Posts from — January 2009

As I’m sitting here writing this, I have four dogs curled up at my feet.  I really shouldn’t be taking the time to write now because here it is 7:30 and I need to get out and milk Rain, feed the dogs and get them settled and then get to work this morning.

I took the time this morning to write my homeopath an update.  You may recall that she prescribed Natrum Muriaticum about ten days ago.  It has worked amazingly well.  I feel so stable and calm, but I’m laughing (a lot) and light hearted as well.  Things that may have set me off before are rolling off me like water.  It’s a good feeling.

The most wonderful thing is my sleep.  The past few nights I’ve slept soundly throughout the night.  The head cold that was starting never took hold, which is incredible!  I was expecting to suffer through eight hours of Walmart with a head cold.  Nope.  I didn’t have to take any cold medicine yesterday.

I have never been a good sleeper and to have even just a few nights where I could sleep all night is amazing.

Well, off to milk and fill up water buckets.

I went out yesterday afternoon with the intention of taking the dogs for one last run when I heard lambs calling from a different section of the field than where they should be.  I walked down with Gel (almost falling on my ass on the slippery mud going down the hill) and sure enough, the ewes and lambs had gone through the ElectroNet (which isn’t charged right now).  Shoot!

I need to get to figure out why the fence isn’t charging properly.  It could be that I need to replace the battery, but I will be engaging in the continuing saga of ElectroNet placement this weekend.  I am determined to master it!

Anyway, I walked into the field with Gel to find out where the ewes and lambs were, cussing the whole way because the wethers and young ewes were in the same field the last time I checked and I expected they would have mingled into one herd which would really suck because I’d have to separate them out again once I got them all up.  I am keeping the wethers and young ewes separate as working sheep.  I don’t want Cian or Fern working the ewes with lambs until the lambs are closer to weaning age.

When I saw the flock of ewes and lambs, I realized that they had not mingled with the wethers and young ewes who were grazing several hundred yards away.  Yea!  I carefully sent Gel out, ready to pull him in if he looked like he was going to sweep around to pick up all the sheep.  He did what I needed him to do and we brought the ewes and lambs up.

When we got up to the house, I figured what the hell, I might as well put them in the fenced-in area with the goats and Rose and see how she did with them.  There is a round bale in the chicken and duck pasture that the ewes and lambs were feeding on, but they were eating it from the inside out and I knew it was only a matter of time before the bale collapsed and I was afraid it would collapse on top of a lamb or two.

Gel pushed the flock in and I stood in there with them watching Rose.  She was curious about the ewes and lambs, but for the most part, she didn’t pay them much attention.  After a few minutes, the wether and young ewe flock came up and I put them in the chicken and duck pasture.  Then I realized two lambs were calling for their mother and she wasn’t in with them.  Shoot!  She was in the wether and young ewe flock.  I tried to get just her out, but two wethers, Joey (and he may very well have been this ewe’s lamb from last year) and one of the wethers from South Carolina came out as well.  The gate to the chicken and duck pasture is not bulky enough to sort sheep, they can push through it too easily.  It wasn’t made to stop sheep or goats.  I will be replacing that gate with an eight foot long pipe gate as soon as possible.  Then I tried to get just the ewe in to the fenced-in area, but I slipped and fell in the mud trying to hold the gate and the wethers got in there too.

Welcome to shedding practice in the real world.  It took us a while and I cranked at Gel some (remember, I was not feeling well and yes, I did catch another darned cold), but he held up to my cranking and we got the job done.

The ewes and lambs stayed with Rose all night.  As soon as it was light enough this morning, I went out to check on them and everyone is fine.  I distributed out a bale of hay and in a few minutes, I’ll go out to milk, feed all of the dogs and then take the Border Collies for a run.

I had high hopes for getting lots of things done today, but alas, was stuck in cookbooks, on-line reading recipes and making bread.  I almost threw away my sourdough starter yesterday.  It has been sitting on my counter top for quite a few days now.  I looked at it last night, smelled it (it smelled fine), stirred it up (it bubbled) so I decided what the heck, I’ll try another loaf.  This one I did completely in my bread machine (the lazy way).  It tasted fine, but the crust was a little bit too well done.  I fed the starter after I used a cup of it so I’ll try again to make a good loaf over the weekend.  I’m jealous that my friend in Canada has mastered sourdough bread from scratch (no bread machine).  Now I’ve got to keep trying.

This morning I made buttermilk and oatmeal rolls (good for sandwiches) and a loaf of wheat granola bread (great for French toast).  I used the bread machine to knead the dough and finished both in the oven.  They are very tasty.  Then I threw together some baked spaghetti and turkey meatballs.  I was going to make chicken Alfredo using goat cheese to make the Alfredo sauce, but I wasn’t terribly fond of how the “Alfredo” turned out so I reinvented the dish into baked spaghetti.  Leftovers will be spooned into jars and put in the freezer for future use.

I cooked the chicken I was going to use for the Alfredo on the grill before it started raining too hard which I’ll use that later in the week.  Maybe a good old-fashioned dinner of grilled chicken breast, baked potato and salad. Yummmm!

Not sure where all this domesticity is coming from.  I feel like I’m catching another cold (great!) so maybe I’m trying to feed the cold.  If nothing else, cooking and baking is very good for the soul.  I didn’t have time to do much cooking or baking when I was working full-time.  It’s been chilly and raining most of the day so it has been a very good day to stay inside and cook.

I’ve taken the dogs for two runs already and will take them for one more before the day is over if the rain cooperates.  Except for Gel, the other dogs are out in their runs.  They are too cruddy to come in and out.  The only dog that got any work today was Gel moving the ewes and lambs down to the ElectroNet for the day and then pushing the wethers and young ewes out into the back pasture.  I’m pleased to see that the ewes and lambs are moving very, very well off him.  His naturally good pace is ideal for moving young lambs.

The weekend is supposed to be sunny and I hope to get some pictures of the ewes and lambs up.  We’ve got the prettiest crop of lambs this year.

Until later …

This was the hot topic on Sheepdog-L last week.  There was an on-line article from a UK publication that said that purebred dogs are becoming dumber and dumber …

Is the dumbness (if it indeed exists and I think it does) truly the result of breeding for purebred dogs or is there more involved here?

What about vaccinations?  Something that purebred (and other) dogs get lots of.  There’s no question that the additives in vaccines can cause brain damage, not to mention damage from the virus itself (as in the rabies and distemper vaccines).

What about diet?  You are what you eat and there are studies that show that certain amino acids, only found in meat, improve brain development.  Some high end kibble manufacturers add these amino acids, but are they as bioavailable to the dog in their altered form?

What about environment?  Is sitting in a crate or kennel most of the day conducive for brain development?

The brain of the domestic dog is considerably smaller than that of its ancestor, the wolf.  Why do wolves have to be smarter than domestic dogs?  Because they have to take care of themselves and survive or is it because they are not receiving an annual cocktail of vaccinations and consuming real food (meat)?

When this topic got going, I unsubscribed from daily e-mail from that list.  I just couldn’t stand reading the holier-than-though posts from the self-proclaimed sheepdog Gods that were appearing.  Of course the AKC vs. ISDS-style herding trials got into the discussion.  What does trialing have to do with dumb dogs?  Of course, I will admit that it doesn’t take much of a dog to run an AKC herding trial and it takes a lot more dog (training, ability and yes intelligence) to run an ISDS-style trial, but are these people who are breeding for the ideal working Border Collie doing them any more justice than those breeding for looks?

I’m not sure … but quite frankly, I am not sure do not think breeding dogs, cats or even horses, for anything that a human wants or desires these days is in the best interests of the animals involved.

There’s been so much going on in my life lately that I had forgotten about this discussion and about unsubscribing to Sheepdog-L.  This morning, it came back to me and I realized, shit, I don’t miss reading those posts, I truly don’t.  I don’t miss reading any of the Border Collie Boards.  It’s all just one person’s opinion over another that often ends up in mud slinging.  I truly wish for a simpler existence, one where I work my dogs for the joy of working them, watching them progress, knowing that they are doing what they were bred to do.  I will not deny that breeding for working Border Collies is something that was, at one time, a good thing and of course that they should be preserved, but there’s too darned many people doing it these days and many of them are breeding for all the wrong reasons.  The days of true working farms are getting numbered.  There are going to be fewer and fewer homes for these dogs, why breed more?

Oh, I forgot, for the money and prestige.

Onyx decided that he was going to go missing yesterday morning.  He must have realized that I don’t check out his testicles (making sure both had dropped) without good reason.  When 12:00 rolled around and he still hadn’t reappeared, I called the vet to reschedule.  A few minutes after I hung up the phone, Onyx came in through the cat door.  He’s a cat, what can I say.  You can’t make plans around cats.

As it turns out, it works out better.  I rescheduled for Sunday afternoon and Wally will go with me because we are going to bring her LaMancha buck back with us.  He’s been getting out of her fence so she’s decided to sell him.  I thought I’d put him in with my does (he can’t get out of my fence) for a week or so to see if Rain will cycle and go ahead and breed her then Wally will take him to the sale.  I want to try to space out my goat breeding plans so I have the chance of having at least one doe milking all year round.  I am not so sure Rain is going to cooperate.  I haven’t seen her cycle since she’s been here.  Maybe living with a buck will do it.  If not, then nothing lost.

I took the time yesterday to bake a couple of loaves of bread and make two Shepherd’s Pie casseroles.  One to eat this week and one to go in the freezer. I work today from 10:30 to 2:30, off Wednesday, then a long day on Thursday and another short day on Friday, then off for the weekend and a multitude of projects for the weekend.

A farmer’s work is never done …

They are both kicking my butt!!

Wally and I have talked numerous times about what the best way of setting ElectroNet might be because I’d really like to get it down to a science.  My sheep population is going to explode here soon (we have lambed out 25 ewes, many of them lambing out twins).  Add that number to the 15 I already have over here and we are getting close to 100 sheep.  That is a good thing, but I’ll really need to be able to set and re-set my ElectroNet with as little frustration as possible.

It seems a simple matter: you string the net out, place the poles in the ground, set a T-post on each corner, connect the next net to the first and so on.  No problem, right?  If you use four sets of ElectroNet, one would think you could make a nice square and be all done, right?

Wrong.

Wally was supposed to help me this Sunday set it up so we could work on the method that we had talked about, but something came up that he had to deal with so I was out there by myself this afternoon.  I set the first line in what I thought was a straight line.  Set the T-post, ran the second line, set another T-post, ran the third and when I got done setting the third line, I realized there was no way I had anywhere near a square and that the fourth line wasn’t going to connect with the first.  Shoot!

I sat on the ATV and contemplated.  What went wrong?  I know:  the field I was setting the fence in was crooked!

Wally came back over to help and looked at my lines and said they were no where near straight.  Great.  I can’t draw a straight line any more than I can walk one or see one.  No wonder why I can’t see lines on a trial field (sheepdogs) and make panels.  Walking straight lines must be a man thing.

So, he walked the line while I stayed in place and set the T-posts.  We strung two lines and decided that we were going to use surveyor’s string to run the last two lines.  I ran up to the Christmas Tree Farm to get the fourth set of ElectroNet while he cut the surveyor’s string.  When I got back, he was doing it the man’s way: he had set the third line and said to me that he’d bet me a cold beer that the fourth line would match up.

Guess who won the beer?  Too bad it was too cold out there to enjoy a cold beer.

So we re-set the lines again.  It is finally set, the square isn’t perfect, but it’s close.  We will spend time next weekend with surveyor’s string to get it fixed.  The plan is to have linked three squares marked off in the back field so that we can move the net weekly (or sooner).  This afternoon wasn’t as frustrating as it could have been because the grass wasn’t tall enough to have to mow before setting the fence.  Normally, I’d have to mow paths, set the fence, mow more paths when I discovered the fence wouldn’t connect, etc.  No fun, but what else do I have to do on the weekend?

What else do I have to do on the weekend?  Certainly not make sourdough bread.  It’s a good thing I have animals who are more than happy to eat my mistakes.

This past week I contacted a man in Asheville who made a lot of bread (including sourdough) and baked it in a wood-fired oven.  We talked for almost an hour about how to make sourdough.  It seemed easy enough.

Wrong.

I’ve decided to give up on sourdough making until it’s warmer.  I don’t think my house is warn enough this time of year for sourdough to ferment properly.  Making a loaf of sourdough bread takes at least three days and this is with a starter already prepared.  First you take the starter out of the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature.  Room temperature usually means at least 70 degrees and my house is no where near 70 degrees this time of year.  Keeping it in my oven with the light off is too warm for sourdough.  After the starter gets to room temperature, you feed it.  Then you let it rest back in the refrigerator, then you take it back out again and pour off the amount of starter that you need, and start your bread making.  The bread has to get to a certain state, then you put it back in the refrigerator, take it out the next day, let it rise, then you can finally bake it.  Or something along those lines, I cannot recall now the exact procedure.

It’s frustrating as all heck.  Bread making is truly a lost art, at least real bread making.  If nothing, it draws my attention to how industrialized the United States is.  It is too easy to walk into a store and buy a loaf of bread that has been made in a bread factory.  Working at Walmart makes me realize how truly industrialized (and over-stuffed) the United States is.  I check out so many loaves of white bread, as well as gallons of milk, dozens of white factory-farmed eggs and of course billions of bottles of soda.  Lots of people use food stamps.  I remember when food stamps were really stamps, now they are like credit (or debit) cards.  I see people go through checking out as many as ten bottles of soda using food stamps.  That along with Debbie Cakes, white bread, factory-farmed eggs, Velveeta cheese, etc.  You get the picture: all ultra-processed or factory-farmed food.  Yuck!

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against food stamps or the people who use them.  I do hate the two liter bottles of soda, white bread and factory-farmed eggs and I see a lot of that go through.  I am very happy to get home to my fresh eggs, goat milk and even though they are failed attempts so far: my sourdough bread.

So back to the drawing board on both the ElectroNet and bread making front.  I have a bread making book on reserve at the local library which I hope to get over to get tomorrow.  I am driving to Lenoir (about an hour away) to meet with the vet that I bought Luna and Penny from.  She’s going to neuter both Onyx and Mr. Red for the price of the anesthesia and a pound of cheese per cat.  Pretty good, huh?  I really like her so it will be nice to visit.

Everything is good here on the dog front.  I have been busy with other things over the past few days and haven’t worked them much other than to move stock around as needed.  I used Cian tonight to put the sheep up and his work seemed much more thoughtful and calm.  He seems much calmer lately.  He still enjoys running, but he isn’t running around the house in such a manic way as he once was.  Maybe the remedy is working?  Only time will tell.

Walmart loaded me up with hours over the next couple of weeks.  They have me working 36 hours the second week of February!  I don’t know what’s up with that.  I’m not going to complain about it, given I’m lucky to have the job.  I told them that if they needed to schedule me for more hours (I am only supposed to be working 16 hours a week), then it was fine.  The good thing is that they have me working on one end of the day or the other (i.e. early morning to early afternoon or late afternoon to late night [yuck!]) so I will have some time to train during that week.  Working 9 to 5 makes training difficult during this time of year due to lack of light, but the days are getting much longer!  Wally and I were out setting fence until about 6 PM and it was still light.  Cool!

Until later …

Gel is becoming a very useful lambing dog.  I’ve always used him when I had to work with ewes and lambs because he was the only dog I had who could do the job, but this year, I can see that he’s finally become very good at the job.

We lost a lamb on Saturday and another one yesterday morning.  I met Wally at his house yesterday afternoon to take a close look at all of the ewes and lambs to see if there was any issues that we could see.  We know who the lamb who died on Saturday belonged to: one of the black-headed “Mexican Jumping Bean Sheep.”  She’s a first time mother so it isn’t a big deal that she lost the one lamb, but Wally thought that she wasn’t nursing the one that she had remaining so we needed to see if this was true or not.  The lamb seems fine and we did see her nurse from her mother as well as another young black-headed ewe.  The mother was looking a bit underweight, but her eyelid color is okay and she is eating so hopefully she’ll be okay.

We don’t know who the lamb who died yesterday belonged to.  Wally and I were going to be better about tagging and marking the lambs when they were born, but alas, we didn’t do it.  Maybe next year.

We could have brought the ewes and lambs into the barn and checked them over, but the light isn’t very good in there so I had Gel bring them into a small paddock in the full sun.  It was still pretty cold yesterday so being in the full sun was ideal.

One of the dog-broke Dorpers that I bought a few years ago tried to run Gel around a bit, but he managed to stay out of her way all the while keeping her in the paddock and not allowing the others to escape.  An older black-headed Dorper charged him a couple of times, but gave that up quickly.  Not once did Gel connect with his teeth.  I don’t have to say anything to him when we are holding sheep in an area for inspection.  He knows he needs to keep them in place and does his job while we do ours.  A few lambs tried to run out, but he gently pushed them back in.

After we were through I used Gel to keep the sheep off me when I fed them grain.  He loves that job!

The most important thing that I saw yesterday was that his tail was in a better position than it has been in the past.  Often when doing tense work like this, his tail would be up, almost level with his back, but yesterday, it was down for the most part.

Gel is growing up, maturing and relaxing in his job.

Now I need to think about which dog to start to train up to back him up if needed.  I don’t know that Cian is going to be able to do the job, but Fern should be able to.  I won’t put Fern on ewes and lambs for another year or so.  No sense in putting her in that type of tense situation until she’s a bit older.  I didn’t have a choice with Gel as he was the only dog I had.

As I write this, Cian and Fern are out in a run and Gel is at my feet.  I already took them for a run and unfortunately, Cian broke a toe nail this morning.  The ground is very hard.

I’m still in organization and cleaning mode.  I went through my office yesterday and cleaned a lot of extra stuff out.  I have several bags of trash and one for Goodwill to take out.  It’s been a good experience getting this done.  I work tomorrow 9:30 to 5:30 and am off Saturday and Sunday.  Not sure what’s up for this weekend yet.

Just got off the phone with her and it never fails to amaze me how good I feel when I hang up.  There have been some recent changes in my life that I am not at liberty to discuss here.  There may come a time when I can discuss them, but not now.

My homeopath switched my remedy from Selenium (which helped a bit, but not a lot) to Natrum Muriaticum which is common salt (prepared homeopathically). My case has evolved in a very classic manner. An acute injury (the finger) lead to my constitutional treatment and each change in my life (the one mentioned above) lead my homeopath to prescribe a remedy which seems best suited to the particular set of symptoms I am exhibiting at the time.  What this is doing is peeling off layers of “dis-ease” which will hopefully eventually lead to a complete cure.

Even though I have ups and downs, I am better than I was several months ago so I know homeopathy is working.

In addition to my case, we talked a bit about Fern’s diarrhea (which has resolved) and Cian’s issues.  I told her that I was frustrated with him and felt like I couldn’t make him better.  She told me I couldn’t save the world, but I told her that I also didn’t feel like I should send him back to Wally’s.  We talked about his manic running as well as his other symptoms (including peeing in his crate) and she suggested I give him a dose of Lyssin.

How interesting is it that a dog that I cannot seem to let go (even though he often drives me mad) is going to go on a remedy that in the past has done so much for me?  There are no mistakes in life, absolutely everything happens for a reason.

I spoke to the vet that I bought Penny and Luna (goats) from and we made plans for me to go out on Monday to get Onyx and Mr. Red neutered.  It’s time.  Their urine is starting to smell.

I’ve spent most of the day watching the inauguration.  It’s been interesting.  I have a loaf of sourdough bread rising in the bathroom that I make cheese in, but I don’t think it’s going to come out right (again!).  I also have a batch of cheese processing.  Soon I’ll go and make myself a meatloaf for supper.  It was the bread that helped to lead my homeopath to Natrum Muriatricum.  I told her I was having a hard time mastering sourdough and she asked why I didn’t just not eat bread.  I told her I could not, that I had to have bread, potatoes, tomatoes, etc. in my diet.

My homeopath is the best thing since sliced bread!

We got a dusting of snow last night.  It’s pretty.  I haven’t seen snow in several years now.  I don’t think Fern has ever seen it.

Here it is almost 9:00 and I haven’t gone out to milk yet.  I think I’m still recovering from the emotional weekend.  I slept until 8:15 which is almost unheard of for me.

I left the sheep up at the Christmas Tree Farm last night and I’ll need to go up and get them when I finish milking.  They were in the one field that Gel has trouble finding them and getting them out of.  One day I’m going to set up my 16 foot step ladder on the highest point of the property I live on to see if I can see where the sheep are when I send Gel for them so I can properly direct him.  The poor dog ran his tail off trying to find them on his own last night.  I finally started the ATV and helped him.  I eventually saw them, but Gel did not so I sent Fern for them.  She’s going to be a good outrunning dog.  She can probably do the outrun required for a Nursery dog, not that I’m going to run her in Nursery except for maybe her last year at which point she’ll be three (she’ll turn three on August 7, 2010).

Cian stayed home in his run when I went out on the ATV.  I’m trying a different experiment with him.  His “running” is going to occur while working sheep in my fenced-in area.  No more working in an open field for him for a while now.  I want to see if I can channel some of that drive to run into focus on sheep.  I tried it the other way, letting him run to his heart’s content, but the issue hasn’t improved.

I am afraid, however, that I may not be able to resolve his issues: that the drive to work that I thought I was seeing is nothing more than a drive to run: that he’s simply a running fool (emphasis on “fool”).  It doesn’t matter, however, he’ll stay here, I just won’t work him on sheep.

I am planning to spend some time today watching the inauguration.  This election year is history in the making.  I’m very excited to see what Obama is able to do to fix the problems Americans are suffering with today.  Unfortunately, however, I don’t think Obama has a magic wand and that may be what it’s going to take.

I cleaned and rearranged more than half my kitchen cupboards yesterday.  That was a good thing.  I’ll finish the kitchen this AM and then go on to my spare bedroom tomorrow.

On the cat front, I’ve been speaking with a woman who has a very ill Siamese cat.  She’s been from conventional vet to conventional vet to conventional vet and I’m sure spent many thousands of dollars trying to get the cat healthy.  She finally bought my book, the grinder and all the ingredients to make a raw diet.  Luckily, her cats were happy to switch to raw (many are not), but the very sick cat is still having issues.  Granted, he’s only had a few meals of raw and was just switched to raw from one of those alphabet soup special formulas that conventional vets sell.  I forwarded her information on to my homeopath to see if she’s willing to take the case, but my gut feeling is that she will not.  It is unfortunate that so many people discover raw diet and homeopathy when they finally realize that conventional medicine is not helping the animal and may in fact be doing harm.

This morning I wrote the woman and told her that switching to a raw diet and using homeopathy isn’t about how much money you can spend or doing anything for the animal: it’s very much a mental approach, it is spiritual in nature.  You have to believe that feeding raw and using homeopathy is the answer so that you don’t fret when you don’t see immediate results (as this woman is doing) and don’t run to the closest conventional vet when you decide that homeopathy isn’t working.  Taking a natural approach to rearing takes time and commitment.  You can’t just go about it willy nilly.

The odd thing about switching cats to a raw diet when compared to switching dogs is that cats who have had nothing but soft stools for years can be switched to a raw diet and have perfectly formed stools (the Siamese I speak of above did just that).  With dogs it’s the exact opposite.  Few dogs can go from kibble to raw without having a few days of diarrhea.  I love to see one that does (Cian did) because that means to me that they have reasonably healthy digestive tracts.  Remember, dogs have been domesticated longer than cats and has such have more kibble-fed generations behind them.  The longer a species is fed inappropriate food, the less healthy future generations are going to be.

The past few weeks book sales have gone up and I’ve been getting more e-mails asking for help.  I wonder if something isn’t in the air?  Maybe the time for change?

Until later …

I’ve decided to get my butt in gear and do some organization.  My pantry and kitchen cabinets are a disaster area.  My spare bedroom is the same way.  Time to get my life in better order.  I have everything out of my pantry and am going through it and throwing away things that I’ll likely never use, putting small items in labeled storage boxes, etc.  It will be nice to get it done.

This weekend I knew I had a bottle of salsa in my cabinet, but do you think I could find it?  It’s irritating to not be able to find things and even more irritating to think you are out of something, buy more, only to find you have two boxes of the same item already in the cabinet.

I may end up getting a roommate down the road and in order for another person to live here, I need to get my stuff more contained.  Like everyone else, I have too damned much stuff.

On the Cian front, I haven’t worked him on stock for several days now.  This morning, after I got finished milking, I brought Cian into the fenced in area with me and did some training.  I did a lot of close work with him, frequently sending him between the stock and the fence.  He does that fine.  Whenever I saw him getting ready to zone out, I reflanked him, thus redirecting his mind (I think) back to the task at hand.  Then we did some gate sorting.  I’m going to do some similar exercises with him tonight when I go out to milk.

We’ll see how it goes.  I am determined to bring out what I know is in that dog.