogs go back. I would have loved to have tried him in the double lift.

So overall it was a successful trial. Maybe all the time we've had off has actually helped the dogs. It sure was nice to be out there again, though, even if those of us who were tent camping were nearly washed away by the torrential rains of a Friday night thunderstorm. You know, a tent seems awful flimsy when lightning is flashing all around....

I have a couple of chicken stories to tell, as well as an elaboration on my comments about unemployment above, but I'll include those in future posts. I promise to let little time lapse between this post and the next few!

May I Have that To Go, Please?

2010-02-26T15:58:00.004-05:00

(Photo by Dan King)

Laura, this one's for you!

I cook in spurts, freeze all the leftovers, and then have plenty of food to sustain myself for a period of time. I even like what I cook. But there's nothing better than going out to dinner with friends--especially friends who like to try new places and cuisines. Laura is good for that, and we probably eat out close to once a week, sometimes more often. I think Laura also enjoys going out to dinner with me, except for one glaring fault I have.

No, I'm not talking about the fact that occasionally I arrive wherever we're eating having come straight from doing chores, perhaps a little muddy, perhaps with wisps of hay in my hair, or perhaps even smelling vaguely like livestock. Nor am I referring to the occasions when I wear my embarassing high-water jeans or when I haven't bothered to wash my hair in a couple of days. (Okay, all that sounds much worse than it really is!)

So how is it that I manage to get Laura's eyes rolling in embarassment? It's simple. At the end of the meal, when we usually get to-go boxes because we do try to control our portion sizes, I usually also ask for a to-go cup for my drink. Mortifying, isn't it? I figure I tip well (and I even let Laura see what I'm tipping so she doesn't tip less and then feel like a cheapskate for it) and if I want a simple cup of soda--which probably costs the restaurant pennies--why not?

Last night, Laura, Sandy, and I were finishing dinner at an Italian place when I made my usual request and Laura just rolled her eyes. But then Sandy requested a to-go cup for Laura, who did not turn it down. I of course jumped all over that!

Once, I was driving to Raleigh to meet my sister and brother-in-law for dinner. It so happens that Laura and Robin decided to go to one of our favorite pizza places that same evening. Boo! But I really didn't want to pass up dinner with family, so Laura graciously offered to pick me up my favorite pizza to go, and then I could get it from her later, as I was going to be picking up Ranger, whom she'd been babysitting for the weekend anyway. I told her I'd think about it. Then I called her back and said, "I think I'll skip the pizza, but could you get me a to-go cup of diet Coke?" Poor Laura hesitated just a fraction of a second before responding, "Sure I can try to do that." Ha! Poor girl--I think I'm wearing her down. Later that evening I called to say I was on my way to get Ranger, having just finished a wonderful dinner at the Angus Barn, I decided to make her feel better about my proclivity for asking for to-go cups.

Says me to Laura, "I have to confess something." Laura says, "What?" And I said, "Well, even I didn't have the balls to ask for a to-go cup at the Angus Barn." I think I might have made her evening with that confession!

So the next time you're out at dinner with friends and they're perhaps apologizing for their state of dress, or their timeliness, or whatever, just smile to yourself and think: that's all okay, as long as you don't ask for a to-go cup!

Out of Hibernation

2010-02-14T11:25:00.005-05:00

I've been on quite a hiatus from this blog, though I didn't really intend to do so. And now of course so much has happened that I'll be able to hit only the highlights. But I am planning to do better here in the future; otherwise what's the point in blogging, right?

Willow: Plan B

Willow went to VSH to see the oncologist for her 8-week check up last week and the news was not good, as I suspected, since I had asked to speak to Dr. Kozicki having not seen any real progress in tumor reduction over the past two months.

Sure enough, her tumor is progressing, which means that she has become resistant to the c-kit inhibitor action of Palladia. There is another similar drug on the market, approved only in Europe so far, but it is different enough that Dr. Kozicki recommended that we try it, given that Willow did have a good initial response to the Palladia. So she has sent a "compassionate care" request to the manufacturer in France and I should be able to pick the new medicine up late this week or early the following week. If the new Rx doesn't wok, our only recourse will be to go to the more traditional chemotherapy methods. So keep your fingers crossed that the new meds will do the trick.

Otherwise, Willow is doing well. She gives no sign that the (re)growing tumor(s) are bothering her, which gives me hope that whatever we can't see going on internally is not affecting her quality of life at this point.

Ranger is Growing Up

Here's Ranger working sheep yesterday. He's now 6.5 months old and bigger than several of my females at 36 pounds. He's got quite a rough coat on him (no real surprise there, given his sire and dam), and he's quite keen to work. He's finally getting to the age where he can take some training pressure, though I still won't take him out more than a couple of times a week, if that. I don't intimidate him as much as Robin does, but he was trying to work with us yesterday and not just race around like a puppy with a lot of yeeha in him. In this photo, he's actually flanking nicely around the sheep. We were in a larger paddock for the first time. His other exposures to sheep have all been in the round pen. Robin worked his littermate Tug as well, and we were well pleased with both of them. I am looking forward to spring and being able to start training him in earnest.

Birthday Dogs

Aside from getting more snow this winter than I can ever remember (and we weren't hit nearly as hard as our neighbors in Virginia and Maryland), we also celebrated two birthdays (not counting my own). Lark (top) turned 4 on January 31. It's hard to believe that the wee little puppy that came to me from Kay is all grown up. She's got a bit much eye and tends to be sticky, so she's still running at the ranch level, though she can do open work. She's still as spoiled as ever, loves to work the chickens (but no more ducks as they were just exacerbating the problem with too much eye), and of course keeps close track of "her" kitties, JellyBean (who is all recovered now, though it took him quite a while to start eating well again) and Chili Pepper.

Farleigh turned 11 on December 18th. He's as snarley and grumpy as ever, but he knows his place is here for life and we all just tolerate all his craziness and foibles. The unhappy face above is because Ranger was harassing him while I tried to take his picture. He really does need a shave, but the winter has been so cold and wet that he's gotten a reprieve till spring.

Life at Home

See what I have to deal with every night when I try to go to bed? Dogs and cats everywhere (note that Lark is keeping a close eye on Chili Pepper). Every night someone parks him/herself in the middle of the bed and I have to tell them to move so I can get in. You'd think they'd learn, but perhaps they just like forcing me to tell them to move over every night. I resurrected one of Twist's whicker baskets, so she now sleeps in it instead of on the bed (yes! one less dog!), but Lark, Pip, Phoebe (who was at the foot of the bed and so didn't get in the picture), and Chili are my regular nightly bedmates (because I keep the thermostat quite low, every night is a three-dog night at my house!).

Other Stuff

I am still waiting on my mule ewes to lamb. I was looking at the gestation chart this morning, and since I pulled the ram out on September 30, they really are supposed to be done lambing by around February 21. That means I should really get some lambs this coming week, unless these particular ewes have an extra-long gestation for some reason. I keep thinking they're waiting for bad weather to pass, but we keep getting more bad weather. I think I jinxed myself in the weather department the minute I decided to lamb early this year. Anyway, most of them are bagged up, so it's just a matter of being patient waiting for lambs.

In other animal health news, I took Boy in a couple of weeks ago to have a blood panel done just to check on things. The good news is that his bloodwork looked great. He had a urinary tract infection, though, and so was treated for that. On recheck last week, most of the bacteria were gone, but not all, so he's on a second round of antibiotics. According to the vet, he's in remarkably good shape, and although I see what could be early signs of cognitive disorder and he has trouble navigating the house in the dark, it looks like he's going to sail into next month and his 15th birthday reasonably healthy and happy.

The Job Front

I still haven't had any luck finding a job. It's frustrating because there are jobs out there that I know I could perform easily, but because I may lack one "must have" I can't even get my foot in the door. I feel quite sure that if I could actually talk to someone I could sell myself and make it clear that the particular "must have" isn't a real stumbling block, but without it, I can never get to the next step. But I keep trying, and have expanded my search around the country. Of course in those circumstances I'm sure the folks hiring are going to give a closer look to folks who are already nearby, but I'm hoping someone will give me the opportunity to make a move for a job if I am well-suited for the position.

At least unemployment hasn't run out.

Reading Corner

With all the bad weather, I've been doing a lot of reading. I have a stack of books a mile high, thanks to all sorts of gift certificates and the like from Christmas as well. I'm sure I'm going to leave some out, but here's some of what I've read and enjoyed over the past couple of months.

The Music Room, a memoir by William Fiennes in which he tells the story of how his brother's epilepsy set the rhythm of their lives growing up in a castle in England.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. This is a lovely little book and I truly regret that the author died before its publication as I would have looked forward to her sophomore effort.
South of Broad, by Pat Conroy. Conroy is a beautiful writer and his writing in this latest novel is as lovely as that in his previous books. I found the story a little over the top, but enjoyed it just the same.
Gentleman and Players, by Joanne Harris. It took me a while to really get into this book, but once I did, I had a hard time putting it down. I can usually see things coming in a novel, but the surprise twist in this one caught me by, well, surprise! My favorite book of Harris' is Five Quarters of the Orange, followed by Chocolat and Coastliners, and this new novel is as different from the others as they are from each other, which serves to illustrate Harris' creativity and imagination as a writer.
High Society, by Donald Spoto. I'm not a huge reader of biographies, but I was in the library one day and saw this in the new books section, and since Grace Kelly's is such an unusual story, I picked it up to read. I certainly learned more about her life and career than I had known before, and the author was a long-time friend who had access to Princess Grace that no one else did, but I still felt oddly dissatisfied with the mystery that still surrounds a large part of her life.
The Day the Falls Stood Still, by Cathy Marie Buchanan. This is another one I happened on in the library. Fiction based in historical fact, the story tells of a riverman Tom Cole who was raised along the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and had a special affinity for the ways of the water and fought to save the falls from the progress (electricity generation) that he knew would destroy them. The story is told from the point of view of a young woman named Bess Heath, whose father was director of the Niagara Power Company until his removal from the job and her chance meeting of Tom changes her and her family's life forever. This is another one I found hard to put down.
Food Rules, by Michael Pollan. I have reviewed this book over on the Fat Girlz blog, so check it out over there: http://3fatgirlz.blogspot.com/

I am currently reading The Swan Thieves, by Elizabeth Kostova. I loved her debut novel, The Historian, and although this is an entirely differnt sort of story and I've just started the book, it's already sucked me right in!

I'm sure I've left out a library book or two, but for anyone looking for reading recommendations, this should give you a good start.

Books in the "to read" stack include the following:

Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving
The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan
The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein
The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger (I'll admit that I started this one and couldn't get into it, so put it down to try again later.)
The Commoner, by John Burnham Schwartz
The Witch of Portobello, by Paolo Coelho
Half Broke Horses, by Jeanette Walls
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, by Katherine Howe
The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte, by Syrie James
All Over but the Shoutin', by Rick Bragg
People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks
The Magician and Mrs. Quent, by Galen Beckett
The Ancestor's Tale, by Richard Dawkins
The Daily Coyote, by Shreve Stockton
Alex & Me, by Irene M. Pepperberg
Mind of the Raven, by Bernd Heinrich
Condor, by John Nielson
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

Whew! That's a lot of books. There are others I want to read, but there's no sense in adding them until I've delved into these (not to mention the stack of fantasy novels Jean and Bernie also sent my way). The last five were sent to me by my sister Jean. I'm saving those for later because I want to trade back to her some of the books I've just read or that are still on my list, and I plan to see her in Kentucky in May. She can then pass them on to our other sister. One of the joys of owning books and having family members who are also avid readers is that we can trade good finds!

Oh, Mr. Bean....

2009-11-28T12:26:00.004-05:00

(Photos by Dan King)

(Photos by me)

What is it about the fall and winter holidays? I think it was about this time last year that I started having problems with Elvis, and now JellyBean is sick. On Tuesday JellyBean didn't eat breakfast, and as with most of my crew, not eating is generally a sign that something's seriously not right. On Wednesday, he refused breakfast again and felt hot to me, and I knew a trip to the vet was in order. I already had an appointment for Ranger, so I took Mr. Bean along too, wondering if maybe he was having a bout of crystals in his urine (something we had dealt with maybe four or five years ago when I lived in Elizabeth City) or perhaps cystitis.

The vet couldn't find anything remarkable, other than a temperature of 103.7, and suggested that at this point we just treat his symptoms with some antibiotics. His thinking at the time was that sometimes cats who like to hunt will get bitten by their prey and will end up with cellulitis. So I took him home and started him on Clavamox, which he promptly threw up. In fact, he pretty much started drooling the second I got near him with the dropper of medicine and then threw it right back up once I squirted it down. Every time. Not good.

So this morning I took him back to the vet and with still nothing obvious on the physical exam (other than still having a temperature of 103), we ran some bloodwork. Interestingly, after taking his blood, the vet commented that he didn't look jaundiced. So, we get the bloodwork results, and only two things really stand out: high glucose and a very high bilirubin level. The former could be attributed to stress, but the latter indicates a liver problem. And yet the rest of his liver enzymes were well within normal range. His CBC was normal as well. So what to do?

Well, we got him some sub-Q fluids while there, and the vet gave him an injectable antibiotic as well as some anti-nausea meds. I came home with a second injectable antibiotic to give him tomorrow, more anti-nausea meds for tonight and tomorrow, and more fluids for tonight and tomorrow. We're hoping that the combination of fluids and anti-nausea meds will help him gain an appetite, and I can tempt him with whatever he'll eat. If he's not eating by tomorrow, then I guess it's back to the vet on Monday for more tests, possibly ultrasound. I've been exceedingly good about not using any credit cards for the past several years, but it's beginning to look like I'm going to have to go down that road now.

I keep thinking of Elvis at this time last year and on into Christmas. I truly hope this isn't deja vu. Say a prayer for JellyBean.

Happy Birthday, Twist!

2009-11-24T12:29:00.003-05:00

(Photo by Barbara Shumannfang)

(Photo by Michelle Dobbs)

(Photos by me)

Twist is 8 today. It's hard to believe; it seems like just yesterday that I stopped by Kay's on my way home from Richard Rogers' trial in Luray, VA, and fell in love with a 12-hour-old guinea pig with what looked like barber pole stripes going around her.

She's taught me a great deal about working dogs and livestock; and she's been my "right hand man" on the farm. We've had a lot of success on the trial field, and some spectacular failures. But in general, I can count on her to be rock steady anywhere we go.

She can be a bit of a troll, but that's just part of her charm. She's the dog who I'd most want to have if stranded on a desert island, because if there's food to be found, she'll find it! I could say so much more, but the simplest thing to say is that she holds a huge piece of my heart. Happy Birthday Twist, and here's hoping that we can share many more!

Ranger's Fun Weekend

2009-11-22T20:46:00.004-05:00

What do puppies do for fun? They tug old fleeces, of course! Robin was down for lesson day Saturday, so Ranger got to visit with Tug and Moon (that's Tug's backside you see passing through the photo), and also with Kelly's Dutch, who is doing the honor of tugging with Ranger.

(Photo by Becca Shouse)

Ranger also got to visit with his buddy Barbara. He's got a goofy look on his face either because he loves Barbara or because he's quite proud of himself for having just worked sheep in the round pen--or both!

Ranger and Tug moved their fleecy activities into the dogloo. Those are some happy faces!

And Ranger Danger showing his stuff, at 16 weeks, in the round pen.

The above photos were taken by Becca using Robin's camera.

I hoped to have some pictures of Simon working as well, but it had gotten late in the day and although Becca valiantly took photos while risking life and limb sitting out in the pasture, alas it was too dark and none of the photos was salvageable.

I spent a good part of the weekend working dogs, mine and other people's. I can't think of a much better way to spend a weekend.

Sheep

Today, the karakul and dorset rams and the katahdin and tunis wethers were sent off for Eid al-Adha. The neat thing about the Festival of Sacrifice is that Muslim tradition insures that no one who is impoverished will be left without sacrificial food, so these sheep will be used to help feed the poor.

That leaves me with just GlenGrant. Since I didn't want him to be lonely, I asked Kelly if she could spare a wether to keep GG company until spring. So yesterday, Doughnut came for an extended visit. I was showing GG to Denise and Becca and without really trying hard they convinced me to go ahead and try him on the tunis ewes again. If he's successful, it means I'll be lambing in May, which is later than I like, but I would really like to get some tunis mules on the ground and see how they do. So once the other four sheep were loaded on the trailer, I let GG in with the tunis ewes, who promptly did everything they could to run away from him--this after clearly having been flirting with all the rams from their side of the fence for the past week or so, fickle girls. Poor little Doughnut looks like the odd man out (he'a a little hair sheep), but in another few weeks, GG will be grateful for his company.

I Am an Addict

2009-11-20T20:16:00.003-05:00

I'm not much of a shopper. I have no patience for looking through stuff in stores, comparing things, trying on clothes, spending money on jewelry or other similar items. Most of my wardrobe is actually quite old. When I am forced to by clothes, I try to get things that will last. For example, I have a couple of sweatshirts from the American Chemical Society. I left that job in 1997, but those shirts are still going strong. My kind of clothing. But there is one type of store that can make me quite lose my mind and spend time and money as if both were endless: the bookstore.

Pam's birthday was this week and in celebration she wanted to have lunch, go see a matinee of Twilight: New Moon, and then finish off the afternoon with a visit to Cold Stone Creamery. Sounds good. As Laura drove us to lunch I realized we were going to be quite near a Barnes & Noble. I also knew that we were going to get to the theater early to make sure we could get decent seats. My addiction started nagging at me. There's a bookstore nearby and I'm going to need to kill time. I need a book. But alas there really wasn't time to go to the bookstore before the movie. Imagine my surprise when it turned out that Cold Stone Creamery was in the same shopping center as the bookstore. I told my companions that there was no way I could be this close and not go in. Yes, my addiction was speaking loud and clear.

So we took our ice cream and sat in the cafe at the bookstore, where we were serenaded by middle school kids singing Christmas carols. Laura, Pam, and Sandy savored their ice cream. I guess I pretty much inhaled mine. I couldn't waste time eating while in the presence of the siren song of so many books. I asked if they minded if I browsed while they finished eating, knowing they couldn't possibly deny me that.

I read dust jackets, ran my hands over covers, wandered around looking at titles and illustrations. I saw books that are dear old friends, like Paolo Coehlo's The Alchemist, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which in DVD format sustained me across the country from Sturgis, SD, to Elizabeth City, NC, after the 2005 sheepdog finals, and many others, some of which I'd forgotten about but whose covers brought back memories of lovely reads. And of course I saw books that I wanted to read. Yes, I am an addict, and I have a hard time controlling myself in a bookstore. Today was no exception. I bought books. I have no business spending money on frivolous things right now, but there it is; when it comes to books I can't help myself.

After paying, I went back to find the girls still sitting in the cafe chatting. Their first comment on seeing the bag: "That looks like more than one book." Well, yeah, how do you buy just one? I could have bought many more. "What did you buy?" And Laura's priceless comment: "I hope you bought fluff--lots of fluff." Quite the opposite, I'm afraid. So I pulled out The Music Room, by William Fiennes. It's his memoir of growing up in a castle with an older brother who suffered from severe epilepsy; I don't know what drew me to the book, but it was the first one I picked from a shelf that I knew I had to have. Then I found The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein. Bobbi Washer had recommended this book to me when I saw her at Jan Thompson's trial. I also picked up The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger and South of Broad, by Pat Conroy. Someone asked about Pat Conroy, and I noted that even if they hadn't read his books, they might have seen the movies: The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides, or The Water is Wide.

At the end of this brief discussion, Laura remarked: "Oh no, why did you get that book? His stuff is a recipe for Prozac!" Which comment actually caused all of us to laugh (I hope the children singing didn't think we were laughing at them!). Why did I get Pat Conroy, knowing that his books are generally sad? Because I love his writing. I love his descriptions of the south and southerners and southern life. And yes, I even love the sadness and heartbreak that always seem to be central themes.

My love affair with books started at an early age. One of my best memories is of Jean and I sitting on the hay in the old barn, sun streaming through multipaned windows that reached practically from floor to ceiling, both reading copies of Gulliver's Travels, though mine, a gift from Gran, had one extra story in it. I can still see the dust motes floating on the sun's rays, muted by the dirt on the windowpanes, and the old apple tree outside the window. And I remember the joy that sinking into such stories brought me. Reading more books than I can possibly remember is what made me a good writer and allowed me to pursue that alternative career when my original career dreams had to be set aside.

To this day, and no doubt on into the future, sinking into a good book is my escape from cares, sorrows. I guess it's better than sinking into a bottle or popping pills, and I can always rationalize that I am staving off dementia by keeping my mind working, exploring narrative and language.

Yes, I'm an addict. I'm addicted to books.

Willow Update and Other Stuff

2009-11-19T09:13:00.009-05:00

(Photo by Dan King)

Willow had her one-month check up at VSH on Tuesday. Here's what Dr. Kozicki, her oncologist, had to say:

Willow looks great today! Her lesions are flatter and less inflamed and have decreased in size, which is really good news. Her bloodwork is also normal. Willow will need a complete blood count in one week with Dr. Scott. We would like to see her in two weeks for her six week Palladia recheck. If things are continuing to go well at that point we will extend her appointments to every 6-8 weeks.

So it's looking good for Willow at this point. Of course I was cautioned at the beginning of treatment that how she was doing at 6 weeks would not necessarily be predictive of how she will be doing at 6 months, but at least so far it seems there's cause for hope.

For her part, Willow is pretty much her same old self, doing all the stuff she loves to do. Her lesions truly have reduced, and some have even disappeared, though she still has one that's rather ugly looking. But given the way this cancer has behaved, I know that just because it's (partly) gone now doesn't mean it will stay gone. Here's hoping Palladia is a new wonder drug for dogs with mast cell tumors!

Mount Pleasant SDT
There was a lot of good, bad, and ugly at Mt. Pleasant last weekend. The drive was changed from the right hand drive of years past to a left hand drive, and that made a huge difference in the number of dogs who lost sheep to the exhaust on the drive. In fact, I don't think anyone lost sheep to the exhaust on the drive (in ranch and open) this year. Unfortunately, there were quite a few runs that never got started, thanks to the sheep bolting back to the setout. With fences, driveway, barn, and vehicles up there, there was just no way for a dog to catch the sheep and save the run (unless the dog was very fast and would slice its flanks). There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to which sets would bolt for the barn. On my two open runs on Sunday, I even tried stopping both dogs short and risked lifting the sheep sideways to try to circumvent the mad dash for the barn, but to no avail. By then the sheep weren't just running for the barn, they were also splitting one and two, so even though Pip looked like he could catch them, once they split, it was all over. Twist lost both her sets to the barn, though on Sunday she tried to catch them all, first covering the two that went to the set out pen, and then turning back for the one who was trying to circle the barn via the driveway (and again losing the first two in the process). I had sent Twist right and Saturday, which meant she was running opposite the pressure to the barn, but I figured she comes in deep enough at the top that it wouldn't matter, but the sheep were able to outrun her.

That said, I did have a few good runs. Pip placed second in open on Saturday with a score of 81. We timed out in the shedding ring and a hole opened just as the timer went off, so I called him through anyway and completed the shed just to help with his confidence since he's relatively new to running in open (his fourth open trial). I had fallen down the outside steps in the rain on Wednesday and wasn't moving very well, so I couldn't really help him much at the shed either. I was proud of him.

Lark did a great job on Saturday in the ranch class, ending with a score of 75 and first place. Phoebe had on her listening ears Saturday as well. Her run was a little less clean than Lark's, but I was pleased with the fact that she seemed less frantic and didn't mess up flanks by reacting before I got the flank out. She placed third with a 66, I think. On Sunday, Lark lost her sheep to the exhaust, one of the few dogs to do so all weekend (now there's something to celebrate!). The problem was the same one as for many of the other dogs--the intense draw to the barn. They pushed way offline to their right, and even though Lark was able to prevent them from going to the barn and brought them down the field offline, here's where her clappiness kills. She'd get to their heads to stop them, but wouldn't turn them back into the field, and each delay caused by me having to tell her to get up just let the sheep push that much further downfield. They finally got behind the hill that masks the exhaust and when sheep came back over the hill, there were just two, so we retired. Phoebe modified her listening ears on Sunday, and although she was still listening, she also decided she needed to push an awful lot more, making for an extremely ragged run. I don't think we hit a single panel, except the occasional sheep here or there by accident (okay, so we were close, but when Phoebe gets that pushy and the sheep are running, it's hard to make panels). We didn't get our pen either. And yet we still placed third. And were overall reserve champions for the weekend (hint: just two ranch dogs managed to get scores both days, so they ended up champion and reserve).

At least the sun came out on Sunday, making for a very picturesque view of yellows and reds on the mountains behind the farm.

Leonids
A disappointment. All the hype had me believing I'd see a great show, and I dutifully set my alarm for 1:30 a.m. and went outside to view the night sky for about an hour. I saw maybe five meteors, only one of which could have been called spectacular. At least it wasn't freezing cold, but I sure would like to see a show like we had a few years ago when I still lived in Elizabeth City!

Jobs
There are none! Okay, let me correct that. I've applied to lots of jobs, and I've gotten lots of rejections. The upside: at least I know I wasn't selected, which is better than wondering about the black hole into which most applications seem to disappear. The downside: I still don't have a job. I'm looking harder than ever though.

My Back
My back is a whole lot better. I stopped taking meds earlier this week, and although I still have pain if I do something foolish (setting up a round bale, for instance), I am well on the road to recovery. I'm guessing that the speed with which I have recovered means I didn't do any serious damage, though parts of my back are still extremely sore to the touch. (For those of you who don't know, I did the banana peel thing in the rain on the wet steps out front. My foot went out from under me and I fell backward, hitting my hip and back on the stairs on my way down. It was very painful.)

Lambs?
I've come to the conclusion that my tunis ewes did not get bred by the BFL ram last June. I have no lambs, nor any sign of impending lambs. I don't know what to blame it on, since the ewes are first timers as was the ram. I expect it was already too hot in June for his sperm to be viable, since he obviously bred the ewes (he was wearing a marking harness). I will try again this spring and put him in much earlier (I was late this year because I didn't get the ram till May and he had to be quarantined before going in with the ewes, hence it was June before I got them all together.)

Reading Corner
I don't think I've commented in a while on what I've been reading, probably because most of the books have just been fun/easy reads and mostly limited to what I can get from my local library. So I read Dan Brown's latest, and I rediscovered Rita Mae Brown's foxhunt mysteries (I've read a lot of her stuff, but don't always notice when new books come out). I also read and enjoyed Every Last Cuckoo, by Kate Maloy. Right now I am reading Rita Mae Brown's autobiography, Animal Magnetism, suggested to my by my sister Jean.

And I guess that's it for catching up here at Willow's Rest.

Chicken Shows, the Rest of the Story

2009-11-12T09:56:00.002-05:00

Well Laura threw down the gauntlet in her blog (http://crooksandcrazies.blogspot.com) regarding the infamous chicken show, and since I'm sitting at the tire dealership awaiting work on the van, what better time to tell my side of the story?

My friend Heather and I were chatting on Facebook a couple of weeks ago when she mentioned that there was an Old English Game (OEG) bantam show being held in Salisbury. She wondered how far it was from her, and I told her that it was an hour from me, which would make it two hours from her. She decided that was too far for her to go, but since I have OEG bantams, I was curious about the show and decided to find out more about it. If you've ever tried to research chicken shows in the Web, you'll know that information is practicially non-existent. You'd think we were talking about cockfights for all the apparent secrecy surrounding times, locations, etc.

But Kelly lives down that way, so I e-mailed her and asked her if she could find out anything for me, since she is well connected in the area. And while I was at it, I asked her if she wanted to work dogs, since I was going to be in the area anyway. She thought dog working would be a good idea, and at that point, I decided to invite Laura. So you see, while the dog working may have looked like a bribe, it was really an afterthought, with the chicken show taking top billing for my weekend.

The intrepid Laura, always up for a good time, agreed to brave the chicken show in exchange for a chance to work her dogs on different sheep in a different location. So yeah, maybe there was a bit of bribery too.

On the way down, I explained chicken showing to her. They're in cages in rows and you just walk up and down the rows and see what's there. My main purpose for going was to see if there was anything I liked, figuring that I could then track down the owner/breeder and talk turkey, er, chicken, regarding buying some birds at a later date.

Imagine my surprise when we pulled into the fairgrounds to find cages of chickens and other critters lined up outside the arena. This was just a show; it was also a sale! Woohoo! I could see Laura visibly blanche at the idea that we would be strolling through all the outdoor "exhibits," but she gamely followed me up and down rows as I perused the stock for sale. Frankly, the cutest thing there was a crate full of rat terrier puppies, but we looked at the only briefly as I was on a bantam mission. Unfortunately, since I hadn't realized there was going to be a sale, I hadn't brought any of my small, chicken-sized crates with me, and as Laura and I were together, every available crate in the van had a dog in it. Laura's "gigantor" chickens were Jersey Giants, a breed I'd love to own, but realistically I don't have much money and I had absolutely no way to cram them into the van with seven dogs, an X-pen and various and sundry other stuff.

But don't think I was completely deterred. I dragged Laura into the arena so we could look at the show chickens. I was mainly looking for color varieties I don't own and just comparing sizes, since show chickens (like everything that's shown, it seems) are generally larger than the chickens I have at home. I got a good idea of the color variants I'd like to add to my flock and then hauled Laura back outside to do some shopping.

The chickens I really wanted were a pair of spangles (chocolate colored with white spots, sort of like a nonpareil candy), but the owner wasn't there and a neighboring seller told me that he thought all those birds were sold. I inquired about a blue hen from a different seller and was told she cost $25. What? Sorry, but I am not about to pay that for one little hen that, knowing my luck, would immediately be carried off by a Cooper's hawk. So I kept looking. At chicken shows, you're generally not going to be able to buy just a hen or two. Everyone always has extra roosters, and of course no one wants extra roosters. We all have extras hanging around. Most people will sell pairs, but if you're lucky, you can talk someone into selling a trio. And that's what I did. I got a trio of BB Reds. The rooster is a classic red with green/black tail feathers--nothing exotic. But the hens are a lovely grey/red, so I took the rooster to get the hens. And as Kelly pointed out, at least he's new genetics for my flock.

And with the purchase of that trio, the excitement began. Since I didn't have a crate, I asked the seller for a box. We caught the rooster and one hen. When we caught the last hen and he went to place her in the box, she squeezed back out of the top before he could tape it and took flight.

At which point a scream emanated from Laura's throat. I mean, she screamed like a girl. Over a little tiny chicken taking flight. I'm still chuckling over it. Laura claims the chicken flew at her face. Maybe. She also claims that the flight of the hen started up a cacophony of chicken and duck noise, and it's true that the entire area erupted in wild poultry sounds, but I have to wonder if the hen's escape, a la Chicken Run, or Laura's scream was the cause of the screeching and squawking that followed.

Some quick-witted fellow reached out as the hen circled near his truck and caught her in mid-flight and I went to gather her from him. Interestingly, the seller just sort of stood there while all this was going on. Perhaps Laura's scream paralyzed the poor chap.

We got the hen back in the box and the box taped safely up. I figured poor Laura had had enough excitement for one day (little did I know the additional excitement that awaited us in a cut over cornfield), and we headed for the exit. On the way out, I stopped at one more seller to ask about a trio of blues. The guy said he'd give me a deal, only $40. Needless to say, they stayed. Well, I might have been tempted, but really I already had one box of chickens that I was going to have to worry about hanging out while we worked dogs, so I really didn't need any more. There's always next year.

I wonder if Laura will want to go with me?

I'm sure the sheep work was a real let down after the excitement of the chicken show. Kelly had hauled her sheep from home to a cut over cornfield behind the feed store. It took us a few attempts to figure out the best way to work the sheep on the field, given the draw back to the trailer and to the pen with the extra sheep, and--in the case of the sheep called Doughnut--the draw to the pond. But once we worked out the best way to work them, all the young dogs (yep, we took sheep to a strange field and didn't have a single experienced older dog with us in case of emergencies--brilliant, huh?) got a chance and in general it went pretty well. The young dogs did typical young dog stuff--running tight, not covering as well as they might, pushing too hard on the fetch, but once they settled down, we also saw some very nice work.

So while I might not be able to convince Laura to attend a chicken show for the sake of the chickens again in the near future (I heard her on the phone with her mom at one point, and even though I couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, I could tell from Laura's comments that her mother must be just rolling her eyes!), I bet if I lure her with more sheep work, I can slip a show in here or there....

You're a good sport, Laura!

Rx Woes

2009-11-08T11:26:00.006-05:00

I’m just doing some catching up and putting down some stuff that’s been on my mind. There’s no particular order to any of this, so just bear with me.

Pharmaceutical Madness
Who would have thought that getting a prescription filled could be so wrought with pitfalls, especially a prescription that is simply being renewed? Yes, you read that right—not a new prescription, just a continued one for a long-term medication because all the refills had run out on the old prescription. This is Phoebe’s fluoxetine (Prozac) prescription. She was getting one capsule a day and my vet told me to double her dose sometime after I refilled the prescription the first time. Doubling the dose meant I went through it twice as fast (duh!), so soon I needed a new prescription. My vet dutifully wrote one out, but horror of horrors, apparently he wrote it using common veterinary pharmaceutical abbreviations, which caused no end of problems at the human pharmacy. Last Wednesday, I tried to fill the Rx at the WalMart in Greensboro where I had filled the original prescription. I was meeting friends for dinner so just planned to drop it off and pick up the meds on my way home. But since I was at WalMart anyway, I decided to grab a few things, so I was still there when I heard my name called over the intercom to please come to the pharmacy. So off I went, only to be told by the girl behind the counter that they couldn’t fill the prescription because they couldn’t read the directions and they couldn’t call the vet’s office because it was after hours. Innocently, I asked “What can’t you read?” The girl held up the paper and pointed the abbreviation SID. I said, “That’s SID. It means ‘once a day.’” “Oh no,” said the girl behind the counter, “QD means once a day.” I tried to politely explain that in veterinary parlance, SID does indeed mean once a day, despite what people pharmacists might think. But the conversation was going nowhere. So I tried a different tack. “This is a renewed prescription,” I said. “Phoebe should be in your computer already with the original prescription information available there. This is the same prescription as before as far as dosing directions are concerned. The only thing that has changed is that we’ve increased the actual dosage amount.” She just looked at me blankly and said, “I’m sorry, but we can’t fill this without talking to the vet’s office.” Whatever. I just asked for the script back so I could try somewhere else. You see, part of the problem is that no WalMart is actually near where I live, so I go there only when I can combine the trip with something else so I can conserve gas. I wasn’t planning to come back up to Greensboro before Phoebe’s current meds ran out. And it’s not as if I have money dripping out of my pockets right now, and gas prices continue to rise.

On Thursday, I tried taking the prescription to my local CVS pharmacy. They told me that yes, fluoxetine is on the list of drugs for which you could get a 90-day supply for $9.99. Not as good as WalMart’s price, but I’d be saving time and miles, so I thought to go ahead. Only then, the girl behind the counter said to me, “Well, I don’t think we can use the prescription program for a dog.” Sigh. WalMart doesn’t care.

Act III: I was planning to go with Laura to Kelly’s in China Grove and work dogs on Saturday and figured I could go by the WalMart in Siler City (whose pharmacy has also filled this prescription before) on my way home. It’s not really on the way, but as I would already be out and driving a good distance, I figured I’d just suck it up and take the detour on the way home. At this point, I knew Phoebe doesn’t actually have enough meds to see her through the weekend, so I called my vet’s office and asked them if they could please call in my prescription to the WalMart in Siler City so I could pick it up Saturday evening. I explained the trouble I was having getting the script filled, and one of the techs said they’d be happy to call it in for me that day. She even said she’d call me back if there were any problems. I never got a call, so assumed everything was good to go (yeah, I know, that’s what I get for assuming).

Well, I’m sure you see where this is going. After dragging the intrepid Laura to a chicken show in Rowan county in the morning (more on that later) and then working wild sheep (I’ll tell the story about the sheep now called Michael Phelps in another post) in a corn field in China Grove all afternoon, we both just wanted to get home—and she had a dinner date with her dad to make. So we exited 85 at Lexington and headed east on 64, a nice leisurely little drive. It seemed to take forever to get from 85 to Asheboro, and then another forever to get from Asheboro to Siler City. All the time, the sun was setting and hopes were fading of getting home and still being able to do chores in some sort of daylight.

At the WalMart pharmacy in Siler City: When I finally get through the line to ask about my prescription—you guessed it—they had no record of any such thing. They even shunted me off to the side (you know, the black hole where you never speak to anyone again) while another pharmacy worker looked for any evidence that a prescription had been called in for me. Finally, in exasperation I pulled out the original prescription, which I still had in my purse (and which I was going to return to my vet at my next appointment, since the script should have been called in at that point). I said to the young man, as kindly as I could, “Here is the actual prescription. Can you fill it?” He goes off to talk to the pharmacist and doesn’t come back in, like, forever, so I meander over to the “drop off” area to see if he, too, has disappeared into a black hole. It turns out he’s in consultation with the pharmacist because they don’t know what SID means! Can I be forgiven if my head started to spin at about this point? Okay, I tried to control any external evidence of a spinning head, and instead I smiled politely and said, “SID is veterinary parlance for once a day. This is an existing prescription that should be on file on your computer. If you’d check it, you’d see the directions there, and you can just copy them.” Instead the pharmacist says to me, “I’ll just put ‘Take as directed.’” Gah! And double Gah!

I guess I should have been counting my lucky stars that they were at least going to fill the damn thing! But I had newly purchased chickens, who had been in the van all day without water or food, and Laura, who needed to meet her dad. So I thanked them for filling it and told them I wouldn’t be waiting (because you just know I wanted to wait another 45 minutes for an Rx that had already taken me to three pharmacies over four days to try to fill). So now I have a dilemma. Phoebe can take a half dose of her meds on Sunday, but I won’t have anything for her on Monday. I have an appointment to take Willow to the vet on Tuesday for bloodwork. I really don’t want to make the drive to Siler City three times in four days, so I plan to call my vet Monday morning and see if they won’t make up their fail on the prescription call-in by letting me bring Willow first thing Monday for the blood draw so I can make just one trip and get everything done. Wish me luck!

I’ll get to the chicken show and dog working later…. Here's a teaser on the chicken show: She screamed like a girl. Just writing those words makes me laugh all over again!

Conundrum

2009-11-02T12:21:00.003-05:00

Something odd has happened recently. I've lost my craving for chocolate. Yep, it can be sitting right in front of me and I don't even care. That's not to say I won't eat it if someone offers it to me or I make a conscious decision to grab a piece of leftover Hallowe'en candy, but in the past just knowing the candy was there would have a certain part of my consciousness obsessing over it. Back then (not so very long ago, actually), I would have to put chocolate where I wouldn't think about it, and if it was sitting on the counter or some other equally obvious spot, I couldn't help but think about it--and eat it.

I was discussing this strange phenomenon with Laura on our way to Barbara's yesterday for lunch and a puppy play day.

Me: "I'm kind of freaked out by this. Do you suppose I have a brain tumor or something?"
Laura: " I don't know. Maybe." (Yes, Laura can be counted on for the most comforting answer when it comes to potential medical issues.)
Me: "Seriously, what could cause something like this? You don't just give up cravings like that. And especially not to chocolate. I've seriously craved chocolate for all of my adult life. Something must be wrong."
Laura: "Well, it could be a good thing. If it's a tumor, maybe it's okay as long as it's a small one. Think of how much easier it will be to lose weight now that you no longer crave chocolate. If it grows big and causes other problems, then you should worry."

See, that's what I like about friends like Laura. She found the positive spin to this conundrum.

Puppy play day was loads of fun. And the vegetarian chili and jalpeno cornbread that Dave and Barbara served was delicious. Dessert was chocolate cake with raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream. The chocolate cake was wonderful, and I ate my entire serving, but I didn't crave it.

Turning Leaves

2009-10-28T12:51:00.005-04:00

Fall has always been my favorite time of year--the riot of color, the smell of leaves on the ground or raked into piles, the crispness in the air. Maybe I like fall so much because I've never seen it as a harbinger of winter, but rather as a time of beautiful changes. And speaking of beautiful things, the photo below of Willow was taken at my request by Dan King when I realized that I don't have many good recent photos of her. As the seasons turn and the year's end approaches I've been facing the fact that my dear, sweet Willow is perhaps racing toward her own end. I owe Willow so much in my life. It was she who got me started in sheepdog trialing, and it was she who led me to start raising sheep of my own. She taught me how to teach a dog to trust a human. In her younger years she was an amazing frisbee dog, and she was my jogging and rollerblading partner for years. As time as passed, she has slowed down in some ways, though not in others. She is still queen of the household and the fun police. She still works the chickens on occasion and enjoys watching the younger dogs work the sheep. Her greatest pleasure is to stand in the creek and wrestle with the roots of a tree that overhangs the bank. The only way to entice her from this endeavor is with a strategically aimed pinecone. She has mellowed to the point where I don't have to warn folks at the vet's office to be careful around her, and that's a good thing, since it seems we'll be spending a good deal of time at the vet's in at least the near future.

Her lovely russet points have all gone white, but she's still beautiful to behold.

Tuesday a week ago, I took Willow to the Veterinary Specialty Hospital in Cary, hoping to enroll her in a clinical trial for a new mast cell tumor medicine. Unfortunately, the trial was closed to new dogs the afternoon before our appointment. But there's another new drug available, called Palladia, and it's still in the post-clinical-trial stage of testing, so Willow is now being treated with it. She had her first CBC yesterday, and all looks well, which means so far she's tolerating the treatment. Next week, we'll go back to VSH for a more extensive work up, to also check kidney and liver function. As for her mast cell tumors, they have changed in appearance in the week she's been on the Palladia, but apparently the early changes aren't predictive of her long-term response to treatment. (As an aside, Willow's initial pathology report concluded that hers was a grade II tumor. Additional classification involves looking for cells undergoing mitosis, and there were none. However, Willow's tumor(s) have recurred twice now, which is rather bizarre, given the pathology report. Apparently Willow is one of the rare grade II tumors that acts more like a grade III, even though nothing in the pathological exam of the original tumor would have suggested this to be a possibility.)

The oncologist, Dr. Kozicki, did say that for having a murmur as bad as Willow's, that her heart looked amazingly good. So at this point it doesn't look like her heart failure is going to be what ultimately takes her, unless Palladia really is a wonder drug that can cure the mast cell cancer.

And while we're on the subject of medicine, I had what I thought might be a revelation about Phoebe's seizures. Last month I was five days late dosing the dogs with their ivermectin, and Phoebe was five days late with her seizure. I thought maybe I had my trigger (smoking gun?). This month I didn't give her any ivermectin. We made it to the 26th (a month and a day after the last seizure) and I started to breathe a small sigh of relief. Then on the afternoon of the 26th, I think she had a seizure. I don't know for sure because we were on our walk and the dogs run ahead, but there was something about the way she looked when I caught up to them that said to me that she had indeed suffered a seizure. Since I didn't see it with my own eyes, I will go another month without heartworm preventive and see what happens. After that, I'll discuss with my vet putting her on phenobarbital.

Photo by Dan King

This is Twist at Edgeworth, watching from the exhaust after her run. She reminds me very much of her sire Bud in this picture--it would be very easy to mistake one for the other. Twist didn't have great luck at either the Edgeworth or Lexington trials. On the marked shed at Edgeworth, the two sheep we needed to take were on the front, and I have never actually taken sheep off the front on a shed, so when I called Twist through this time, she turned onto the heads of the back sheep, and even though I got her turned on the correct sheep, the judge didn't call the shed and we timed out while trying to regather them.

Photo by Dan King

Here's Pip at Edgeworth. This was his second open trial and normally I wouldn't have thrown him in so way over his head as this trial, but Kat had injured her foot and couldn't run, so Pip was called off the bench. He pleasantly surprised me by making it all the way to the top (600 yards) the first go round. He got stuck on the set out, but I eventually got him back on his sheep and he brought them down the field. The turn was around a post about 100 yards down the field from the handler's post, and we negotiated that and the drive away, but on the cross drive he started looking hesitant, so I retired him. I've worked hard on his confidence driving and didn't need to blow it here, in his second open trial. On the second go, he took several redirects to get him to the top. He was never in danger of crossing over, but just seemed a little confused, even though he had just run up that same field the day before. This time around he did a beautiful job, and we even got our shed, but then timed out at the pen. I couldn't have been happier with him.

I was hired to set sheep for Jan Thompson's Watercress SDT in Limestone, TN, last weekend, so I didn't run any dogs. Pip and Twist were my set out dogs, and I must say they did a great job. At 3, Pip still needs to learn to conserve his energy, but it's nice to be able to seamlessly switch off dogs halfway through the day and not have anyone notice any difference in the quality of the set out.

Photo by Dan King

One thing I am blessed with is friends who will help out with Ranger and my other dogs at trials, especially when I'm busy setting sheep. It's tough keeping a puppy entertained sometimes, and so thanks to people like Dan (at Edgeworth below) and Christine Henry (the next two photos) at Watercress for keeping Ranger from going stir crazy. Robin also did some puppy sitting, with Ranger visiting his siblings, and Laura and Dan made sure the rest of my dogs got out for walks while I was setting sheep for two full days in Tennessee.

Photo by Sue Rayburn

Photos by Laurie Schultz

These are just gratuitous shots of Ranger-the-Pig at Edgeworth. We discovered he can swim (by accident) in the Edgeworth pond, though dabbling in the mud or chewing on bottles was really more to his liking. (For comparison, the photos below were taken when Ranger was 10 weeks old, and the photos with Christine, above, were taken at 12 weeks old.)

Photos by Dan King

Hmmmm...it's a good thing I have friends who will take photos of my dogs; otherwise y'all would be out of luck!

Back here on the farm, I have pulled the tunis ewes up and am hoping they are bred. It was pretty warm this spring when I put GlenGrant in with them, so it's possible he didn't get them settled, though he definitely bred them. As they're mostly first timers, there aren't any obvious signs to go by, so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for some tunis mule lambs to come along soon.

Time Flies

2009-10-03T12:28:00.009-04:00

Wow, I can't believe I haven't managed to post on more than a month. I'll try to catch everyone up without going on forever (famous last words).

At Home

Lark still has a passion for working poultry and loves her new ducks. Sorry there's no pictures of the ducks, but here she is working a set of chicks back in early August.

My OEG hens keep pumping out chicks like this cute little specimen.

In other farm news, the dorset ram Archie has been in with the mule ewes all of September. I picked up three Scotch mules out of West Virginia at the end of August, so my mule flock is now up to seven ewes. I'm hoping for lambs starting the end of January. These will all be market lambs and should be ready to go in time for Easter. In the photo below the Scotch mules are the three on the left, the Clun Forest mules are the two in the middle (facing the camera) and the North Country Cheviot mules are the two on the right. By the way, the Clun I call Nosey Nellie healed completely from her accident with the cattle panel. It took a while, but she's fine now.

Additionally, the tunis ewes I bred to the BFL ram should be due at the end of this month. Their ewe lambs will go into my mule flock, and any ram lambs will be market lambs. I am really looking forward to seeing what my tunis mules look like!

Willow

This is a little out of order, but while at a trial in the middle of September, my dogs picked up kennel cough. Not a big deal really, other than the inconvenience. I don't vaccinate against it as a rule (and I've never had a problem in the 15 years I've had dogs), so of course it went through my entire pack. And that leads me to Willow. It hit Willow harder than the others. We automatically put her on antibiotics because of her heart, but still she coughed like a foghorn for nearly two weeks. When the torbutrol the vet gave me last week didn't seem to be helping, I took her in this past Monday for an exam. Dr. Scott was fairly certain the cough was indeed an artifact of the kennel cough and not due to her heart, but since it had been a little over a year since her last chest X-ray, we decided to do another. In the meantime, while Dr. Scott was checking Willow's pulse in various locations, we discovered that her mast cell tumor(s) was back. This time it had that same river delta pattern as before, but whereas before the tumor itself was a ropelike configuration, this time there are actual lumps. Sigh.

The side view radiograph showed no obvious additional enlargement of Willow's heart, and the heart did not appear to be impinging on her trachea, so definitely not contributing to her coughing. The ventral view did, however, show slight enlargement compared to 15 months ago. There still doesn't seem to be any fluid build-up around her heart, but Dr. Scott increased her furosemid dose slightly and suggested that we might add Vetmedin to see if we can reduce any strain on her heart a bit more and hopefully buy her even more time.

We discussed the recurrence of the mast cell tumor so soon after the high-dose prednisone we used just this summer to knock it back. I told Dr. Scott that I really didn't think I wanted to try the prednisone again because (a) it worked only briefly, (b) it made both Willow and me miserable (her more so than me, I'm sure) by seriously compounding her incontinence issues, and (c) the immunosuppressant effects over the long term would leave her susceptible to other illnesses. It turns out that Dr. Scott had just received some literature about a study being done on a potential drug treatment for mast cell tumors in dogs. She contacted the principle investigator, who said that Willow could be a candidate for the study, but they couldn't say for sure until they had given her an initial exam to be sure she didn't have any issues that might cause her death before the end of the study. That exam will cost me up front, but after that, all bloodwork, radiographs, meds, etc., are free. The downside is that this is being done at VSH in Cary, which is a good hour away, but if Willow is accepted, I intend to go ahead and have her participate. Given her heart condition and the mast cell tumor (which most certainly is also affecting her internally) I have to face the fact that she might not have very much longer with me. If before I have to let her go she can help advance knowledge of treatment for mast cell tumors, then I think it's a fair trade. Keep us in your prayers.

Trials

The fall trialing season is in full swing, though I haven't actually trialed my own dogs much. In the middle of September, we went to Donald McCaig's Yucatec Farm in Highland County, VA, where I had been hired to set sheep for the trial. I was hoping to have a picture of the trial, but didn't get one downloaded from a friend's website when I should have and now don't know how to find it. The field was a newly opened up area and the set out was 450-500 yards up the field. Debbie Crowder worked the pens, and I set the sheep, keeping a wary eye so as not to slip into any of the numerous groundhog holes at the top end of the field.

The sheep were very lightly dogged polypays and they proved a real challenge for all of us. I pretty much wore Twist out setting for the open class on Saturday. Kat was coming in heat, and I knew folks wouldn't appreciate me using her at the top, so I grabbed Pip out to set for nursery and ranch to give Twist a much-needed break. He did a wonderful job. He's very much like his mother Twist in the ways that are important, but he also isn't quite so wide flanking, which meant we were able to deal with the sets that wanted to bolt downfield much more quickly. This was a case of a young dog stepping up to the plate when asked and doing a masterful job.

For novice-novice and pro-novice, we had to ferry the sheep about 350+ yards down the field to where Donald was holding. I used Pip to do this until we got a third person to break up the ferrying into more manageable pieces. Pip was beginning to tire and his tiredness manifested itself in hesitation while driving over a long distance. This was a problem I worked hard to overcome with him last winter, so I was a bit worried that I had pushed him too far with all the set out work. Once we got an extra person up top to stand midway and ferry sheep, I put Pip up and pulled out Phoebe to drive the sheep from the set out pens to the ferry person midway down the field. Phoebe can be a freight train and she pushes my buttons to be sure, but no sheep challenged her, and she did her job admirably. On Sunday we had sent a lot out and I was talking to Debbie when Donald came on the radio talking about some unknown dog with"one giant ear on top of its head" that was trying to take the sheep. Debbie and I looked at each other and commented something like "What's he talking about now?" Then I looked around for Phoebe, who was nowhere to be seen. I'm a little slow, but it dawned on me that when Phoebe stands both ears up, she looks like she has one giant ear in the middle of her head. Oh no! Phoebe had run out 350 yards and was trying to bring back the sheep we had just sent down there. Fortunately she has a good recall and for once decided to listen....

Who me? (Notice that she's cleverly hiding the fact that she can make one big ear on top of her head.)

Last weekend was the Whistle for a Cure SDT at Robin French's Shoofly Farm in Oxford, NC. This was our second annual WFAC trial, held as a benefit for Joan Stout-Knight's team in the Gail Parkins Memorial Ovarian Cancer Research Walk/Run, to raise money for ovarian cancer research. Joan is a two-year survivor of ovarian cancer, and the trial is our way of doing what we love for someone we love with the ultimate goal of helping find earlier detection and better treatment for ovarian cancer.

Saturday was an open trial, and on Sunday we ran all classes. I had planned to run both Twist and Kat on Saturday, but since my friend Barbara has been taking lessons with Kat, she had planned to run her in P/N on Sunday, leaving me with just one open dog for that day. So, given how well Pip had handled the sheep at Don's trial, I decided to just go ahead and move him up to open as my third dog. We ended up retiring on Saturday as he left the post and went to the exhaust and I had to leave to help him find his sheep (actually, I really just needed to get him headed in the right direction, and he did the rest). Since we had plenty of time, Christine let me go ahead and finish our run unjudged. Once he got his sheep, Pip did a beautiful job with them around the course. It probably would have been a placing run if not for the whole outrun mishap!

Twist, old faithful (I can't believe she'll be 8 at the end of next month), went out and laid down a lovely run. We ended up tied for first with Denise Wall and her nice young dog May, and despite a very mediocre run for a tie breaker, I still managed to hold on to win by one point. I don't knwo why I seem to fall apart with respect to my handling when it comes to run offs, but it's definitely something I need to improve on.

Kat's run was a bit rough, and I'm not sure where we ended up, maybe 6th or 7th. I haven't been working Kat much and it showed, but overall it wasn't too bad.

On Sunday, I set sheep for the first part of open with Kat and then came down to run Twist and Pip. Twist went first and had a winning run going until I had a brain fart and allowed her to flank too far at the cross drive panels, causing a pull through. We were short on time by the time we got to the pen, and I could tell she was running out of steam, so I got the sheep out of the pen and called Twist through on the shed pretty much as soon as we got in the shedding ring, knowing that if we did much fiddling around in there she was going to slow way down on me and make things impossible. Even with the pull through, we were sitting in second behind Peggy Wilkinson and Sis when Pip and I went to the post as the last run of the class.

Pip laid down a beautiful run, but we were a bit slow. On the return leg of the drive we had about a minute and a half to get the sheep to the pen, penned, to the shedding ring, and split. We got the pen, and I pushed the sheep out and toward the shedding ring with just 10-15 seconds to go. As they entered the ring, they walked out in a line and I called Pip through. As he turned on the two sheep I indicated, the judge called "okay" at the same time the timer went off. Talk about a nail biter! The run was good enough for a score of 88 and a tie for first place.

After a lunch break, we had the run off. Peggy ran first and unfortunately ran out of time without getting her shed. Pip went out and laid down a nearly identical run to his first go, though we had a few extra seconds to spare in the shedding ring (not much though) to win the run off. I was mighty proud of Pip as this was his open debut.

Twist ended up overall open champion for the weekend with a first on Saturday and a third on Sunday. My big, goofy boy Pip has his first ever open qualifying points for the national finals.

Pip has a goofy grin here. This pretty much captures his personality to a tee. I think maybe Pip will end up doing his mama proud by the time all is said and done (i.e, when he finally matures).

I ran both Lark and Phoebe in ranch. Neither run was anything to write home about--they haven't been worked and it showed, glaringly. I think they ended up 4th and 5th in the class (or maybe 5th and 6th)--I didn't stick around to look at scores as I needed to head back up top and take over set out duties from Laura so she could come down and run Linc in P/N.

I toyed with the idea of adding Pip as my third dog at Edgeworth, but then decided that it may be expecting too much for him to do a 600-yard outrun in his second open trial, so instead I entered him at Lexington, where he ran well on the nursery course last year.

Ranger

Of course I haven't forgotten Ranger. He turned 9 weeks old Friday and weighed in last week at a whopping 11.5 pounds. He's growing like a weed and is just way too fluffy. I was feeling the peer pressure from other folks with puppies around here and so spent five minutes yesterday teaching him to sit. I promised Laura a trick this afternoon so I better think something up and go out and teach it before she gets here this afternoon!

He's bold and fearless and gets into lots of stuff he shouldn't. He chases chickens for fun (need to put a stop to that), pesters the snot out of JellyBean, who is being amazingly tolerant, lucky for Ranger's eyes and nose, and is generally a little hell-raiser. Fortunately for me, Lark will play with him some, though I don't think she appreciates being the babysitter as often as I press her into service!

Ranger comes by his love of mud and water naturally. There's a reason his grandma is nicknamed Spottie-the-pig, and he was following in the footsteps of his mom Chris this morning by putting his head underwater all the way up to his ears! Fluffy and piggy--sure to be a very nice, clean combination.

I wish I could say I've found a job, but I haven't. I've been unemployed for nearly six months now and don't even have any good prospects. I'm applying to jobs, but it seems as if my resumes just disappear into a black hole somewhere. I did get a freelance project from my old employer, but the occasional freelance job isn't making a living.

Other than job hunting, I've been doing a lot of reading. Too many books to review here, but I will admit that I got sucked into Dan Brown's latest, The Lost Symbol and it was pretty entertaining. Two others I recently read and enjoyed were The Bride Will Keep Her Name, a cute mystery with a twist, and Home Safe, which was the story of a writer coming to terms with the death of her husband. Sorry I don't have authors for you--they were library books that have already been returned.

Puppies, Puppies, Puppies!

2009-08-26T16:39:00.006-04:00

For those of you who don't check Facebook, here are some photos of the pups I took yesterday.

Moon sleeping with her ice water bottle.

Zac, Jr., using his Holee Roller ball as a pillow.

Ranger and ZJ doing the yin and yang thing.

Moon's cute face.

Ranger and ZJ: ZJ says "Stay away from my cat tree!"

Exploring: The stool is favored for crawling under.

Ranger killing the tablecloth that is supposed to be protecting the carpet.

The aftermath of a morning feeding frenzy. Poor Ranger is wearing the food dish, but he didn't seem to mind.

Old Songs

2009-08-17T17:01:00.005-04:00

So last week I was pestering everybody I know with Cat Stevens' Moonshadow. I couldn't get it out of my mind, thanks to Robin calling the one puppy Moon, and was singing it everywhere I went and no matter what I was doing. But shortly thereafter, another song from that era wormed its way into my head. Sing it out, but you have to do the Peter, Paul, and Mary version!

=============================================

Lemon Tree

When I was just a lad of ten, my father said to me,
Come here and learn a lesson from the lovely lemon tree.
Dont put your faith in love, my boy, my father said to me,
I fear you'll find that love is like the lovely lemon tree.

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

Beneath the lemon tree one day, my love and I did a lie
A girl so sweet that when she smiled the sun rose in the sky.
We passed that summer lost in love beneath the lemon tree
The music of her laughter hid my father's words from me:

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

One day she left without a word. She took away the sun.
And in the dark she left behind, I knew what she had done.
She'd left me for another; it's a common tale, but true.
A sadder man but wiser now I sing these words to you:

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

Someone save me from the songs of my childhood! ;-)

Meet the Newest Denizens of Willow's Rest

2009-08-16T18:54:00.006-04:00

Because it's not enough of a circus around here, I gathered up my intrepid partner in crime, while also dropping Pip off for a week-long stay at Camp Crazy, and headed to Stokesdale to pick up a few ducks. I'll spare you the details of trying to find our way there--for some reason road signs are nearly non-existent in that part of the state, so we just guessed what roads we needed to turn on, but I'll say that Laura is a most excellent navigator, and even though we saw a good part of the local countryside in the process, we made it to our destination just a few minutes later than planned.

We went on our duck-gathering trip to pick up four ducklings that had hatched out last week. When Jill e-mailed to say she had ducklings if I wanted them, she also said she'd go through her adolescents and give me some of those as well. Because you know, I need ducks. The noise, the mud, the general mess that is ducks. But you gotta love 'em! And I know that Lark will love them. Her own personal ducks. Is she a spoiled dog or what?

So without further ado, meet the latest additions to Willow's Rest Farm.

Did I neglect to mention that Jill (the dog, not the person) also loves ducks? There's no prying Jill away from Duck TV. She literally spent hours with the ducks this afternoon. I had to force her to come back in the house and give the poor ducks a break. Apparently Duck TV is even better than Puppy TV....

Jill watching her ducks, who themselves are wondering why they are surrounded by "coyotes."

Lark: "Back off, Jill, those are my ducks!"

The stars of Duck TV. These are Ancona, Welsh Harlequin, and Indian Runner crosses. The smallest chocolate-colored duck is a runner drake. We're hoping the rest are females.

And in case you're wondering, yes, the dog lot is now a duck lot. It's a nice size for them, so hopefully they won't turn it into a mud pit. Once they are dog broke, it will be Lark's job to take them to the creek in the morning and bring them back to their pen at night. I'm hoping that if they will dabble in the creek on the sheep pasture side, Maia will keep them protected from predators during the day. And if they like the creek, then perhaps they won't trash the pen formerly known as the dog lot.

Jill just can't get enough.

But Lark isn't going to be outdone in the duck-viewing department.

But wait, there's more! The ducklings. These aren't great pictures, because this little pen is under the garage where a heat lamp can be safely used. They're still little enough to need to be kept warm at night, so they'll stay in this pen until they no longer need an artificial heat source. Yes, that's Lark staring at her very own personal baby ducks.

Sorry for the poor focus, but light was low, and this is the best I could do for a close up. Ducklings are some of the cutest babies on the planet. Oh my!

And we're still not done. Jill (the human) happened to mention in her e-mail that she also had wheaten OEG bantams. She said she had considered selling some, but had rethought the idea and was planning to keep them. Well, I managed to talk her out of two hens. I've put them in a little chick tractor, where they will stay for a couple of days until they are better acclimated to their new residence. The real clincher for me begging these hens off Jill is that they are small like mine, and such small OEG bantams are next to impossible to find anymore.

Yes, Lark managed to insinuate herself in just about every picture. She was going crazy trying to figure out which new group of feathered "friends" was the best one!

And of course my own OEG hens are still hatching out chicks. Here's the latest group, hatched a little over a week ago.

The puppies are growing like weeds; I think they all weigh over three pounds now. They're walking much more like actual dogs and less like drunken sailors. They should start playing and acting like real puppies soon. ;-)

If I'm slow to post updates to my blog, at least you'll have an inkling of what might be keeping me busy!

What Could Be Cuter?

2009-08-14T12:12:00.004-04:00

If you're wondering where I've been hiding, I've been in the "whelping room" (aka "the dog room," also known as the computer room) playing with these little dolls:

Our long awaited Chris x Zac litter arrived, but there were just three little bundles of joy (um, using that term loosely, as they are very vocal and not the least bit afraid of complaining--at all hours of the day or night). They were born July 31. The pictures below were taken over several days this past week.

This is the little female, whom Robin has dubbed Moon.

This is the little firstborn male, who apparently prefers to sleep the same way his mama does.

And this little guy apparently doesn't have a care in the world. What else but a carefree puppy could fall asleep in the bowl he's being weighed in? (These two photos are backward, but for some reason Blogger won't let me drag them to switch them.)

The pups are two weeks old today. One opened its eyes this morning, and the other two look pretty close to doing so as well.

They're so young that we're still in the easy part of raising them--in another couple of weeks, they'll be working me to death, no doubt.

Aside from having puppies, things have been fairly quiet around here. I have more chicks hatched out (always OEG bantams), and the garden has pretty much dried up and blown away. We've had storms come through on numerous occasions, but they never seem to drop much in the way of rain--more just scare the dogs, who in turn keep me awake at night. Sleep deprivation is becoming a way of life.

On the livestock front, I will be getting three more mule sheep at the end of the month, this time Scotch mules out of West Virginia. So far this summer the NCC and Clun mules have done better than I expected--staying fat on what pasture I have and not requiring anything extra in the way of parasite control. I am going to slowly switch the flock over to mules and just keep a small core group of karakul and tunis sheep (I'm using the tunis to make tunis mules as well). I'm curious to see the tunis mule lambs, which should arrive sometime in October. The yearling mules will all be crossed with my dorset ram to produce market lambs. I won't have many this spring because I don't have many mules, but it's a start.

I need to get hay. I've been putting it off thinking I might find a job somewhere and not wanting to have to move a bunch of stuff like that, but if I don't go on and do it, I might not be able to get what I need.

So aside from a little freelance work and job hunting, that's what's going on here at Willow's Rest. Lazy dog days of summer, literally.

Eek! I've Become Miranda Hobbes

2009-07-27T13:37:00.006-04:00

Those of you who are Sex and the City fans will appreciate this story. Today I had to drive in to Liberty to mail a birthday package to my niece (only three weeks late!) and return a book to the library (only six days late). Since I was in town anyway, I swung by Food Lion but could only pick up minimal stuff (like the desperately needed dish detergent) because I had pulled out my checkbook, which is also my wallet, to write a check for Jesse's dance lessons and then left it sitting on the table. Fortunately, in another extremely rare stroke of luck, I had cash on me, so I was able to mail the package, pay my library fine, and get a couple of items at the store (no small feat since I was also starving, which we all know can usually result in disaster when turned lose in a grocery store--and here's where not having much cash can really save the day, and perhaps the waistline).

So what does any hungry local do who wants good eats for not much money? You call the Backyard Grille and place a sandwich order. And here is where the Miranda channeling occurred. As I finished placing my order, I expected to be asked my last name. I always give my first name because my last name is virtually impossible for anyone to get right, unless you've known me a long time, and sometimes not even then.

But what does the girl on the other end of the line say? Not: "Can I get your last name?" but rather "It's Julie, right?"

Oh my. I know just how Miranda felt. What sort of loser orders food from the same place enough that the girl behind the counter recognizes your voice? Gah! I guess I should be grateful that unlike in that episode of SATC with Miranda and the Chinese food place, at least the girl didn't tell me what I wanted to order before I had a chance to say it myself. It's only a matter of time though....

I wanted to post a photo of Cynthia Nixon as Miranda Hobbes, but didn't want to infringe anyone's copyright, so decided not to.

Photos, Photos, Photos (Breezy Hill SDT and More)

2009-07-01T11:58:00.011-04:00

Breezy Hill SDT
Michelle Dobbs took some nice photos of my dogs at the Breezy Hill trial, so I wanted to share them with you. First up is Twist on the cross drive in the open class on Saturday. Michelle was down at the set out taking these, so you're actually looking up the field toward the handler's post. This sequence shows the second half of the crossdrive and the turn back toward the pen, which you can see to my left as I stand at the post in the first picture.

Oops, that turn was a little wider than I thought!

I'm guessing these pictures of Twist flanking were taken while we were setting up the shed.

Here we are at the shed on Sunday. We were running four sheep, so we had to split them and take control of two. In the first photo I am flanking Twist off the pressure of the draw (which was toward the exhaust--the way the sheep are facing) and toward the sheep's rears in an attempt to let the draw pull two of the sheep forward and create a hole (you can see that they are bunched together, but I'm hoping that her movement away from their heads will make the sheep think they can escape toward the draw).

A hole has opened up and I've called Twist through. You can see that the one ewe in the back half is thinking about what to do--whether to turn back or leap forward with the two in the front. But she also sees Twist coming, and you can see that Twist's head is turned looking at her (Twist is using her eye to tell that ewe, "Don't come this way!").

The completed shed. Twist turns on the sheep I asked her to and takes control, taking them away from the other two.

Here's a portrait of Kat. I think ribbons were being given out at this point, and Kat was alert for her favorite thing: people clapping. And, yes, the tongue sticking out is classic Kat.

I'm not sure during what part of our open run this photo was taken, but you can see that the grass was tall.

All of the preceding photos were taken by Michelle Dobbs. Thanks, Michelle!

Darci, Ask and Ye Shall Receive
Just so you know that Chris is alive and kicking, here are some photos for you. I took this first set yesterday on one of our walks on the "back 40."

Twist, Phoebe, Kat, Chris, Pip, and Lark, all in search of pine cones. Okay, maybe not Lark.

Chris in the creek, doing her underwater search thing. Lark is just wishing Chris would get out of the way--how's a dog supposed to dive when the other dog can't see her coming?

The after effect of Chris' underwater search.

Do you notice a theme here? Why's there always a pine cone in the picture?

I took these out in the yard this morning. I was hoping I could show you Chris' more robust waistline, but she wasn't cooperating.

Pip sez, "But, ah, look how svelte I am! I bet ol' fat Chris is jealous that she doesn't have such a nice waspy waist."

Farleigh wants to know when he's ever going to get a nice shave again.

And Maia says, "I am not so embarassed by Julie's "grooming" job that I won't go out in public." Hmmmm...she just looks a little wiry coated. She's growing out quickly and the moth-eaten look is nearly gone. Even so, I know she feels better without the mats, even if the trim job looked a little, er, rough. Do you think she's laughing at herself, or at my grooming skills?

Bye bye.

Breezy Hill Sheepdog Trial and Other Stuff

2009-06-29T18:39:00.013-04:00

We spent the weekend at Roy and Debbie Johnson's Breezy Hill Farm in Gladys, VA, for the Virginia Border Collie Association (VBCA) Summer Trial. There was a really good turnout for the trial, and so both the novice field and the open field ran simultaneously. It made for some running around for those of us who were running dogs on both fields.

Actually I ran only Phoebe on the small field in the pro-novice class. Her first run (Saturday) was a little rough and we timed out as the sheep were going into the pen, but the good news is that Phoebe was being sensible and listening.

Pip ran first in the open ranch class. He had a nice gather, but was rather slow on his flanks. He still managed to make it around the course with a reasonably clean run to place third for the day. Lark had a terrible time. She was not listening to my whistles at all--uncharacteristically. It got so bad by the time we missed the cross drive panels that I decided to retire her rather than try to salvage a run gone really bad. We had missed the fetch panels (barely) and the cross drive panels, so it wasn't as if it was going to be a placing run anyway. I fussed at Lark and she promptly rolled over on her back with her feet in the air as if to convince any onlookers that I beat her on a regular basis.

Twist was my first dog to run in open. Roy decided to run sheep in groups of four at this trial and I think it made a big difference in the way they worked. The field still had the same pressures, and everyone had to contend with sheep who were really heavy to their right on the driveaway, drawing the dog way over to the right, only to require a fast, sweeping flank to the left to turn them for the cross drive before they bolted for the set out. I had been concerned about Twist because she's not as fit as she should be, and because the annual membership meeting was held in the middle of the day, we didn't run until around 3 p.m., even though we were 10th on the running order. It was sunny and hot, but there was a pretty steady breeze. Anyway, Twist went out and laid down and absolutely beautiful fun. We lost 3 points on the fetch for some bobbles just after the lift, and another 2 on our drive. The sheep were hesitant at the pen, but we got them in without too much trouble. Roy's sheep are notoriously hard to shed, but I thought it might be a bit easier with the fourth sheep, and we were to do a split. Unfortunately, my group had a sheep on either end who wanted to split off and then the two in the middle who clung to one another. Shedding is where Twist shines. I don't really have to say much to her; she'll just work the shed with me. Finally we had maneuvered the sheep to where we had a space less than a foot wide between the two clumping sheep. I knew I was taking a risk calling her in such a small hole, but Twist will come in like a bullet so I decided to chance it, figuring this may be the best I'd get as far as separating those two sheep was concerned. On command, Twist flew into that small space and took control of the two back sheep for a clean shed and a final score of 95, which ended up being the winning run of the day.

The photos below were taken before Twist's run by Barbara Shumannfang. Check out her Web site at http://www.topnotchdog.com/. I especially like this first photo where Twist is looking up (at me?).

Waiting to go onto the field.

Kat's open run wasn't too bad, but we had trouble penning. At one point, they were going in and I took my attention off Kat, who got up and flanked to the right, pushing the sheep back out of the mouth of the pen, and shortly thereafter we ran out of time and so never got a chance to shed and didn't get a placement.

Sunday morning it seemed like I did a lot of running between the two fields. Lark ran sixth in the ranch class, and Pip was scheduled to run last, with Kat running third in open. I ran Lark, but once again we had difficulties. The gather was fine, but on the drive away, I flanked Lark too soon, allowing the sheep to scoot to the inside of the drive panels and bolt high across the field in the direction of the exhaust. Lark was flying to catch them, but she also ran really wide, nearly to the set out, giving the sheep too much room and they made it past the cross drive panels, and the creek and all the way to the fence on on the right side of the field, where she finally caught them. Again, I retired her as any hope of placing was lost, and it didn't seem worth asking her to fight those sheep back over to the pen. It just wasn't Lark's weekend. She had a good time swimming in the pond after her run at least.

Once I finished exhausting the run after mine, I took Lark back to the van and got Phoebe, figuring if the pro-novice class had started I could squeeze her in and get back down to the big field for Pip's ranch run. Phoebe's sheep left the set out when she was between 10 and 11 o'clock on a left hand outrun. I stopped her (she actually took the stop) and flanked her hard back to the right to catch them and we had a pretty straight fetch. Once the sheep turned the post, they were heavy toward the exhaust, so I held Phoebe over to the left (she never even turned the post herself) and kept them on line through the drive panels. She held the pressure nicely back to the pen, and we penned with just one escape attempt by the sheep. The sheep on the novice field can be very sensitive to a fast, pushy dog, and that coupled with the increased pressures in a small field can make running in the two lower classes rather tricky, but Phoebe had her listening ears on, and her run was good enough for third place.

I gave her a moment in the tub and then went back to the van to trade her out for Pip. I got down to the big field to find that the run right before me was on the field. Then I got lucky, in a twisted sort of way, because one of the sheep in the run before me decided to go for a swim in the pond. That gave me just enough time to get a potty break for both me and Pip. Unfortunately for Pip, we had a group of sheep with one ewe who didn't want to stay with the others. She kept bolting off, making the entire run rather rough. When she bolted on the cross drive and the rest tried to follow her, Pip managed to catch them after they had crossed the creek behind the cross drive panel, but I could tell he was getting pissed and so I had to remind him that he wasn't allowed to take it out on the sheep. He got them back under control and we had a decent line to the pen, but that same ewe was a world of trouble at the pen as well. At one point she broke past me at a dead run with Pip in hot pursuit. Again I had to be quick to remind him not to vent his frustration by trying to pull her down. We timed out before ever penning (we might have eventually gotten them penned, but certainly not in a timely fashion), and despite Pip's clear frustration over some of what happened on the field, he still had some very nice work, so I wasn't too disappointed.

Since Kat was third up in open, I let Pip have a quick swim in the pond and then headed back to the van to get Kat out and let her walk some before her run. As I was coming from the van with Kat, a couple of people came over the hill and said "You're up!" Huh? There were two runs before me! Well, it turns out, the first run was Debbie's Abby, and as Debbie was still judging the novice field, she wasn't there to run. The second dog was given a re-run because of some problem I didn't see. So by the time I got down to the field, the set out crew was already bringing my sheep across the field. Nothing like rushing out with no time to think. But it turns out that maybe that was a good thing. Kat had a very nice run. We had a bit of trouble getting the sheep penned, but nothing serious, just a lot of wiggling and hesitation at the mouth of the pen, which cost us a point or two. Then on to the shedding ring. Kat is not a good shedding dog, and yet she's very fast, so we usually end up with a ton of time in the shedding ring to flounder around and try to get our shed. Her speed on the course can be handy, but it also tends to unsettle the sheep, and this can haunt us in the shedding ring. The time we have there often seems interminable, in fact. But lucky for us, the sheep were being pretty tolerant of her quickness. They split once, but I didn't have Kat in position to call her through. But shortly thereafter, they split again, and I called her and she came through very nicely. We lost a point I think because when she came through, she looked back at the sheep we were letting go before taking control of those I had called her in on. Still, in addition to the 3 points we lost on the pen and shed, we lost just a total of 4 more points, split between the fetch and the drive, for a total of 7 off and a score of 93. That score held for the rest of open to be the winning run.

Here are some older photos of Kat. This first one was taken when she and the rest of the pack were playing in the Cowpasture River at Don McCaig's farm. We were there trialing, but the river is so lovely that I always take the dogs for multiple swims on the weekends when we trialed there. The following photos are working shots taken here at the house.

My trialing curse (the one wherein I can't seem to do well with both open dogs on the same day at a trial) continued with Twist. The run started out very nicely, but once again on the cross drive the sheep took off and Twist was out of position to fix it. She caught them before they officially went off course, but they went up onto the dam, which left Twist no room to flank around them to get them back online (she will take flanks in the water, but had she gone in the pond they would certainly have gotten away from her). As it was, once they came off the dam, they skirted the pond, still not giving her a chance to flank around, until they broke for the exhaust in the barn. Twist was able to flank then, but the sheep were up a steep incline from her, so she could do little to influence them until she came around to their heads right as they got to the barn. Tommy Wilson, who had run before me, probably thought I was trying to run him over with the sheep. In fact, both times he exhausted on the open field, it seems the sheep had it out for him.... Anyway, at that point we were so far offline that I decided I couldn't really lose any more drive points, so I didn't try to get them back on the line from the cross drive panel to the pen but instead had Twist bring them straight from the barn to the pen. I knew our run was pretty much shot, but Twist had been trying hard, so I thought I'd give her the chance to complete the course. We had a clean pen and shed and ended up with a score of 80, which put us somewhere around 9th place.

Although there were some really awful parts to some of our runs (especially poor Lark's runs), there were also some very bright moments. Both Lark and Pip managed near-silent gathers on Sunday, even with sheep who were not at all inclined to stay on line on the fetch--they had to work to hold them on a straight line and they did it with practically no help from me. Pip kept his cool better with that difficult ewe than he would have in the past, and Phoebe was responsive and working as a team member instead of following her own agenda (which is usually along the lines of an out-of-control freight train). I was very pleased with both Twist and Kat this weekend, for obvious reasons.

Willow Medical Update

(Photo by Dan King)

Willow had a vet appointment last week to follow up on her prednisone treatment for the mast cell tumor. All looks good, and she finished the prednisone yesterday. She'll go back on furosemide for her heart in a week. Dr. Redding had several staff members listen to her heart because the murmur is so loud that it completely obscures the typical lub-dub heart sound. Even though she's got a bad murmur, her heartbeat is slow, which indicates that her heart isn't having to work overly hard to move blood. It would seem that the Enalapril is doing its job in that regard. Dr. Redding also checked both knees and said both joints appeared fairly stable, so we are leaving them along for now. We did prolo therapy on her one knee last year and he showed me how it had created a thickening in that joint compared to the untreated knee. We may eventually go ahead and do the prolo therapy in her other knee, but he thought it was okay to wait until I am in a better financial situation. Willow turned 12 in mid-June, but she's still going strong, and is still the Queen of the Household Dogs (though Jill often disputes that).

Finally, when Dan came by the week before last after picking up a camper from Joan, we all got together and worked dogs over the weekend. Here are some photos he took of Lark, as well as some other stuff around the farm.

One of the karakul ewe lambs.

Twist bringing the group up to hold them for another dog to practice outruns.

A chorus line of roosters perched on a stall divider. Can you spot the lone hen?

How much suffering should one Maremma have to endure? Actually Maia is fearful of electric shears, so this was the easiest way to trim her mats. She may have looked rather moth-eaten when I was finished, but I'm sure she felt better and it did help me find any ticks she had picked up on her (mis)adventure away from home. Of course I don't think Darci will be offering to teach me to groom any time soon after seeing this most excellent trim job!

And last but not least, JellyBean is the lord of all he surveys....

The Fox and the Mockingbird

2009-06-21T19:02:00.007-04:00

That sounds like it could be the title from a fable by Aesop, and certainly some of those fables can take a pretty dark turn, so the stories I relate here now would fit right in.

During "the week that was" last week, a couple other sad events happened. You may remember me posting about the crazy mockingbird who built her nest in the butterfly bush just off the front porch. One morning last week I went out to check on the four little mockingbirds (still downy) and found the nest dangling and the chicks gone. It didn't take much imagination to figure out the who of that story. The next day, Jimmy made a comment about how I should keep an eye on JellyBean, who had apparently thrown up a few times. Well, you'd probably throw up too if you had just eaten four baby birds on top of all the regular food you're fed! Sigh. I was really hoping I could keep them protected from him, but it's not surprising that in the end I couldn't.

He looks pretty innocent and is a really sweet fellow. And a killer too.

(Photo by Dan King)

But that's not the end of the carnage here at Willow's Rest. Last Monday I was working on my job search and waiting till closer to the time for Pam to arrive to work her dog so I could go sort sheep. Suddenly the dogs started a barking frenzy in the front yard. They were facing the front corner and I assumed that the neighbor's labs must have wandered through since I didn't actually see anything. Shortly after that, I heard chickens squawking like they do if the dogs run over them while racing around the yard. A few minutes later it was time to go out and sort sheep. I needed to feed the rams, so I walked into the ram paddock and realized why the barking and why the squawking--a grey fox was in the corner of the paddock with a struggling Rhode Island Red hen. I yelled at the fox and ran toward it waving my arms. It looked at me for a second and then went through the fence. I turned to go see about the chicken, which was still alive, when the fox came back and grabbed the chicken again, trying to take it back through the fence with him (the hens don't easily fit through the field fence). I threw a stick at him, and once again he retreated, but I could see that he was watching me from the tall grass on the other side of the fence.

At that point I called Jimmy to see where he was, since it was just after 6 and he and Josh could conceivably have been back from work. I told him the situation and his first response was "Stay away--a fox shouldn't be out in the daylight." I told him that I didn't think the fox was rabid--it probably just had young and was bound and determined to get that hen and take it back home. His next response was, "Shoot it." Okay. I'm a good shot, but I've never hunted, and even I am not foolish enough to think that being a good shot when aiming at a paper target in any way equates with shooting at a living, moving target. Besides, I have this weird dichotomy that goes on in my mind when a predator takes one of my critters: part of me is of course outraged at the death of one of mine (in this case, it's always one of the chickens) but another part of me can't help but think that the predator is just doing what predators do and if I, the human, have my animals out where they might be easy pickings, then can I really blame the predator for doing what comes naturally? And it's that very thought that makes me squeamish about doing something like shooting the fox. Jimmy has no such qualms. Since he was at Josh's place just a few minutes away, he came on home and staked out the dead chicken waiting for the fox to come back for it, and sure enough the fox did just that. Jimmy had warning of his return to the corner fence--the purple martins started circling the fox and setting up a fuss. Did two deaths that day really solve anything? Well, it made me feel really bad for both the hen and the fox, but at the same time, I don't want to keep losing hens, especially not in the near broad daylight. But I also wonder about that fox's mate, whom I heard barking (calling to him?) right before he made the mistake of trying to come back through the fence for the hen. Did they have kits? If so, how is she managing to feed them? Did the one death doom them all to death as well?

If there's a downside to rural living, I think this is it. I raise animals and I feel that it's my duty to protect them in the best way I can. I just hate that protecting them sometimes means a really bad end for some other animal--who is just trying to survive. Oh, and Jimmy did point out where he keeps the shotgun, because really any fool ought to be able to hit something with shot at close range. The question is: Would I really be able to do it?

Odds and Ends (More Odd Than End)

2009-06-18T21:13:00.008-04:00

Last week was the week that was. Actually the past couple of weeks have been pretty busy, but last week takes the cake for mishaps and accidents and the like. So let me fill you in.

Hair Sheep?
Whenever hair sheep producers tout their chosen breed, they mention good feet, easy keepers, parasite resistance, and the fact that hair sheep shed out in the spring, so there's no need to deal with finding a shearer, who are becoming as scarce as hen's teeth anyway. Sounds good, doesn't it? What they don't tell you is that many hair sheep don't shed completely, and some don't shed at all. I'll say this for Crazy Red, the katahdin x St. Croix I got from Darci: Apparently the crazy gene brought along shedding genetics with it, so CR actually did shed out this spring. The others did not. So one day the week before last I grabbed the Shearmasters, a handy dog, and my fitting stand and went to work. The young wether didn't require much as I had already stood out in the pasture one day when I was supposed to be working a dog and plucked a goodly amount of his hair off. It clung to his sides and hind legs, though, so I did have to shear that much. Anyway, I took some photos for a pictorial essay on a border collie forum I'm on, so I'll share the before and after shots of one of the ewes here.

Yes, this is a hair sheep!

And here she is nicely shorn.

The Week from, Well, You Know

So last week was a bad week in many ways. And I don't even count the fact that lately it seems we're living in something akin to the Pacific Northwest, with near constant rain. That drought from two years ago? Gone. Long gone. Even this spring the weather forecasters were mentioning how many inches we were still behind, but not any longer. It seems we've had the wettest June in some time, and we're now ahead of normal rainfall by more than 3 inches. So enough already. (Even so, Greensboro is asking its residents to conserve water because the reservoirs are overflowing and the city will actually have to release water back into the streams and rivers. Huh? This is a bad thing?)

But the rain hasn't just been any old rain. No steady, life-giving drizzle or gentle spring showers. No, it's been coming down in the form of deluges and thunderstorms, and bad ones. Rainfall over a matter of hours measured in inches. Rain gauges overflowing before one can venture out to empty them. Tuesday of last week is a good example. Thunder rumbled, the heavens opened, and hail the size of marbles rained down. Creeks were overflowing and many areas were facing problems with flooding. But the really bad part for me was that Maia disappeared sometime between when I fed her Tuesday evening (before the storms) and when I went out to feed Wednesday morning. My fencing is pretty darn dog proof, or so I thought, but Maia sure did find a way out. Maia getting out is problematic because she's not exactly people friendly.

I'll spare you the details except to note that Laura and Kelly, troopers that they are, spent several hours combing the surrounding woods and fields with me, hoping to scare her up or find some sign of her, to no avail.

Then early this Tuesday morning the phone rang. It was my neighbor Marjorie (the alpaca farm) calling to say that Charles had seen a Pyrenees looking dog out at Red Cross on his way to work. I leapt out of bed (ugh, not feeling great, but more about that later) and hopped in the van and headed toward Red Cross. About a mile up the road was Maia, walking along the verge and headed in the direction of home. Okay, I'll admit now that I was not a Boy Scout in some former life. I rolled out of bed and went to get my dog, but I was unprepared. I know Maia won't get in the van, so why did I stop in the middle of the highway and put a slip leash on her and try to get her in? I knew it wasn't going to happen. So here I have my wayward (and difficult-to-catch, thanks to a semi-feral period before I got her) maremma on a slip leash, which she's threatening to chew through if I keep trying to get her in the van. I realize at that moment that I am going to just have to walk her home on a leash. But my van is parked in the middle of the road and I can't just leave it there. Fortunately there was an access driveway to a hayfield right near where I was, so I walked Maia up the road and tied her to a tree. Then I went to back the van into the drive. As soon as I backed in I realized that Maia had chewed through the leash and was heading across the hayfield to the woods. Gah!

I put my brain in gear and decided to go back home and let the dogs out so I could come back and stay a while if need be, get some food for Maia as she likely hadn't eaten in the week she'd been gone, and to change out of my pajamas and into some real clothes. All that done, I headed back down the road and there was Maia pretty much in the same spot. When she saw the van, she headed into the hayfield again. I got out and although she wanted the feed, it was clear she didn't want to come to me as she knew I was going to catch her. So we started a slow walk across the hayfield. She finally realized I was going to persist and sat down facing away from me and allowed herself to be caught. Once I had the (new) slip leash over her head, I gave her some breakfast and then proceeded to lead her the mile back home. I put her on a cable tie out where I had tied her when she first came to me, got Pip, and walked the mile back to the van. It was thundering while I was walking and I kept thinking, "Please don't let her panic again and pull out of her collar and take off." Someone was watching over me: Pip and I made it to the van and ensconced ourselves safely inside before the deluge that seems to have become part of daily living here.

Once back home, I set Maia up with a new Dogloo with a tunnel entrance, thinking she might feel more secure if she could scrinch back into the back and well out of the weather. Maia's not talking, so I don't know where she was or what she was doing for the week she was gone.

Oh, Farleigh

In the meantime, there was yet another thunderstorm Wednesday night, so of course in addition to have lost my livestock guardian dog, I have to deal with several very thunderphobic border collies. My first mistake? Yelling at Farleigh for jumping on the couch when I was trying to replace the throw that one of the other dogs had dug off (why do they start digging at bedding and stuff during a storm?). So Farleigh hid in a crate as he usually does during a storm. I stayed up late waiting for the storm to pass and gave it another good hour before throwing the dogs out to go potty before bed. Farleigh didn't come out of his crate. I'm sure you know where this is headed. For those of you who don't know, Farleigh is fear aggressive. Never, ever try to grab his collar when he's afraid of something. It's a good way to get bitten. But Farleigh and I have come to an understanding. I can usually take a slip leash (or leash looped back through its handle) and carefully reach in and toss it over his head and he'll come out. In fact, sometimes all I have to do is step in front of his crate with such a leash and he'll come on out. Because I know him well, I think in the nine years I've had him he's put his teeth on me maybe three times and he's always managed to exhibit bite inhibition too. Until that night. I reached in with my slip leash and before I new it, he had grabbed my hand and clamped down. And he wasn't planning to let go. I knew it would do no good to try and pull away. It hurt bad enough having his teeth sunk into my hand without pulling on it too. So I squatted in front of the crate and thought about what to do. Whatever I did had to succeed in making him let go while not letting him grab again. Finally, I called to Jimmy in the other room. At this point I was thiking that he might have to go get a stick and pry Farleigh's mouth off my hand. Jimmy walked in and I told him to move slowly as I didn't want Farleigh to react by biting down even harder. Once Jimmy bent over to look in the crate, Farleigh glanced up and him and in the process let go of my hand. Blood was pouring. Sigh. I scrubbed my hand as well as I could, put the only antibiotic I had handy--silver sulfadiazine--on it, bandaged it, and finished all my nighttime stuff and went to bed. And didn't sleep because of the pain. I knew I'd be visiting urgent care in the morning, but no way was I going to make an emergency room visit that night--not in my currently uninsured state, thanks to my recent unemployment.

Long story short--the doctor flushed out the worst punctures on the top of my hand (talk about painful!), gave me a tetanus shot, and sent me off with prescriptions for two antibiotics and a recommendation for probiotics. I asked him to try to stick to the $4 meds at WalMart as money is tight. He even cut me a break on the office visit, dear man, and told me that if I wasn't better in two days I would have to go to the hospital, but since he would be on duty Saturday, I could go back to the urgent care and they'd call him and he would admit me directly to the hospital, thereby avoiding the emergency room and its associated fees. Nice guy. At WalMart, it turns out that the Clindamycin cost $82 (!) for a week's worth (14 pills). No wonder medical insurance is insane. The girl behind the counter told me I could opt out of that particular prescription. Yeah, right--I have puncture wounds in my hand and I'm trying to avoid hospitalization and IV antibiotics, so I think I'll cough up the money and take the antibiotic that will work on anaerobic bacteria.

I'll spare you the details of my recovery. Suffice to say my stomach has never burned so badly while on medication, and I spent the week being overly tired, but by Monday the swelling had started to go down, and today my hand looks pretty normal. I can also make a fist today, at last, but some of the dexterity is still lacking. I guess Farleigh managed to bruise things up pretty good while he was at it.

As for Farleigh, he's been sucking up to me ever since. I can't really blame him, though the first thought that always goes through one's mind is that "this is it; this is the last time." But no, I recognize that I was careless and did the very thing that I knew could set him off. Although he's never drawn blood before, my yelling at him earlier had just increased his arousal and anxiety and so getting bit was at least as much my fault as his. We've managed to co-exist mostly peacefully for the past nine years, so I guess I'll just be extra careful in the future.

And it's getting late, so the fox and mockingbird stories will have to wait till tomorrow.

Real Work?

2009-06-02T16:45:00.006-04:00

I'm a member of a discussion forum that has a section devoted to photos of border collies. One thread in that section is themed "real working dogs" and is meant to include dogs working livestock (vs. all the other things that people like to call work, like agility and other dog sports). So folks have been posting all sorts of photos of dogs working stock. And then someone comes along and posts that she'd really rather see dogs doing "real work" because clearly nearly all the photos up to that point were somehow not real work. In this person's mind, real work requires dirt and dust or could just be a photo of a dog holding sheep off a neighbor's veggie garden (one of the photos this poster annointed as being real work).

So in the evenings, I have been letting GlenGrant, the BFL ram, and the tunis ewes he's supposed to be breeding out in the yard to graze the abundant grass there. Because there's a bank of azalea bushes along the front porch and azaleas aren't good for sheep to eat, I have to sit vigil out there and run the sheep off when they come by and start nibbling. Actually, the sheep won't run from me, so I have to have a dog to do the job. It goes like this: I take the book I'm currently reading and park myself in a chair on the porch (or perhaps on the porch steps if the setting sun isn't too awful). Pip sits or lies next to me and snaps at the occasional fly buzzing around. If we see sheep heading into the garage (why they feel the need to check the boat or junk in there is beyond me) or toward the azaleas or other flowerbeds, I ask Pip to walk out there and move them away. I guess I should get my housemate to take a photo of us sitting on the porch, no sheep actually in sight. Because sure that picture of real work is much better than one of dogs, say, moving sheep or cattle around a trial field or training on the home pasture, don't ya think?

If I did post such a picture, it might look something like this (but with greener grass):

But really what we do is spend most of our time sitting on the porch waiting for the sheep to do something wrong, with only the occasional foray out into the yard to turn sheep back. That's my kind of work!

And speaking of sheep in the yard, if I don't see them for a while, I'll get up to go see where they are. The other night, JellyBean followed me around the corner of the house to see what there was to see. The sheep were grazing over by the chick pens, so I went back to my seat on the steps and my book. Next thing I know I see JellyBean coming around the corner, trying to be nonchalant, but hurrying all the same, followed by a steady sound of hoofbeats. Yep, GlenGrant thought turnabout was fair play and if JellyBean wanted to check him out, then why not go see what that small striped critter was all about. The small striped critter wisely parked himself safely under the van, and Pip got to do some real work by sending GlenGrant back out into the yard where he belonged.

Bird Brain?

I always thought mockingbirds were pretty smart. That is until the other day when Robin was here and I happened to notice a big nest in the top of a butterfly bush right off the front porch in a high-traffic area. The nest contained one blue egg speckled with brown. I commented to Robin something along the lines of "What idiot bird would put a nest there?!?" I got my answer the next morning when I saw JellyBean calmly sitting by the rock wall there seemingly doing his Zen thing while keeping a weather eye on the butterfly bush. There sitting on the nest was a mockingbird. Ove four days she laid four eggs. She's quick to fly off the nest if anyone passes by, which happens quite a lot because this is right next to the porch steps. Someone else said to me that as soon as she has chicks she'll be dive bombing cat, dogs, and humans. There's only one problem with that. Her nest is maybe two and a half feet of the ground. The only thing she might really successfully dive bomb is the cat, and she won't get much speed from that height, which gives JellyBean plenty of opportunity to take a swipe at her. I'm trying to figure out a way to build a cage around the bush to give her at least minimal protection. What I'd like to do is ask her "What were you thinking????"

Reading Corner

Recently I have read In Hovering Flight, by Joyce Hinnefeld; The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch and Say You're One of Them, a collection of short stories by Nigerian Uwem Akpan. Currently I am working on The Family that Couldn't Sleep, by Daniel T. Max. Here's a description of In Hovering Flight from the author: "[The book is] the story of the struggles and triumphs of bird artist and activist Addie Sturmer Kavanagh, ornithologist and musician Tom Kavanagh, and their daughter, poet Scarlet Kavanagh. It’s a novel about mothers, daughters, and art; about illness, death, and burial; about fragile eco-systems and tenacious human relationships—all explored through characters who are inspired by the lives, and particularly the songs, of birds." As a former rabid birder, who still enjoys birds but without so much drive to chase them down, binoculars and spotting scope in hand, I quite enjoyed this book.

Akpan, who is a Jesuit priest, tells stories of poverty and violence in Africa--vivid and real, and you just know as you read them that he has likely seen and experienced these very things. Many of us know intellectually about the hardships faced by those living in extreme poverty in Africa, but Akpan's stories make it real.

Max's book is especially interesting for the science-minded (others may find it a bit too heavy, though I think he does a really good job of putting the science in digestible terms) and anyone interested in prion diseases (including those of us who raise sheep). The basis of the book is a noble Venetian family that has lost a large number of members over two centuries to a disease no one could understand--one characterized by insomnia that eventually kills, but only after causing great suffering of the affected individual. To tell their story, Max takes us through the stories of all prion diseases, including scrapie, BSE (mad cow), Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, kuru, and others, including the disease of the Venetian family, fatal familial insomnia (FFI). He does an excellent job of relating the story of the disparate and seemingly unrelated diseases occurring in various species and in far flung areas of the world, the research leading up to the discovery of prions, the politics that drove decision-making on the epidemiological front, the eventual connecting of the dots between those diseases, and the researchers who contributed. I haven't finished the book yet, but it has been quite a spellbinding read so far.

Avicidal Maniacs?!?

2009-05-28T13:51:00.009-04:00

Tell me, does this look like the face of a killer? Okay, so maybe that's not the best way to frame the question. I suppose chickens aren't exactly known for their "warm and fuzzy" faces. But still.

Last week when I was sitting at the computer composing my meme blog entry, I happened to look out the window and see one of the Dominique hens apparently attacking...what? Another hen? I could see feathers flying as I started up from my chair. As I made my way out the back door, I could see that one of the Rhode Island Reds had joined in, and feathers were still flying. They moved off at my approach, into the stall to get ready to perch for the night. What did I find nestled next to a feed tub but a poor brutalized mourning dove, still alive, but looking extremely traumatized and rather naked.

Really, a dove? The worldwide symbol of peace? What were you barbaric hens thinking? And why not pick on something your own size, you big bullies?

I gently picked up the poor bird as the rams looked on and tried to think of a safe place to put it to either recover or pass on. I finally decided on the old-fashioned hollyhocks that are growing in profusion with plenty of dense foilage on the side of the house. And I was pretty certain that it was an area that pretty much remained unfrequented by JellyBean. I dumped a little cracked corn in front of her (that's what they come to the barnyard for anyway) and left her hidden there. When I went back to check later, she had tucked herself even further up into her hidey hole. Later that night I was out giving the dogs their last walk before bed and checked again and she was gone. I haven't seen a nearly bald mourning dove around here since then, but I'd like to think she survived the attack of the killer hens. (True confession time: I once opened a feed bin to find a mouse inside and JellyBean nowhere around to do the honors, so I dumped the mouse out in front of some hens hoping they'd finish him off. The lucky little beggar was able to get the jump on them and get away.)

Is this a flock of hens or a gang?

She really doesn't look like someone a small creature would want to mess with.

Dominicker patrol. They sort of look like they're dressed for prison don't they?

And my Old English Game hens are as broody as ever. I had a singleton chick about a month ago, but it died mysteriously. But this little black hen hopped on that same nest and managed to hatch out two more chicks, seen here in their chick tractor.

This hen sat on a nest inside a cat crate that I had set in the chicken house to hold the first chick that was hatched this year. I was slow to remove the crate, and the next thing I know a hen was setting in it. Here's what she hatched out. (I think she's a beautiful hen.)

This little pearl grey chick is my favorite. Knowing my luck, it's probably yet another rooster.

JellyBean is overseeing the transition of the chicks from houses inside the chicken pen to these outdoor chick tractors. Amazingly, he has never to my knowledge bothered a chick once I start letting them free range with their mamas (Moses was another story entirely--free range chicks meant free and happy hunting to him).

And we have yet another supervisor. Whatever would I do without all the help?

Is it a standoff....

or studied indifference?

Oh, those ears! (Okay, the mottling makes up for it I guess.)

Pip says, "Huh?" And that probably doesn't really surprise anyone. (See why I call him Big Head Fred?)

Willow is, of course, the one true protector of the hens and their chicks. She has really begun to look old over these past few months.

GlenGrant says, "Can you please get me out of this contraption? I've already turned those red sheep completely green from top to bottom, so it's time for this harness to go!"

Trial Report--Circle BR (Otherwise Known as Dr. Ben's)

2009-05-27T13:09:00.002-04:00

Laura and I, otherwise known as the intrepid tent campers, had been watching the weather all week while trying to decide exactly when to leave for Dr. Ben's trial. Neither of us was running an open dog, so we didn't have to be there till Monday. But when Laura mentioned that she was thinking of heading down Sunday to watch some of the open, I thought "Why not be a copycat?" and said I'd go then too. But here's the thing--and if you're a tent camper, you'll understand--it just doesn't make sense to go to the trouble of setting up a tent for one night. So next thing I know, we're talking about heading out Saturday. We kept checking weather.com and wunderground.com and both were predicting high temps in the low 80s with a slight possibility of thunderstorms each afternoon. Sounds like pretty perfect camping weather, so a Saturday arrival date became the plan.

Saturday was indeed sunny (and humid) and we got there shortly before the end of the open runs and in time to hear about a possible jackpot class (pay an entry fee, run your dog, get money back if you win). The course would be the ranch course (full open course without the shed).

Of the young dogs, only Lark would get just one run on Monday (in ranch), so I decided to go ahead and put her in the jackpot. She hasn't gotten much trial time this spring because many of the trials offered just open and nursery, and with a late January birthday (she turned 3), she wasn't eligible for nursery this year.

She ran out beautifully and had a nice lift, but then the trouble started. The field is terraced, and although the terraces don't like big from the bottom of the field, if you've ever had the pleasure of running up that field (or even just walking it), they're a lot bigger than they look. When the sheep started to go offline on the fetch, I flanked Lark, not even thinking that she couldn't see the sheep, who had already dropped to the terrace below, and so when she took her flank, she couldn't find any sheep. You could tell she was completely lost up there (Lyle and Beth later said it looked like she was on her tippy toes trying to see over and down, looking for her sheep. Lyle also told me at dinner that night that with the young dogs especially, I should have waited until the dog also crested the terrace to give a flank so dog and sheep were on the same terrace and the dog wouldn't get lost. Well, duh, of course that makes sense. Now why didn't I do that?) Anyway, we made it around the course, but I could tell Lark was stressed and a bit confused--it's probably the biggest course she's run. But she managed it, so that's something.

I ended up running Twist in the open on Sunday, though it was nothing to write home about. She's fat and out of shape because I've been working the young dogs, and it showed. We timed out on the first marked shed (we were to take two without collars, regroup, pen, and then take one with a collar), though we should have gotten our shed points if I hadn't made the mistake of being too close to the edge of the shedding ring when we (finally) got the split we needed and I called Twist through, so that the sheep were out of the ring by the time Twist took control, and so no shed called. Our run overall was a bit raggedy--it's clear we are both out of practice, so now I just need to try and get her back in shape before fall.

Oh, and I should note that it started to rain early Sunday morning, after a night of listening to the call of the Chuck-Will's-Widow (as an aside, I have never marked this bird off my birding list--by omission or because I hadn't actually heard it before I don't know. Usually I hear Whip-poor-wills when camping at trials, so it was something of a treat to hear a Chuck-Will's-Widow instead). So the rain started and never really stopped, except for brief spells. My poor old tent is leakier than ever--even the rain fly had a serious leak at one seam. I did manage to stay mostly try (well most importantly, my bed stayed dry), so I think it's time to send it to tent heaven and find a replacement. The "Taj Mahal" tent will no longer be one of the Seven Wonders of the trialing world, sad to say.

Monday dawned grey and rainy--surprise! I had originally agreed to run Pip and Phoebe in nursery so there would be enough dogs to qualify two, and both dogs are quite capable of running the course, but given the trouble I've been having with Phoebe lately, I pretty much entered her with the caveat that if there were enough dogs to run nursery without her, then that's what I'd do. Pip was up first. I tried having him watch a couple lifts beforehand, but he never seems to actually look up the field and spot sheep. So I did something I shouldn't have done, knowing his heritage, and set him wide at my feet. He kicked wide, so wide it looked like he was going to the exhaust. At least he arced on up the field from the exhaust fence, but he kept angling out till he hit the fence along the road. There was only one problem with that (aside from the more obvious being too wide thing). About halfway up the field is a group of oaks, surrounded by fencing and covered in tarps--the area that is used for the novice set out. So Pip's galloping along the fence and gets to a corner. You can just see him put on the brakes and go "WTF?" But he recovered nicely, came on around that set out pen and continued on up to the top--nothing really lost but time. He had a nice lift, but the terraces created a few issues and our fetch was offline a good part of the way from the top to the fetch panels. The drive was a left-hand drive, and the sheep were pulling to the exhaust, but we kept them reasonably on line and made a rather wide turn (the turn was just in front of a terrace, so it was next to impossible to make it tight as the sheep would go through the gates and be up the terrace before you knew it). We bobbled a bit on the crossdrive, but kept a mostly straight line until we got close to the cross drive panels, when I realized we were getting a bit high. Pip has had some confidence issues on long drives and had been doing really well so far on this drive, so even though I knew we were getting ready to miss the panels high, I decided to err on the side of not putting a ton of pressure on Pip to flank fast and save it and instead went with just keeping the flow. We turned the cross drive panels with less than a minute to complete the course (thanks to that lovely meandering outrun). About halfway along that last leg, I told Pip "Get 'em up" because I wanted him to pick up the pace a bit. Mistake. Or not? As soon as the words were out of my mouth, he started to have a yeeha! moment, but I was quick enough to correct him before he managed to DQ himself with a grip. The little extra bit of speed gave us just enough time to pen, with the sheep dashing into the pen like they Devil was on their tails (and the sheep were in general disinclined to pen all weekend). We ended up with a score of 67, and second place, which meant another nursery qualification for Pip (he's already qualified to go to the finals, but I'll say that this nursery run was definitely his best ever from a confidence and good work POV, if you ignore the whole outrun thing, that is). (His breakdown: 18-10-11-18-10)

Phoebe ran at the end of the class. We had been joking under the pole barn about how so many handlers seem to have a slight Scottish accent to their "lie down!" when I commented that I would surely sound more like a fishwife, given the amount of head butting Phoebe and I normally did. I went out there with no expectations, and darn if the good Phoebe wasn't in residence that day. She ran out a bit wide, but actually stopped at the top with just one stop whistle! Instead of her usual out-of-control freight train approach to the fetch, she was taking my stops and steadies and taking the correct flanks. I was pretty stunned. Her drive was lovely, losing just 8 points. Then came the pen. We had the misfortune of getting a group with two who didn't want to play at the pen. I give Phoebe a lot of credit for keeping her head and working her little heart out to get those two in. One finally did go in, but the other chose to turn and stomp at her--several times. Each time I asked Phoebe up, she walked right into the face of that stomping ewe, but that ewe just wasn't going to turn and go in the pen, instead trying to break past me each time. And then time was called. Phoebe ended up with a 65 for 3rd place (nonqualifying). I felt bad for her as it would have been nice to get her second nursery leg on her, but I was very happy with the way she worked. Of course we still had P/N to run, so I was sure the other shoe would drop there. (Her breakdown: 18-10-15-22-0)

The ranch class was run next and both Lark and Pip were entered. Lark ran early and had another nice outrun and lift, but the sheep came off the hill running and never really wanted to let up. I was having to do a lot of flanking Lark on the run, and although she didn't get lost on the terraces this time, it was clear that she was feeling a bit stressed and overfaced with all the rapid-fire commands she was getting. The crossdrive was especially ugly, with the sheep coming way down the field before Lark was able to catch them and push them back up to the cross drive panels. On the turn to the Maltese cross, the sheep started running again. I ran out to meet them and stop them, but the second Lark started to move, they bolted again. I decided to retire at that point as it was clear Lark was gaining nothing from the run and probably losing confidence. It just wasn't her weekend.

Pip left my feet before I was ready to send him and in hindsight I should have just let him go as he was setting out at a nice angle. But I called him back, set him up pointing pretty much straight up the field and then sent him. He did a near-repeat of his nursery outrun, only this time he anticipated the blind corner and flowed on around it. His lift was nice, and his fetch was about the same as in his nursery run. The drive away went a bit nicer, but I made a big mistake thinking the sheep were through the panel (they were walking very nicely) and flanked Pip hard too soon, causing the sheep to turn just in front of the panel and skim along it. Darn! The rest of the drive was nice, although Pip seemed a little more hesitant on the drive than he had in the first run. Probably asking him to do both runs on such a big course was a bit much for one day. We made a nice turn at the cross drive panels but somehow I didn't manage to get Pip in position to stop the sheep from bolting past the first leg of the cross. Once they broke the plane of the cross chute, you had to go on to the second leg, which we managed very handily. At the pen, I again had sheep that didn't want to cooperate, and as often happens, they all marched into the pen just as time was called, so we didn't get any pen points. Our final score was a 67 for 5th place. (Breakdown: 16-10-10-21-10[1 leg of the cross]-0)

And that just left the pro-novice class. The course directors decided to push the sheep down from the top instead of using the pen over on the side of the field, which was a nice change because the pressure from that side pen to the exhuast is incredible, making life extremely hard for young dogs or inexperienced handlers. The P/N set out was actually the same as nursery, so rather long. Phoebe ran toward the end of the class, and I went out with the expectation that having already had one appearance of the "good Phoebe" I wasn't likely to be blessed with a second such event, but again she proved me wrong. I sent left again and she did a beautiful outrun, kicking out as she crested each terrace, and landing well behind her sheep. Once again she took my stop whistle at the top, but then we lifted a bit offline, which took a while to recover, but we managed it and made the fetch gates. The drive away, which was about 100 yards was absolutely lovely. This time we our sheep were more cooperative at the pen, and we ended up with a final score of 78 for first place. Could it be that Phoebe has turned a corner? Or is she just toying with me? The next trial will tell.

Yummy (and Easy) Banana Bread

2009-05-27T10:05:00.002-04:00

I buy bananas because I like them but then invariably they get overripe before I eat them all. I got tired of tossing bananas out so went in search of an easy, low-fat recipe, with ingredients I'd likely have on hand. I found one at Cooking Light that I have used successfully and really like. I took a loaf of the bread to the trial this past weekend and shared it with folks. I had a number of people ask for the recipe, so here it is. Enjoy!

Classic Banana Bread
We love this bread's moist texture and simple flavor. Banana bread should form a crack down the center as it bakes--a sign that the baking soda is doing its job.

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas--note, I don't measure, just use 3, as long as they aren't tiny)
1/3 cup plain low fat yogurt (I've also used nonfat and vanilla flavored, whatever I had on hand)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or something else with alcohol in it!)
cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cup; level with a knife (I'm not so precise). Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.

Place sugar and butter in a large bowl and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, yogurt, and vanilla; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed until moist. Spoon batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Yield: 1 loaf, 14 servings (serving size: 1 slice)

Calories: 187 (21% from fat); Fat 4.3 g (sat 2.4 g, mono 1.2 g, poly 0.3 g); Iron 1 mg; Cholesterol 40 mg; Calcium 20 mg; Carbohydrate 34.4 g; Sodium 198 mg; Protein 3.3 g; Fiber 1.1 g

Cooking Light, September 2003

Participating, for Once

2009-05-21T19:28:00.003-04:00

So Becky over at http://sittinnspinnin.blogspot.com/ has memed me, and from looking at her blog I gather than means I'm supposed to list six things that "I appreciate that may, to someone else, seem unimportant, but to me are precious." So here are mine:

The sound of a summer rain on a tin roof (and the smell of rain, too)
The chorus of spring peepers
Anyone who stops to move a box turtle out of the road
The unconditional love of my critters
A well-written book that sucks me in and becomes nearly impossible to put down
Bird songs

And now I'm supposed to pass this on to six people. Hmmm....I might be able to come up with that many. For those of you who don't wish to participate, never fear--this isn't a chain letter and bad things won't happen to you if you ignore it!

Crooks and Crazies: Laura always manages to make me laugh, and I imagine her humor would shine through while making a list like this! (http://crooksandcrazies.blogspot.com/)
Shoofly Farm: You didn't think I'd let you off the hook, did you Robin? (http://shooflyfarm.blogspot.com/)
Vet on the Edge: Hilary, you've been MIA for a while, and I hope this will find you and you'll resurface and share more of your lovely stories with us! (http://vetontheedge.blogspot.com/)
1Sheepdoggal: Darci has left us for more the more desert-like pastures of northern Utah ("Go west, young lady!") and I'll miss her. Hopefully she'll have time either while on the road or once she gets there to share a list of her own with us. (http://1sheepdoggal.blogspot.com/)
4UFarm: You've got my little boy Blue and I'd love to know what things you appreciate! (http://4ufarm.blogspot.com/)
Eirene: Becca, are you out there? Come join the fun! (http://irenafarm.blogspot.com/)

I hope some of you find time to make your own lists. I'd love to read them! And thanks Becky for making me think about things that are special to me.

Shhhhhh.....

2009-05-17T11:29:00.005-04:00

Don't tell anyone, but Lark has been eating the veggie mix (yes, I said veggies) with her raw breakfast the past few days. Could we have turned a new leaf in Larkydom?

(Photo by Laura Carson)

A Day in the Life, or Who Ate My !!@#$%@ Salad?

2009-05-15T10:45:00.002-04:00

As you know, I'm not working at the moment. (How's that for positive thinking? It's only for the moment after all--I'll be back in the full-time employment saddle before I know it!) And yet my days are fuller than ever just doing stuff around the farm.

Laura came over Wednesday evening to walk dogs and help me set GlenGrant up in his marking harness so I could actually do things right and know just when (or if) the tunis ewes were bred. We then sorted off the mule ewes and put them out in the main pasture (Twist and me) and sorted the tunis ewes from the main flock and brought them into the paddock with GG (Laura and Nick). For those of you waiting for an entertaining video of the harnessing process, I have to apologize--it was amazingly simple and there were no video-worthy antics to charm you with. Of course I need to wait for the ewes to cycle, but I suspect that by the time they do, the marking crayon will be long gone. Can someone tell me why my tunis ewes all have green crayon marks on their briskets? What are they doing at night--standing up and slow dancing with GG in the moonlight? GG himself is pretty much covered in green from the chest down. He's somehow even managed to turn his derriere green. WTF? What are these sheep doing??? Aside from the obvious, which is that they are certainly not breeding..... Fun coloring with crayons, anyone?

After observing my absurdly green-colored sheep yesterday morning, I went to check on my broody OEG hens. One had hatched a couple of chicks in a nest box and then moved to the floor of the chicken house, presumably when the chicks did their mad bungee jumps (sans bungee) out of the nest boxes, and so I had put them all in a small cat crate for their protection. The second hen was sitting on a nest she had built in another cat crate (left there after a previous hatching incident). When I had checked her the night before, she had just one little grey chick, but by yesterday morning she had seven hatched out (many colors). The cat crate was clearly too small for her burgeoning family, so I moved both hens and their chicks out into the pen where there's an old intermediate Vari-kennel and a hutch of some sort that I found in an old chicken house when I was living in Elizabeth City. I had to spend some time cleaning these out and putting some shavings in (so the hens would have something to scratch in and use to trash the waterers and feeders with--wouldn't want them to have dull lives after all). They'll stay in these cages for about a week and then will move out to the chick tractors. It's supposed to be nasty rainy this weekend, so I think they'll be more secure under the roof of the chicken pen and in the security of their "kennels." While I was doing all the prep work, Lark was keeping a close eye on the hens and chicks in the chicken house. She came in handy because one time I walked away to get chicken feed and turned to see that both rams had taken advantage of the unlatched pen door to go in and see what was what. They were mighty surprised when I called on Lark and she popped out of the chicken house and into their faces. Lark's other bit of usefulness is when the nasty little roosters come after me, which they invariably do, and always when my back is turned, natch. I've encouraged Lark to break up rooster (ahem, NOT cock) fights in the past and that training has come in handy when I need her to chase a rooster off me. Who knew raising itty bitty game bantams could be so hazardous to human health and safety? Thanks to Miss Larky, I am mostly safe from both rams and roosters, thank goodness.

On the big hen front, several of the Dominiques have decided that the round bale feeder is an ideal nesting spot. The sheep aren't really eating any hay, but really do I have to dig around inside the bale feeder to search for eggs? Ladies, what's wrong with the nest boxes in the walk-through stall? Give me a break!

The middle part of the day was pretty uneventful, but when it came time for our afternoon walk, the next crisis ensued. As I turned the corner at the bottom of the ram paddock, I heard some strange growling noise, and my first thought was Phoebe and that she might be having a seizure. I followed the noise to its source and there she was, in the midst of a lovely huge stand of poison ivy. Oh, how my sensibilities warred with one another: the instinct to go get my poor dog and the instinct to preserve myself from poison ivy rash hell. Of course Phoebe won out, but really Phoebe, did you have to put yourself right up against that huge rope of a poison ivy vine? Can't any of y'all cut me any slack? As soon as I waded through p.i. jungle and got Phoebe out of there, she was on her feet and fine and we conitnued on our walk. We had just had a brief downpour, enough to make the ground slick, and sure enough, I slipped going around the corner by the creek and nearly cracked my wrist catching myself (hello, wake-up call to lose weight--less pressure on whatever body part I use to catch myself during falls like this). I was wearing those darn Crocs, and so after righting myself I had to pull them off and try to shake out the pound of mud that came in through the holes when I slid in the first place. Who thought it was a good idea to put holes in clogs? So far this spring I've gotten stabbed by a stick through them (and the stick apparently had been in contact with poison ivy so that I ended up with a glorious and unpleasant mess on my foot) and now the bulldozer effect. Sheesh! I spent the rest of the walk constantly reminding myself not to touch my face with my hands.

Once back at the house, I went ahead and fed the sheep behind the barn and Maia too. By then I had about 45 minutes before the eye doctor's office closed and I needed to go pick up my contact lens order. But I couldn't not get in the shower first and scrub everything as hard as I could for p.i. prevention (and so far it seems to have worked as I have no breakouts yet). I left the house at 5:40 for the 10-mile trip to Randleman. I was doing great until some yahoo pulled from a side road right out in front of me and proceeded to poke along at a snail's pace. I did manage to get my contacts, and the bonus of going to Randleman was that I could go by the Wild Onion and get a "garden weasel" salad--one of my faves and something I've been craving for a couple of weeks.

I got back home with my salad and fed the dogs and let everyone out. I then managed to eat the barbecued shrimp off the top of the salad before the phone rang. As I was talking, I put the salad in its closed container on the trunk next to where I watch TV, since last night was Grey's Anatomy season finale night (not to be missed). My next big mistake was to walk into the other room to look something up on the computer in answer to my friend's question. Next thing I know I hear growling of the sort that dogs do when they're "discussing" whether food is to be shared. Huh? So I marched back into the living room to fuss at the dogs only to find my salad on the floor and the object of contention. WTH? These dogs wouldn't eat lettuce if you coated it in hamburger and handed it to them. But last night of all nights, when I had gotten a salad I'd been craving for a week or more, the little bast**ds had stolen it, dumped it on the floor, and eaten a good part of it. Now I'm not one to generally eat something if I think one of the cats' or dogs' faces have been in it, but in this case I salvaged the scant bit of salad left in the box and ate it, which only made the loss of the bulk of it that much worse to bear. Maybe I should have fed them all lettuce for breakfast this morning....

So, you see, even though I'm not working, life is still pretty busy around here, although it seems to be mostly in a "joke's on me" kind of way. Maybe I'll sell enough junk at Laura's mom's neighborhood yard sale tomorrow to pay for a matinee ticket to Star Trek. If Sunday's really going to be a washout, engaging in a little fantasy escapism might be just the ticket.

The Joys of Rural Life!

2009-05-10T19:03:00.008-04:00

So we all can probably recite the usual pleasures of living in a rural area, and I think most people you ask would admit that the perqs generally outweigh the inconveniences (like having to travel more than a few miles for shopping). The other night as I was stepping into the shower, one perq became quite evident. When I noticed the water pressure in the shower was quite low, I remembered that I had started water running into a stock tank earlier and oops! had apprently forgotten to turn it off. So out of the shower I hopped, dashed through the house wearing nary a stitch of clothing, out the back door (with a glance over at the neighboring barn to be sure they weren't there feeding the horses), and turned off the faucet (yes, the pasture was looking quite well watered, if unintentionally). In the country you can skip from shower to back yard without worrying about modesty. After all, the chickens and sheep don't care if you're running around in your birthday suit!

The dogs say, "Hey, aren't we going for like the umpteenth walk to the 'back 40' today?"

The Mules and Their BFL Friend Have Arrived!
And here for your viewing pleasure are my new sheep. Don't let their friendly looks fool you. They're wild as bucks! It's just that their desire for free handouts (hay) sometimes overwhelms their flight response. That's the BFL ram lamb (nicknamed "Tiny," lol) on the left. The dark-faced ewes are Clun Forest mules, and the white-faced ewes are North Country Cheviot mules.

A closer view, this time with GlenGrant the ram on the right.

With Laura's help, I sheared GlenGrant yesterday. It wasn't a beautiful job, but I'm sure just getting all that fleece off made him a much happier fellow. And, no, that's not a color spot on him, it's Blu-Kote. I never said I could shear perfectly, but we did get by with a minimum of bloodshed....

Personally I think the characteristic roman nose and blue-face of a BFL are better admired from afar, but just in case anyone prefers a close-up view, here it is.

When we sheared yesterday, we did so in a stall in the barn to be in the shade, since it was something like 88 or 89 degrees out. GlenGrant was not happy being alone with just two human females for company, so we brought the mules in to pacify him. They actually behaved like normal sheep, probably because they recognized that things could be much, much worse for them--I could be coming after them with my noisy shears. One of the Clun mules tried to eat Laura's shirt when she wasn't looking. It was probably this ewe, who is very nosy (as long as you don't look at her or move toward her or even think about doing anything to her).

A human behind a camera couldn't possibly pose any threat, so it's safe to come just a little bit closer....

The NCC mules. They are possibly even wilder than the Clun mules. And that's saying something.

Working Dogs

Remember Swift? Well, this is her littermate Simon. Yeah, you'd not guess it if you saw them together. Simon is cute isn't he? He's also a typical goofy boy dog of just over a year old. Did I say he was goofy? Understatement. He has learned pretty quickly to leave the chickens alone (in one sense anyway). The cats are another story, though I think JellyBean at least has put the fear of doG in him.

It looks like Lark might have some competition on the chicken herding front (note that Willow the Enforcer is going to make sure Simon doesn't do anything wrong):

At this point, Ms. Hen has had enough of Sir Simon and moves in for the peck, which I sadly did not get on camera. Poor Simon--can't get respect even from a lousy hen.

But once he's recovered from the indignity of it all, he's still pretty happy with life. Did I mention he's goofy?

So I have finally started on the re-education of Lark. And it actually has turned into the re-education of Phoebe too. After advice from several sources, I've decided to try to teach Lark to stand as a remedy to her clappiness. I don't know if it will successfully remedy her very strong desire to go to the pressure on a strong draw and hold there, but at least if I can teach her to stay on her feet, part of the battle will be won. So today we just worked on "stand!" She never quite got the concept on the fetch, but she was getting it on the drive and actually seemed to be relaxing into it by the end of our session today. I was keeping the work close and the work had an overall effect of slowing her down, which I don't want, but I mixed it up with some speedy stuff too, and I was really pleased with how quickly she caught on. Of course, there were a lot--a lot--of "Get up, stand" commands, which was a bit confusing for her, especially since she interprets "get up" to mean power up, as in drive on in hard, so it was like I was giving her opposite commands at the same time, but I think she's going to get it and hopefully it will help us with some other issues. I worked some on the stand on the fetch too, but she was having a harder time with that, and I didn't drill it because normally even if she claps on the fetch, she pretty much never sticks.

And that brings us to Phoebe. I have a confession to make here. In training Phoebe I had let my own training philosophy sort of fall by the wayside. I try to be a calm and quiet trainer. In fact, I was talking with a friend the other day who pointed that very thing out about my training style. As we discussed training philosophies, it occurred to me that I was my own worst enemy when it came to Phoebe. All this time I have let her push my buttons and I've reacted in a way I wouldn't with any other dog. I don't know if this is because I expect more from her because I know what she can do or if we just got into a head-butting contest without me really realizing it. I did know that what I was doing wasn't working. The harder I got on her, the harder she's pushed back. I was on my way to making a hard dog, I think. So after that recent conversation, I had an epiphany of sorts and decided I needed to change my attitude when working Miss Pheebs. No more getting annoyed or getting strident or getting loud. I had to get back to the kinder, gentler me. When she does something overtly silly, I just shake it off and maintain my even keel and calm attitude.

The result? I can already see her relaxing and little more and perhaps becoming more responsive. One big thing we have fought (and I mean fought) is the lie down. So today, since I had stand on the mind, I decided to work with her on a stand. And she loves it! She caught on quickly (of course it helps that she doesn't have Lark's automatic down, so I didn't have to start from getting her up and then asking for a stand) and was being much less hardheaded about things in general. Now I just have to see if we can maintain this newer, happier relationship and move forward from here.

I'm not working on anything in particular with Pip. I did a few outruns today and a little driving and tried to set up fetches and drives that were similar to what Laura and Nick were doing earlier to see how Pip responded in the same situation. Interestingly, he didn't want to come off the pressure in the same places where Nick was giving Laura trouble. It makes me think that while there is some disobedience going on (obviously), they must also be reading some pressure that we humans aren't seeing so clearly.

Linc worked really nicely today. I don't think it will be long before Laura can take him out on a pro-novice course.

I had Simon out in the round pen earlier this week and he showed me he doesn't need a round pen. So today I had him in the field with the dog broke hair sheep. There were some very yeeha! moments and some nice work. He reminded me of Twist as a young dog in that he wanted to work off to the side and control the lead sheep. He has a pretty good sense of balance and circles nicely in both directions. I couldn't send him very far on an outrun without him deciding to go straight up the middle, but if I was careful how I sent him, he went around nicely. He definitely showed me where I'll need to concentrate to start with. Today I saw a lot that was very unlike his littermate Swift. I'll be interested to see the parts where he is like her.

And now I must break out the bleach and go scrub a stock tank before dark.

Nothing Clever Comes to Mind

2009-05-07T10:36:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I haven't really been missing in action, not really. I've just been very bad about updating my life here. But I'm going to remedy that right now. And Laura, I promise (I think) not to go on too long. The easiest way to catch everyone up is just to go through the calendar by week, hitting just the high (or low) points, so here goes:

April 1-5: I drove to Sherry Smith's in Church Hill, MD, to set sheep for her spring trial. For once, it rained just one day of the three. Long days, lots of dogs, and I didn't really get to visit with anyone except Pam Gardner and Sherry Shelden, who came to Mohammed, so to speak. (Well, and Debbie Crowder who worked the pens and with whom I bunked and who was a delight to be around, as always.) I did run the young dogs on the last day, mostly disastrously. Only Pip made it around the nursery course. Phoebe stopped exactly once, on her outrun when I needed to redirect and was her usual freight train self the rest of the time, so I retired on the drive away. Lark ran in ranch and also retired on the drive away as she didn't want to let off the pressure and I was too absorbed in keeping a nice line instead of letting it drift a bit to save the run. Oh well, that's dog trialing.

April 6-12: Nothing much sticks in my mind for that week, though someone will probably remind me of something.... I did take 10 lambs to Chaudhry and got a decent price for them. I chatted with him for a bit and told him what my plans were for implementing a three-tier production system. He told me that if I could produce a nice uniform crop of lambs, he'd buy all that I had at a good price.

April 13-19: The bomb drops, and I was informed on Monday the 13th that as of Wednesday the 15th I was out of a job. Nothing like an advance warning so one can get affairs in order. I understand that there are vengeful people in this world, but I'd still like to think that those of us who have spent decades advancing our professional careers would be given the benefit of the doubt in such situations and given some notice so we can prepare. After all, how likely is it that I'm going to ruin years of making a professional name for myself just out of anger over losing a job? How incredibly stupid would that be? At least a got a small severance that will tide me over another month, but after that it's unemployment, and who knows how I'll pay the bills?

April 20-26: Phoebe had a second seizure in the early hours of Monday morning. She sleeps on the bed, so woke me pretty much instantaneously. So much for the hope that the original seizure was tied to her estrus cycle. This seizure was pretty much exactly a month after the first seizure, and according to all my vet sources, seizures that occur once a month or less don't need to be treated. So I'm just keeping my Phoebe journal and hoping things don't get worse. I plan to spay her, but that will now have to wait until my financial situation is a bit more stable.

Tom Forrestor came down on the 25th and sheared sheep for me and for Tony and Mary. I hadn't shorn the karakuls last fall so their fleeces were pretty worthless owing to the cotting/felting. I gave the tunis fleeces to Kelly's mom since she wants to learn the whole "sheep to shawl" process.

Sunday was lesson day here with Robin. I spent the morning running Tom around (he wanted to see the corriedales at Rising Meadow Farm around the corner), leaving Laura to do the sorting and holding for lessons.

April 27-May 3: I had to make plans to go up to the Howard County Fairgrounds Thursday evening to pick up my mule sheep and BFL ram. Yep, they were already paid for before losing my job, so there was nothing I could do but go get them. I stayed at Cathy Fiddler's place in Leesburg. It turns out she had been given tickets to the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, so I had dinner Thursday night with her and a friend of hers and then she and I drove over to the fairgrounds to get my sheep. When we pulled up to the Lellis' trailer, the first words out of Mark's mouth were "I think the ram can jump out of that trailer." That's not what I needed to here. The trailer was one I borrowed from my former neighbor when I lived in Cedar Grove. He uses it to haul his goats, and surely if goats will stay in a sheep will too! No sooner had we loaded the ewes and ram then the ram stood up with his feet on the back gate, looking for all the world like he just might go over. We quickly threw them some alfalfa hay and hit the road, hoping the distraction of food and the movement of the vehicle would preclude any thoughts of ram suicide.

Since I had already made the trip up, I really wanted to stay and go back to the sheep and wool festival on Saturday. Cathy was going to be out of town and needed a house sitter, and so I did the house sitting. My new sheep stayed in her 60-foot round pen. They had never seen a dog before and weren't fond of humans. I thought in passing that it would be interesting catching them again, but well, I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

I had planned to take the ram to Tom F's for shearing on Friday, but it rained Thursday night (and off and on for the rest of the weekend), so no joy there. I spent Saturday at the festival, ran into all sorts of friends, spent a good bit of time checking fleeces in for Joy at Ozark Carding Mill, and of course whizzing through the vendor halls. I didn't spend a whole lot of time with the vendors because I didn't really have any money to spend anyway. I also traded Swift back to Dan for her littermate Simon. I thought my Twist litter had some divergent looking pups, but you'd never guess that Swift and Simon were littermates just by looking at them. Simon is a saddleback tri, smooth-coated, prick eared dog. Swift is a rough-coated, white factored tri, though you really have to look to tell there's any tri there.

Of course it started pouring rain early Sunday morning. Cathy's round pen is at the bottom of a hill. I had spent a few minutes Saturday evening breaking the sheep with Twist. I at least got them to the point where they'd move off her, even if not calmly. The savior of the sheep snagging operation was the aluminum crook I had bought for Bob to give to Joy. It was about 6 feet long with a neck crook on one end and a leg cleek on the other. Picture a 60-foot round pen , with sheep who don't want to get within 20 feet of a human and who don't really know much about dogs except that it may be preferable to run into the dog's teeth than to get near the human. Those of you who know me also know that I'm not the most coordinated human on the planet, but I managed to snag one ewe with the crook as she passed me by at 60 mph. Triumphant, I loaded her on the trailer. I tried not to think about how it would get exponentially more difficult to catch sheep the fewer there were. In short order I had also managed to snag the ram (did I mention he's HUGE for a yearling?) by the neck---sitting back like a cow pony so he didn't jerk my arm out of the socket as he was making pretty good speed when he passed me (see, a pear shape does have its advantages!). He ducked his head and got loose. I realized the cleek might be a better option for him, and in short order had snagged him by the hind leg. Two down, and three to go.

At this point, I knew I was going to have to come up with a smarter method. Twist was exhausting herself trying to catch and hold sheep to me, and the pen was looking bigger as the number of sheep dwindled. I also worried about getting the trailer up the hill. So I decided to take my two prizes and haul them up to higher ground. I put the van in low gear and started climbing out. All was well till we hit the crest of the hill and then the van started to fishtail. A quick prayer and a little more gas, and we made it. Cathy's newly seeded field was only slightly rutted.

Now what to do about the remaining three ewes? I had talked to Cathy's office assistant Tracy the night before, and the poor woman had offered to help if I needed it, so I called her. She said she could be there in 30 minutes. A second dog might have helped, but not if that second dog was a youngster, so I nixed that idea pretty quickly. On the way back down to the round pen, I spied a metal fence panel from Cathy's hay feeder. I grabbed that up, along with some baling twine (a farmer's best friend) out of the hay room, and proceeded to tie that panel at a right angle to the inside of the round pen. I then took a short piece of field fence we had taken down to use for jerry-rigging a top for the trailer and tied that to the end of the fence panel, again with baling twine. Now all I needed was something to hold the other end of the wire vertical. I remembered seeing one of those shepherd's crook flower pot hangers in one of the sheds--it could double as a fence post to support the wire. While the ewes were moving off Twist better, they also could sense a trap and were bolting around me and the dog instead of going in (not to mention that Mark had told me the day before that they'd think nothing of jumping a fence). So time for Plan C. Cathy's hair sheep are a bit on the piggy side. So I grabbed a couple flakes of hay and threw them in the trap. Then I took Twist and rounded up the hair sheep and brought them into the round pen. They were leery of the trap too, but at least they were used to being worked by dogs. The ewes didn't want to join up with them, but with some patience I got the hair sheep in the pen, and then got the three ewes to follow. I grabbed the end of the wire and its makeshift fence post and closed the gap, effectively corralling all the sheep in a tiny space, fortunately with the sheep I wanted to the inside next to the solid round pen wall. I still had to use the crook to catch them, but I got them haltered (once you got your hands on these girls, they became amazingly cooperative) and tied them to the pen.

I sent Cathy's sheep back out and by then Tracy had arrived, so we led my three up to the trailer and hopped them on. Whew. All told it took a little over an hour. Twist and I were soaked (even though I was in a rain suit). But we got 'er done, with minimal trauma to any of us.

This week: I got my new sheep home and out in the paddock where they're quarantined. I need to shear the ram, but fortunately it's been cool and rainy, so he hasn't been suffering. It's drying off today, so I should be able to shear him tomorrow or Saturday.

I want to try Simon on sheep in the next day or so. I figured he could use a few days getting used to me and the routine here, but I am itching to see how he's like and different from Swift. He's definitely got that goofy, clueless adolescent male thing going on. And my own dogs could use some work too.

Job hunting is going slowly. This poor old dinosaur of a computer takes two minutes or more to download a page (even with high-speed access) and it's completely frustrating (as in blow-your-brains-out frustrating) to try and navigate around websites to do any job hunting. I ordered a new laptop, which was supposed to be here next week (and so I've been living with this agonzing process by telling myself "Just one more week"), but of course I just got an e-mail message saying my order is being delayed by a week. So I have no choice but to try and do it with this old clunker. If you hear gun shots coming from this direction, don't worry about me--it likely means I've reached the breaking point and put this piece o' crap out of its misery.

Sorry, I've gone on longer than I meant to. I'll post pictures of the new sheep as soon as I take some. One last item:

Reading Corner:
Currently reading The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch an In Hovering Flight, by, um, can't remember, and I think the book is out in the van, so will have to supply that information later.

That's all for now.

The View from the Top

2009-03-27T20:17:00.002-04:00

And it's certainly not what you think! But first, I know a number of you are waiting for updates on a bunch of stuff, but you'll have to bear with me a little while longer. I'll get to it, but for now I just want to make some quick comments on dog trialing before I go park myself in front of the TV to watch Moonlight.

I often set sheep for trials. I enjoy doing it, whether paid or volunteer or in exchange for some entry fees. Working at the top really does give you a whole new perspective on what dogs do at a trial. Yep, it's a real eye-opener.

The one huge fault I see over and over again is dogs who do not have proper outruns at the top. Instead of going nice and deep so they can walk in and have a nice lift, many dogs slice off the top of the outrun. Some come at the sheep straight from the side; others actually get behind their sheep, but barely. Today, the sheep were not being held on feed, and yet they were amazingly tolerant of plain bad work at the top. Of the 10 or 11 nursery dogs who ran, probably one-third actually were nice at the top. That's a very small number.

And this problem isn't just confined to nursery dogs--I see it a lot in open as well. In fact, I can pretty much predict whose dogs will be right at the top since there's so few to remember! Here in the east we use a lot of farm flocks and an unfortunate consequence of that is that we often need to hold on grain. The problem with grain is that the sheep tend to bury their faces and no dog can get a good, true lift. But a worse problem is that the sheep don't tell on all those dogs who are so bad at the top. The converse of this is that the dogs who are actually proper at the top of their outruns get no credit for being so. And that's a shame.

Of course the other down side to this is that when the sheep don't tell on the dog, all those handlers whose dogs are less than stellar at the top have no real way of knowing, unless the outrun is short enough that they can really see what's going on. At a distance it's hard to tell just how far back your dog is. Whenever I get the chance, I ask the set out person if they remember my dog and if they can tell me how things went at the top. If it's a big trial and the set out person doesn't know your dogs, you might not get much feedback. But my view from the top indicates that most handlers would be okay to assume that their dogs aren't right. I always make a point of telling handlers when their dogs are particularly good at the top because I think it's a nice thing to hear from the setout person.

So all you trialers out there, please pay attention to what your dog is doing at the top of its outrun. You might be surprised to find out that your dog isn't nearly as good there as you think it is. And although circumstances at various trials might enable your dog to get away with it, sooner or later that poor work will come back to haunt you.

RIP Albion

2009-03-06T14:13:00.006-05:00

You know how your brain will sometimes play tricks on you? Well it had snowed Monday and there was still ice in the shaded patches, so when I went out to feed last night, I wondered to myself "Wow, where did those little patches of snow/ice come from?" Then as I got closer I realized the white I was seeing was neither snow nor ice--it was feathers. I glanced off to the side and saw the source: a white chicken lay in a crumpled heap just outside the tack room door. As I got closer I could tell it was a rooster. It couldn't be! Could it?

I know I wished you dead many times, but I didn't really mean it, even if you did have a habit of stalking me and drawing blood from my ankles in your stealth attacks. And I know I'm always saying that I wish the hawks would take off the roosters and not the hens, and I really do sort of mean that, but your passing is the end of an era at Willow's Rest.

As soon as I saw that the dead bird had one thick leg, I knew it was he. He didn't have a mark on his body save for that scattering of missing feathers that I first mistook for snow. Was it a hawk? Or had he finally just jumped the wrong critter (i.e., one of the dogs)? I'll never know. But I do know that this farm's chicken flock will have a very large hole left by one very tough, small rooster. RIP Albion.

This is Albion nearly three years ago. He had been stalking Laura and me while we were out playing with Twist's new pups (hard to believe they'll be three this summer). The empty water bottle in the background was the first missile I lobbed at him. When that failed to have any effect I threw my flip flop at him, which he promptly attacked. Such a sweet fellow he was....

What ever will I do with Albion no longer here to terrorize me and any others he thought he could sucker into complacency? Oh well, there are more little evil roosters strutting around this place. I'm sure one or more of them will gladly step up to fill Albions spurs....

Spring Must Be On Its Way
As I'm typing this blog I'm looking out the window at the ram pasture. For the past several days the two rams and their wether buddy have been butting heads, chasing each other, and generally acting as if the "sap is rising," so to speak.

I posted beautiful snow pictures on Monday, and today it's a balmy 70 degrees or so. I heard spring peepers when I was out walking the dogs. And I saw that the purple martins have returned to their nesting gourds. I didn't breed much of my flock this year, and I suspect that poor Inigo wasn't terribly successful at wooing his much larger girls, so lambing will be light this year. Crazy Red had her lamb a week or so ago, and I got my hopes up when I jugged them and Crazy Red acted pretty normal around me. That lasted about a day, and then she went right back to being her crazy old self. I call her spotted red and white ewe lamb "Little Red," and I have no doubt she's learning how to be a nut from her crazy mama. Back behind the barn with Crazy Red and Little Red is Rosie, who is the daugher of Old Girl. She looks like she could lamb any day now, but she just won't go on and do it. This weekend would be perfect weather Rosie (hint, hint)!

On the Veterinary Front
I took Boy in on Wednesday to have his shoulder injected with hyaluronic acid/cortisone. So far he's still limping, but the weather was so nice when I took everyone walking earlier that I attached the flexi to him and dragged him along. I got tired of his clear reluctance about the time we got to the fork in the path and unhooked the leash, fully expecting that he would turn for home. But when the rest of us made our own turn, I saw that he had come a good way along behind us. When we turned, he turned and went back the way we came, but we all met up at the fork again, and he joined the pack for the last part of the trip. The fact that he continued on after I let him go is a good sign. Now if only that limp would disappear....

I examined Willow's thigh today, and it seems to me that the growth (for lack of a better word) might well be shrinking. Of course that could just be wishful thinking on my part. I'll check it again in a few days and see if I can detect any more changes for the better. She's due to get rechecked by Dr. Redding in another week and a half, and maybe we'll know for sure by then that the prednisone is working. I'm keeping my fingers crossed! I do want to ask him, though, how we know that it hasn't also spread internally. I'm assuming the high doses of pred would also work on anything internal, but I'd still like to know if there's a way we can tell if the recurrence is anywhere else other than her inner thigh.

Lark got over her injured toe and is solid on all fours again. Chili Pepper is back on another round of Clindamycin. The stuff tastes awful (I can smell it) and it would be nice if it could be formulated into something more palatable for cats, but it works, so she just gets a round periodically and it seems to keep her mouth under control.

Reading Corner
Gee, I don't really remember what I've read since the last time I posted about books. Right now I'm working on my "buy two, get one free" purchase that I made when Mary sent me to the bookstore. The first book of that group was The Book of Air and Shadows, by Michael Gruber (HarperCollins, 2007). Apparently this was a New York Times bestseller, and I can see why. It was an enjoyable read sort of along the lines of the Dan Brown genre: letters written in Jacobean secretary hand, some encrypted, are found behind the leather covers of a collection of antique books that were damaged aas the result of a fire. The nonencrypted letter was written by a dying soldier to his wife and is meant to give the details of his life to their young son, who will never hear these stories from his father. In the letter is mention of spying on Shakespeare as a suspected papist, and a passing reference to the existence of an unknown play, written in Shakespeare's own hand. Thus is the stage set for a mystery involving the encrypted letters, the torture death of a well-known Shakespeare scholar, a lawyer reluctantly dragged into the plot by the fact that the scholar had left papers with him right before his death, and the search the missing play. I found it very entertaining and at times hard to put down, which caused me to miss more than one full night's sleep. I haven't read anything else by this author, but wouldn't hesitate to pick up another of his books.

Right now I'm reading Portrait of an Unknown Woman, by Vanora Bennett (HarperCollins, 2008). The story centers around a woman named Meg Giggs, and adopted daughter of Sir Thomas More. It takes place place between 1527, when Hans Holbein comes to England under commission to paint a family portrait for the Mores, and 1533. This is a period of religious turmoil, when Henry VIII divorces his Spanish queen for Anne Boleyn. I am not quite halfway through, so I don't know the full story, but the author is staying true to the basic historical facts of the time, so I do know what happens to Thomas More in the end. Historical fiction is a genre I enjoy, and so far this book has not disappointed.

Next in line is Paolo Coelho's The Witch of Portobello (HarperPerennial, 2006). The Alchemist and By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept are two of my all-time favorite books, and I expect that Coelho will delight me with this work as much as he has with the other works of his that I've read.

But before I get to that book, I also have a book loaned to me by my neighbor Tony, Jane Goodall's In the Shadow of Man (Mariner Books, 2000; the original of this book was published in 1971). The books just keep piling up, but sooner or later, I'll get them all read!

A (snowy) day in the life.... (photo heavy)

2009-03-02T15:20:00.028-05:00

After something like 36 hours of rain, the precipitation turned to snow last night, and this is what it looked like this morning when I went out to feed. We so seldom get a good snow here in the south that more than a dusting is a cause for celebration (of sorts). Here Twist is holding the sheep back from the feed bunks, with Pip and Lark helping, although further back and not in the picture. I didn't really need all three dogs, but they all dashed through the gate, so I figured "what the heck."

A bunch of karakuls, with a few tunis thrown in.

Pip holding his side back behind Twist.

Looking back toward the barn.

A closer view of the karakuls.

Lark likes to lurk beside the feed bunks (like a snake in the grass, or snow, in this case), just waiting to jump out at any sheep that come near. This is all you could see of her from my side of things.

She forgot to get out of her pajamas before going to work this morning. We had no electricity for part of the night last night and into the morning, so it got kind of cold in the house.

The view back behind the barn.

A little later I took the dogs for a walk on the back part of the property. The photos chronicle are loop around and back home. This looks lovely, but the weight of the snow is no doubt the reason why we had no power....

Swift is trying to work Lark, who wants to dive into the creek, despite the cold and snow.

Hey, you're going the wrong way!

More snowy branches.

Is that a fox in the woods? No, it's just Kat.

Jill in the snow.

And another photo of the Baby Rat.

Even old dogs feel spunky when it snows!

Swift, Phoebe, and Willow.

Another one of Kat.

The "donkey-eared dog" wants to make a snow angel (that's for you Dan).

Mother and son.

Let's hope all that snow doesn't drop on Pip's head.

At last, a rare Farleigh sighting. He prefers to walk solo and so usually leaves the rest of us behind.

A lone tree that I thought was rather photogenic.

Three amigos?

My old girl, Willow. I haven't reported this on the blog, but Willow's mast cell tumor has recurred, and in an inoperable form. I don't know how much more time she has with me, but I'm hoping the treatment works and we get plenty more time together.

Some of the bee hives. Just a few days ago the bees were buzzing busily in the warm weather; now, they're tucked safely back in their hives.

Pip seems to have an unfortunate habit of posing beneath heavily snow-laden limbs.

Heading back around on the homeward path.

Cedar trees that look like fern fronds or peacock feathers.

Swift and Willow framed in snowy branches.

Twist by the creek.

Willow watching.

Sabrina and Maia. Sabrina befriended Maia when Maia first arrived at the farm. I will often see them together out in the pasture.

A pack of dogs pausing from their snow play.

Lark and Phoebe mixing it up.

Hmmm ... it looks like Lark took a tumble.

Is she giving a lecture or simply waiting for someone else to make the first move?

A Fine (Nearly) Chore Dog

2009-02-24T15:44:00.013-05:00

So it's been forever and I've been meaning to update and just haven't gotten around to it. To make up for my lack of recent entries to this blog, I have included a bunch of photos for your viewing pleasure. (The photo of Pip above, and the entire series of Pip and Phoebe, were taken by Kristie Pope at the Jack Knox clinic here in January.) I've wanted to comment on Pip's education as a chore dog here on the farm. It all started several weeks ago when I was planning to vaccinate sheep and do some other stuff, and Twist hurt her hind leg while out running around on our walk. Darn the luck. This was on a Friday, and by Saturday she looked better, but hard experience has taught me that it's best to give a few days' rest when a working dog has come up lame or you risk turning it into something that requires a lot more rest. Everybody knows I routinely rely on Twist for chores. She's my main dog, can read my mind, and just does the job right pretty much every time. For example, yesterday evening I wanted to bring in one of the Tunis ewes who is bagged up and could lamb soon. Most of the flock was over by the woods, but two of the Tunis ewes, including the one I wanted, were grazing on the hill side. There was a decent gap between them and the rest of the flock. I walked out into the pasture with Twist, sent her, and then called her in so that she would pick up just the two sheep I wanted. One of the youngsters would never have been able to do that--not because it was a terribly hard task, but because they would not have understood that I neither needed nor wanted the whole flock and so it would have been nearly impossible to send them on an outrun between two groups of sheep in the same pasture and expect them to get it right. It was way easier to bring just two ewes to the gate and let the one I wanted through than to have to sort one off at the gate with the whole flock there. That's how Twist makes my life easy on a daily basis, and it's the main reason the youngsters don't get the chore work they should, which is bad on me because I'm a firm believer in dogs learning their work through chores (tasks that make it obvious to the dog what needs to be done).

So back to Pip. Phoebe is a little wild yet for the chores that require patience, and Lark has made it patently clear that she doesn't like that kind of work (holding a flock in the corner for drenching or vaccination). Since Pip, despite his general goofiness, needs work on his confidence at the heads of sheep, it made sense to go ahead and use him to hold the sheep in the corner. It's a natural extension of the corner work we've been doing to build his confidence and get him to automatically cover when sheep bolt from the sides while the humans are busy working on a particular individual. So when we were done working dogs on the Sunday after Twist hurt herself, Laura, Darci, and I took Pip down to the "alleyway" paddock and got him to hold sheep in the corner while we wormed the lambs and vaccinated everyone.

On the way there, we cut through the paddock behind the barn and Laura worked Pip around the sheep there a bit. He is apparently something of a sheep whore. He worked for Laura as if I weren't even standing right there.

Anyway, he did his job well that afternoon, holding sheep, not pushing then over us (too much), and covering the breakaways on his own. Laura even commented on how much he reminded her of Twist doing the same job.

Since then, much to Twist's dismay, I have been trying to use Pip more for chore work. Lark has a tendency to clappiness which is only exacerbated by using her to hold sheep off feed bunks, although she and Twist make an excellent team for that job. So instead I've been taking Pip and Twist in to the main pasture to hold the main flock off the feed in the mornings. I've just started feeding them in anticipation of lambing within the next few weeks, so they've been pretty easy on Pip and he hasn't required Twist's back up. Each morning, though, the flock gets a bit bolder and soon I'll need both dogs to hold them off.

As part of the morning feeding routine, I also separate out the hair sheep from the main flock. They aren't bred and are already fat, so they don't need corn. So before we can put feed out, we go get them--either as part of the whole flock, or if we're lucky, as a separate little group, since they often tend to separate themselves from the main group. This morning was one such case. The main flock was out just past the feed bunks, and the hair sheep were below the round pen, separated from the main flock by maybe 20 yards. I sent Pip around to get the hair sheep and they bolted for the main flock. He had to flank pretty quickly in to catch them--something that would have been very easy to get Twist to do, but which took some effort on my part to get him to understand that I needed him to catch just those five sheep before they reconnected with the main flock. It wasn't as pretty as it could have been (hence the term "nearly" in the title to this entry), and I had to get a little loud with him, but we got it done, and I think he was proud of himself afterward for doing what I needed. I then took him by himself and had him push the rest of the flock back so I could dump their corn in the bunks. Calling him off when it's time to leave the pasture is always a challenge. In that respect, he is just like his mama.

The photos below were all taken on the first day of the clinic, when we were using the hair sheep. You can see additional photos on my and Kristie's Facebook accounts.

In case you're wondering about the wrap or boot (depending on the photos) on Pip's foot, the week before the clinic he managed to badly damage a toenail on that foot and had to go to the vet to have it removed. So he was pretty ouchy when anything hit the spot where his toenail used to be. On top of that, he had also managed to wear a big hole in his pad, so in order to keep him from hobbling around the field I had to wrap him.

Kristie loved Phoebe and took some nice portrait shots of her, of which this is one.

Phoebe working at the clinic.

This past Saturday, I headed up to Robin's for a dog work day. If you remember the portrait of Twist that I posted to this blog a while ago, Kay is also supposed to do a portrait of Lark (for winning the overall open ranch championship at that same trial). I asked Robin if she would try to get some nice photos of Lark for me so I could choose one for the portrait. Here are some of the photos she got. If you have a favorite, let me know!

I've promised Laura pictures of Archie, my new dorset ram lamb. Archie will be used as the terminal sire next fall on the mule ewes I'm acquiring this spring. Dorsets just look sort of dopey to me, and Archie has this sort of Don King hair do going too, but right now, while he's still relatively small (at 10 months old), he's a pretty nice fellow.

But before we get to Archie, here's a couple of pictures of Inigo (as in "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." That's for all you Princess Bride fans out there!). Inigo is also young, about nine months. I used him this fall on my karakul ewes, but he was so small compared to them that I don't know if he managed to get the job done. A few of the ewes seem to be bagging up, so we'll see. I spent a lot of time selling sheep last year, so I figured that if he didn't manage to breed a lot of ewes it would be easier on me as I don't have the pasture to support a bunch more sheep anyway.

Inigo:

Inigo and his nameless wether friend, who could go back to the main flock now that Inigo has Archie for company. (The tunis ewe in the background is the one Twist and I brought up yesterday evening.)

Ta da! Archie!

Doesn't he look like an innocent? (Although he's already starting to show wrinkles on his nose.)

Here's an OEG hen sunning herself in the ram's stall this morning.

And the evil rooster who refuses to die (and the danged hawks won't get him either): Albion

He was threatening me from the gate to the stall, but he doesn't frighten me. We've done battle numerous times, and while he's drawn blood, I usually get some good licks in too. Since I've had Lark, I've just put a command on her to get the roosters--handy for when they're fighting one another or stalking me.

My Rhode Island Red and Dominique hens are laying nearly a dozen eggs a day. I am drowning in eggs. What ever possessed me to get more than two or three hens? The RIR hens are laying beautiful large brown eggs. The Dominickers have just started laying and you can easily tell their eggs apart from those of the RIRs by size.

This Dominique hen was trying to escape being photographed, whereas the RIRs tend to be hams, as above.

Maia is taking a well-earned nap in the morning sun.

Until I disturbed her with my picture taking.

Maia isn't the only one resting in the sun, as the flock takes its morning siesta.

This afternoon I watched three--count 'em--three Cooper's Hawks circling overhead. Fortunately I have a pretty healthy crow population thanks to throwing out corn for the chickens, and they did a fine job of chasing the hawks off. I wonder if I could put a sign on Albion's back that says "Pick Me!"

Work is keeping me busy; I'm waiting for lambs; and I'm running up to Tony and Mary's in the middle of the day to check on their pregnant ewes. They've had one ewe that has already lambed--she's obviously on some sort of accelerated program. Meanwhile, Crazy Red's bag is getting bigger, but she shows no real sign of imminently dropping lambs. She had to give up her karakul lamb friends for the Tunis ewe, but so far no one has manged to have much of a calming influence on her. Let's hope her lamb(s) aren't as nutty.

And now it's time to take the dogs for their evening walk and then feed everyone, sheep and dogs alike. I'll try to give another update in less than a month this time!

In the Mind of Lark

2009-01-31T09:52:00.003-05:00

(photo by Randall Wiseman)

Note: I apparently made the pictures too large when I uploaded them and when I tried to resize them within the blog, it's made them all funky. I guess I learned that it doesn't keep the aspect ratio, even if you drag from a corner. But since it took me a good hour and half to upload all this and write the blog entry, and I have a very bad cold and am not feeling up to doing any more tonight, anyone reading this is just going to have to deal with funky photos. If I get the time and the energy tomorrow, I will try to reimport all the images in an appropriate size. Gah! :End Note

Larky, Larky, you are one impossible, funny little dog. And you are most assuredly the CUTEST DOG ON THE PLANET. You were an adorable puppy and you're still adorable, even when you're playing mind games with me and making me think I've gone mad.... Lark is the first picky eater I have ever encountered. Where Laura likes to talk about Nick and his "not food," Lark takes it a step further to This. Must. Be. Poison. Just the other night I had gotten carry out from Wendy's. Lark was begging and begging a french fry off my housemate, so he obliged. Lark took it very gingerly and within a microsecond: Ptooey! Ejection onto the carpet. That's not food! That. Must. Be. Poison. Okay, at least until Twist comes along to try and mop things up, at which point the poison french fry becomes the BEST PRIZE IN THE WHOLE WORLD! Granted, it's still inedible as far as Lark is concerned, but Twist isn't going to get it no matter what. Okay, if we want to be charitable, perhaps Lark is simply trying to save Twist from a gruesome fate from the poison french fry. Except that I've gone through this with Lark over and over again. The best way to get Lark to eat? Just make sure there's a pushy gluttonous dog around who is willing to lurk and threaten to eat Lark's food. It's clear she's eating it only to prevent the other dog from getting it. How on Earth did I end up with a dog like this? Every other dog I've ever had has been a Hoover vacuum when it comes to food. So perhaps Lark entered my life just to test my patience when it comes to feeding time.

Lark has other quirks. She is the barkingest border collie I've ever known. But barking only happens when she's playing, so at least it's not all the time.

Lark loves poultry. Today while I was cleaning all the layers of old wet straw and hay out of the ram's stall, which is also where the big chickens perch at night and nest, Lark spent the entire time eyeballing a hen sitting on a nest. Once the hen had completed her egg-laying mission and vacated the nest, Lark went over to examine the fruit of the hen's labors. No worries, though. Eggs fall into the category of food that must be poison.

Lark likes to crouch on the bank to the creek and wait for me to say "Go, Larky, Go!" before she dives into the water. She also does this at the edges of ponds. Why she feels that she needs that special encouragement is beyond me, but it clearly makes her happy, so being the easily-manipulated human, I comply.

If a cat gets into my lap or under the bedcovers with me, Lark has to get right up next to me on the other side so she can put her face as close to where the cat is as is possible. She doesn't want to touch the cat, doG forbid!, but she's got to be close.

Lark is the only one of my dogs that has figured out how to jump through the stable window to get to the paddock behind. She doesn't do this unless I am out there doing chores, but if she thinks I'm ready to go feed the sheep in the paddock, she's through the window and holding the sheep off the feed bunk patiently until I get there.

Who knows what goes on in Lark's mind?

And why this special post about Larky. Well, it's hard to believe, but Lark was born three years ago today. At the time I had just two dogs I was trialing, Twist and Kat, and no youngsters coming along. My friend Kay, who had bred Twist's litter, told me about these pups when they were already a few weeks old. It was an accidental breeding, but the dam was very closely related to Twist. And when Kay said there was a smooth-coated, tri-colored female in the litter, how could I resist? Her mom's name was Scout, taken from To Kill a Mockingbird. I like bird names, obviously, but Mockingbird is a bit long by any standard and doesn't really roll off the tongue very well. So I thought a bit, and then seeing a Meadowlark on the wire above me, decided that Lark would be a fine name, with a double entendre. The obvious meaning--the bird, and the less obvious meaning--the fact that I was taking this puppy pretty much on a lark.

So here's what Miss Larky looked like at between 5 and 6 weeks old. She was impossibly tiny. And impossibly cute. She's still pretty tiny. And she's definitely impossibly cute--the cutest dog on the planet.

This series of photos was taken the week I got her home, at 6 weeks old. She came to me that young because there was transport available, and I was dog savvy enough to deal with a young puppy, not to mention that I had a houseful of dogs to help teach her doggy manners. It had hailed right before we went out in the yard for a photo shoot. What do you think she's looking at?

And walking up on?

Yep, my tiny flock of sheep: Coalie the dorper, the four border cheviots, and the two Scottish blackface.

In the following photos Lark is between 7 and 8 weeks. She was already enjoying trips to the pond.

Of course I never spoiled her. Here she is sleeping in her wicker basket.

She adored Boy, who didn't return the sentiment.

Note that when they're this little and cute, you can get away with a rhinestone cat collar.

Snoozing next to the desk while I worked at the computer.

In the spring, I went up to help Becca shear her sheep. Lark was small enough to fit through the openings in the cattle panels of the round pen, so there was no keeping her out. Then we lost track of her. Watching us shear must have been pretty hard work--we found her crashed in a big pile of wool, dead to the world.

In May, when she was about 16 weeks old, Lark's ears started to do some amazing things. I've never seen an ear curl backward.

Note that this phenomenon switches from ear to ear. No playing favorites here. By the way, Lark is chewing on a felted wool ball that's meant to be a cat toy.

Then Lark grows up. Here she's somewhere between nine months and a year old and working my rams and wethers. She was new enough at working to still be dragging a line.

But the best part of working is the "after party" in the water tub!

In June 2007 working Tony Luper's Tunis flock.

In September 2007 working the sheep at home.

We have set up a shed, but I had to pause to get this neat photo of Lark framed by the legs of the sheep. I think Laura may have taken this picture.

Calling her through on the shed. This photo was taken by Laura Carson.

Lark last fall lying on my bed and trying her best to ignore the camera.

Besides working sheep, Lark loves to dive off the bank into the creek.

So Happy Third Birthday Miss Larky Malarkey! I may never figure out your strange little mind, but I love, love, love you anyway!