Posts from — February 2009

Penny (goat) had two buck kids today.  I’m getting better at reading my stock.  When I headed off to work today, I looked at her and thought to myself, I’ll bet she has her babies today.  I was right.  Unfortunately this is a miserable day to have babies.  Wally put her up in the small dog run this afternoon so she’s in a dry, warm place.  I plan to leave Dusty out with her mother tonight.  They are still calling for three to six inches of snow tonight into tomorrow.  That will be way cool!

I got off work at 1:00 yesterday, did a few errands, then came home and did a few things around the house.  When Wally got off work we went to visit with his mother and then stopped by a house we’ve driven by numerous times that had a goats for sale sign out.

They were Pygmy goats and in very good shape.  She wanted $40 for the does and $35 for the one billy.  That was a bit high and we tried to talk her down, but only got to $35 if we bought five of them.  I’m not sure that’s worth it.  We need to get a reasonably priced Pygmy goat to butcher and see how much meat we get off it.  I’m thinking the bone to meat ratio on a smaller goat is going to result in more meat to bone, but you still are not going to get much meat off a 40 pound (live weight) goat.  I think we are going to need to wait until after Easter for the prices to come down before we can find reasonably priced goats.

When we got home we walked down to the back to get the sheep with Kessie and Fern.  It went okay, but not great.  Fern worked well, Kessie was a running fool.  When we got up to the house I put Fern up and just worked Kessie.  Again, it was okay, but not great.  After I put the sheep up I decided that I’m going to leave Cian and Kessie off sheep until the lambs are a bit older, the grass is more available and things in general settle down.  This flock is simply inappropriate to work inexperienced dogs on.  I’ll keep using Fern when I have to, but in general, she’ll stay off them too.  This means Gel needs to step up to the plate and stay there.  Hear me Gel?

Wally and I were going to go down in the back pasture early this morning and reset the ElectroNet before I had to go to work.  We drove to the corner store and got a cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich, came back and I milked and got the chickens and ducks settled.  It had been raining the whole time, not a heavy rain, but steady enough that we’d be soaked if we were out in it for more than a few minutes.  I looked at Wally and asked if maybe we were being a bit too ambitious thinking we were going to get that fence set before I had to get ready for work and he agreed.  So we came back inside, I made yogurt with the milk I got this morning and have been answering e-mail and catching up on some on-line reading.  Soon I’ll have to go and get ready for work. The sheep will have to stay up today.  They are not going to die from it.

It’s supposed to rain all day today and into tomorrow and possibly change to snow Sunday night.  Right now they are calling for up to five inches of snow.  That ought to be neat, if we get it.  They are talking about AM snow showers on Monday.  Hopefully that won’t cancel my agility class.

I called Marcus last night to check on Esme (she’s doing well) and because I had a barter proposition for him.  Anyway, I asked him if he’d be willing to bring in two more loads of dirt to fill in holes in my agility field.  He has the equipment to do this work and it wouldn’t be a difficult job for him.  I feel that hauling in two loads of dirt and spreading it would be worth what he still owes me for the puppy.  He agreed to do the work and I asked him when he might be able to do it.  He said possibly the end of next week.  I could get dirt hauled in and spread it on my own, but that would be a momentous task, something I’m not quite up to.  We’ll see how that goes.

I still feel a bit guilty about asking Marcus for money for this puppy, but I know he’s extraordinarily happy with her, even though she’s the result of a father/daughter breeding, she’s from good bloodlines, both of her parents are solid working dogs, I shouldn’t feel guilty about it.  It’s best, I think, to ask at least some amount of money for an animal before placing it.  Giving animals way tends to make them more disposable to some people.  When I first quoted the price to Marcus, he didn’t hesitate at all about paying it.  When he came to get her, I told him that he could get me a .22 rifle as payment.  I no longer have a need for a rifle and told him that so we were back to monetary payment.  I think having him do the dirt hauling and leveling (which is his day job) would work out well for all concerned.

Oh, the prices were high last night.  I couldn’t believe some of the sorry animals that went through that ring went for as high as they did.  I was hoping to score a goat or sheep to bring home to butcher for the dogs and cats, but they were going for close to $2/pound live weight.  I think the prices were higher because Easter is around the corner. I told Wally we should have brought our entire flock and sold them so we could go on a cruise with the money.

Ha! Ha!

Our goal is to sell whatever we need to sell out of the house so our animals do not end up in that Hell hole of a sale barn and believe me, it is a Hell hole.  I have never seen such disregard for animal life as I see there and it upsets me quite a bit.  This is only my second time going and it is likely I’ll never go again.

You may recall that I went to look at chickens.  I looked.  Most were roosters.  If Wally and I had perfected our rooster killing technique I might have been willing to stick around to see what the roosters went for, but it got late and my allergies were getting to me so we ended up heading out around 9:30.

On the way to pick up the sheep we were delivering to the sale I saw six large bags of leaves on the curb.  Leaves! Compost! Mulching material!  Yea!  I tried to convince Wally to swing back by there before the auction to pick up the leaves before someone else took them, but I was not successful.  Luckily they were still there when we headed home and luckier still that Wally has a full-size truck because we just barely got them all on the truck. We struck gold!

My garden is what is called a no-till garden.  I never till it; I just add more mulch material to it to build it up.  The mulch keeps in moisture and builds very rich soil.

When Wally got out of work yesterday afternoon I called him and told him I bought him some pets.  You may recall not too long ago I traded Mr. Red, a long-haired red cat for two short-haired black cats.  Wally still teases me about my two-for-one deal.  He thinks I got stiffed, but I think I got a bargain, I traded one cat for two, isn’t that a bargain?  Anyway, I’m sure Wally was expecting to come home to find more cats.  Instead I lead him down to the compost pile and lifted the metal container I placed over it and showed him a big old mass of writhing Red Wiggler Worms.  Red Wiggler Worms are composters extraordinaire.  I bought two pounds of them a few days ago and they arrived yesterday. I am sure they are happily dining away on the compost that has been piling up.

Fern saved the day this morning.  Gel was being less than effective at bringing the sheep down this morning and I didn’t have time to fool around with him.  So I calmly put his butt up in his run and brought out Fern.  She was a bit over her head especially since Gel had got the chocolate ewe riled up and she charged Fern a few times.  I finally went and caught her lamb and carried it into the ElectroNet and Fern was able to get the rest of the sheep up.  Later on when I called Wally to let him know I got everyone up, he told me, and I agree, that I need to focus on getting Fern and hopefully Cian and Kessie trained up enough that they can do the job in a pinch.  Who knows what was wrong with Gel this morning, but he’s staying up for the rest of the day.  I’ll use Fern and Kessie to bring the sheep up tonight.

Gel and I do have a very good relationship and 95 percent of the time he does all I need him to do, but there’s probably always going to be that 5 percent of the time that he’s going to bomb out on me.  Early on in our training career, I let Gel quit on me and, like with Kessie, I was too hard on him sometimes.  Luckily, dogs are very forgiving.  I wish humans were as forgiving.

Until later …

People (and dogs and other animals) are put into your life for a reason.

I bought Kessie from her breeder based on pedigree alone.  I was convinced that a dog with a stellar pedigree would be an amazing stock dog.  That is, of course, true to some extent, but it is also not true.  There are lots of dogs with stellar pedigrees who are lousy on stock and just as many dogs with unknown pedigrees who are absolutely amazing.  I firmly believe that a big part of the success of a dog in any venue has a lot to do with the relationship between the dog and the handler.

For example, I bought Gel as an agility and obedience dog.  He was sold to me by a very competent trainer and stock dog handler as an agility prospect because she didn’t believe he’d make a good stock dog.  In her hands, he likely wouldn’t have, but in my hands, he’s a great stock dog.  We have a very close relationship that is ever growing and changing.  He’s also a good agility dog.  Obedience, well, I just don’t have the patience for that and I do think that obedience training is detrimental to stock work.  I do not think agility training is.

But Kessie was bought for stock work and I was overly excited about getting her, expecting miracles, started her way too soon, put too much pressure on her and she didn’t take it well.  I almost sold her to a handler in Nevada.  I would have recouped all the money I had into her and then some, but I was afraid that the handler who wanted Kessie ultimately wouldn’t be happy with her and I didn’t want Kessie to become one of those Border Collies who is sold on down the road again and again and again.  I owed her more than that.  So I traded with Wally.  I got four young goats and he got Kessie.  I never regretted that decision.

Wally loves that dog.  Except for regular farm chores (and that is a recent need) Wally had no need for a stock dog and wasn’t interested in training one for stock work.  So, for something to do with Kessie, he started to do fly ball.  It is no secret that I despise fly ball, but if that’s what you or anyone else wants to do with a dog, then by all means do it.  I personally hate it and I think it makes some dogs flaming lunatics.  I saw a difference in Kessie’s demeanor when Wally started to do fly ball with her.  She was always a very excitable dog and fly ball fed that.  Early on, Kessie was a fly ball star, but Kessie started to do fly ball Kessie’s way and she had to be pulled from competition.

All along I felt that I didn’t give Kessie a chance, was too hard on her and when the opportunity came up for me to take on Cian (Kessie’s brother) I jumped at the chance.  It has been a hard road and I’ve considered giving up on him many times, but he’s still here and I am committed to doing what I can with him.  Who knows, he may surprise me one day.  He has a lot of Kessie’s characteristics, but he’s a much harder dog than Kessie.  One of the complaints I had about Kessie was that when corrected, she held grudges.  That’s tough to work through.  One thing that I’ve learned since then is that it’s better to keep the dog in the position of being right so that you don’t have to use corrections.  That’s quite easy to do with agility training, quite a bit harder to do in stock work.  The more I learn about training stock dogs, however, the more I realize that it is quite possible to keep a dog in a right place so you don’t have to use corrections which is imperative to build confidence and relationships.

Many people are guilty of starting a dog on stock too young.  For all the talk I did about it, I started Fern too young and put too much pressure on her.  Luckily, I didn’t cause any harm and she’s working just fine, but I’m extremely careful about what I do with her so that I don’t cause any harm.  Many people would have Fern up and ready to run trials at her age, but I’m not worried about it.  Ha!  Having limited finances has put a serious damper on my ability to do trials so I am not at all driven to push her.

Both Cian and Kessie are at good ages (they turned two in September) to start to do serious stock work.  There is no reason to do a lot with Fern who won’t be two until August.  Of course, there’s always Gel to work with as well.

Due to personal reasons, Kessie is now here with me and I have free rein to train her for whatever I want, be it agility or stock work or both.  While I might be able to do something agility-related with Cian, I know what battles to pick and that is one that I might not have a chance in Hell of winning.  Kessie, on the other hand, was brought up by me until she was close to six months old and she had a lot of the puppy foundation training put on her.  She knows what a clicker is and I did a lot of shaping work with her.  She’d likely make a nice agility dog.

The problem is, training an agility dog is so damned much work.  It takes a lot (A LOT) of time and I don’t know that I can get myself in that mindset.  However, agility foundation work would do wonders for Kessie (and Fern’s) confidence and their (more so Kessie) relationship with me.

My good friend Helene who lives in Canada has a half sister to Kessie and Cian.  She’s done amazing things with that dog, a dog that I told her on numerous occasions that she should send back to her breeder, but Helene has been persistent and her dog has come a long, long way.  She’s still screwy (as are Cian and Kessie) but she’s much closer to a normal dog thanks to Helene’s training and patience.  Helene is much more of a positive trainer than I am.  I try to be positive, but I’m quite impatient and lean towards compulsive training which isn’t a good thing.

I had been thinking about this before I read Helene’s Blog entry today on puppies and pressure (we’ve discussed this topic many, many times) and then read the link to Susan Garrett’s entry on the three crucial keys to agility greatness.  I love her reference to “sexy stuff.”  She doesn’t know sexy stuff until she sees a Border Collie that she trained outrun 300 yards and fetch sheep to her.  Now that’s sexy and that’s where there’s often way too much pressure put on young Border Collies.  They are pushed out too fast, too soon and things fall apart.  I’m terribly guilty of that myself.  Nothing, I mean nothing, is more beautiful than watching a Border Collie lay down a perfect outrun.  All of my dogs are beautiful, natural out runners, it’s bred into them, but while the young ones can outrun 200-300 yards, they don’t have the confidence to finish the task.  Out running is one thing, lifting and fetching is another.

Helene mentioned in another entry that she was re-reading Susan Garrett’s book Shaping Success for inspiration.  This is a book that I’ve read and re-read myself many, many times, but I haven’t been so good about following through with the foundation training detailed in that book.  Susan Garrett is a brilliant, but somewhat obsessive trainer.  She’s been extremely instrumental in the agility community for designing training programs that break down complex behaviors, like weave pole training (using her 2 x 2 weave pole method), into small enough increments so that the dog can learn this complex behavior in a simple, yet solid way.  Who would have thought of making a game out of the basic behavior of going in and out of a crate?  Susan Garrett did and published a DVD on these games which is selling very, very well.  I don’t know a lot about Crate Games but I understand from those who have seen the DVD that it’s a wonderful method to build both drive and control.

At this time, Helene is fostering a young Border Collie that she’s named Kestral (”Kess”) so we now both have a Kess in our lives.  How weird is that?  Helene is starting foundation training with Kess and plans to do stock work with her when they unfreeze up there in Canada (which I believe happens sometime in June or July).  I just wrote Helene and issued a Kess Challenge.  How about if each of us work our individual Kess dogs in foundation work, such as the things detailed in Shaping Success and compare notes.  While I am not terribly busy these days, I tend to create a lot of work for myself.  Some of it necessary and good, some of it worthless.  This interferes with my training time and I know all of my dogs would benefit from daily, structured training, even if it is not stock work.  It doesn’t take more than a few minutes a day to get training sessions in for each dog and foundation training really burns out their brains.  I am good about getting daily physical exercise in (if I didn’t it would be hard to live with them), but I’ve been guilty, especially lately, about letting the dogs have too much time on their own.  Border Collies, especially four of them together, left on their own for too much time get into way, way, way too much trouble.  There are small holes being dug in the front yard (Kessie’s work, but she’ll tell you that she’s digging them so the cats can wallow in them [which they do]), crap strewn all over the yard (they are all guilty of that), fence fighting with the neighbor’s dogs, barking, etc.  Just this morning I called them in after writing my earlier post and found that Fern had been down in the stream that feeds the pond and was covered in mud.  Lovely.

Anyway, I’m sure Helene will accept my challenge and will do a much better job at it than I will, but she’s a much better trainer than me.  She’s got a lot of years on me in the dog training department, but I’m a quick learner.  My instructor in Salisbury is gearing up for more agility classes and just added a Monday morning class that I plan to attend with Gel.  She’s also going to be doing a 2 x 2 weave pole workshop in the next month or so and I plan to take that with both Fern and Kessie.  Fern would just burn an agility field up if I could get my ass in gear and train her.

Does this mean I’m giving up on stock work?  No, it just means I’m broadening out the dogs’ and my horizon.  You cannot do enough with these dogs.  They are like sponges.  The more you do with them, the better they are and ultimately, the better I will be.  Also, in the grand scheme of things, if I’m ever going to trial again, I enjoy agility trials a whole Hell of a lot more than USBCHA (herding) trials.

Until later …

I love food.  I love to cook.  I love to read cook books.  I had quite a bit going on yesterday in the food department.  I suppose if anyone walked into my kitchen while I was preparing food (note, the term “food” is generic here, it may be for humans or animals) they might be a bit concerned, but I have yet to get sick from raw meat nor has anyone I’ve cooked for so I guess it’s okay.

I’m still struggling in the bread making department.  Can’t quite let go of the crutch of the bread machine.  I’ve graduated to making the bread in the machine using the dough cycle and then finishing it in the oven which results in a nicer loaf.  Must take the plunge and try it kneading by hand.  I’ve ogled Kitchen Aide mixers, but that isn’t in the budget right now.

After going through my bread machine cook book and taking stock of what was in my pantry, I chose to make sweet potato bread (a recipe that I’d made before).  It came out phenomenally.  So, what goes good with sweet potato?  Why black beans and grilled chicken.  I had a half gallon of butter milk in my refrigerator that I needed to use up.  My butter milk from goat milk had gone bad because I hadn’t used it up so I needed to make another batch which I did yesterday.

I four whole chickens defrosted for the dogs as well as several zip lock bags of chicken heart and liver.  I cut the breast meat off the chickens and then marinaded them in butter milk, some herbs, honey and Dijon mustard.  I hadn’t done this before and didn’t know how it would come out.  In addition to the chicken, I spiced up some black beans (from a can), added some diced tomatoes and heated some sweet potato fries in the oven.  The chicken breasts were cooked on the grill.  I will be using that marinade again as it was fantastic.  I warmed up the sweet potato bread in the oven, spread some butter over it and voila, a perfect Tex-Mex style meal.

Preparing a meal is like painting.  You start with an idea, add some colors, keep adding to it and then you have a beautiful painting, or in this instance, a meal.  The cool thing was that I didn’t need to go to the grocery store for anything.  All of the ingredients were in my pantry and freezer.

No one taught me how to cook.  I love good food and have never been able to afford to eat out at really good restaurants so I learned to cook restaurant quality meals at home.  I like to cook healthy meals.  The lay-off has forced me to really learn to make things from scratch as it’s much cheaper to eat foods that you prepare yourself rather than buying prepared meals.  One of the things that I miss about Boston (I don’t miss many things about living in Massachusetts) was the North End of Boston.  I lived there for ten years and it was a wonderful time.  I’d stop at the markets on my way home from work and construct my dinner from what looked good on that day.  The Italian delis and butcher shops were simply to die for.  There are many items that I could get in the North End that I cannot easily get here in North Carolina and I do miss some of them.  But, I couldn’t have sheep, dairy goats or Border Collies in Boston could I?

As it stands now, I’m going to go to the livestock auction with Wally tonight.  I went with him once before and really didn’t like it, but I’d like to go tonight and look to see how the chickens are selling.  If I do go, it would be a very late night and I have to work tomorrow morning, but if I get everything done today so I’ll have minimal work to do in the morning, it would be okay.  I’d like to add a half a dozen more chickens to my flock.  I love the eggs that they are laying.  In fact, on today’s cooking agenda is banana bread (I make kick-ass banana bread) and a quiche.  My butter milk from goat milk is done and I started another quart of it this morning.  One recipe of the banana bread uses a cup of butter milk and I think three eggs.  I plan to make a double recipe.  Depending upon how the goats are selling tonight, I might see if I can get a reasonably priced goat to butcher this weekend for the dogs.  My freezer is getting low and they’ve been eating too much chicken lately.

Chicken is the mainstay in the diets of a lot of raw-fed dogs and cats.  I try not to feed much chicken because I do not feel that the nutritional value of conventionally-raised chicken is ideal.  I’d much rather feed rabbit (for the cats and some to the dogs) and hoofed animals, preferably something I raised myself (grass fed) to the dogs.  My venison stash is all but depleted which is unfortunate as that is pretty close to perfect food for dogs and cats.

As I write this, Gel is lying at my feet quite tired.  I got out to milk the goats and only took him with me.  After I finished milking, I let the sheep out and then went back in the house to processing the milk and set up the butter milk to culture.  Then went back outside, filed up the water tank that I carry on the wagon that attaches to my ATV, added a bale of hay to the wagon and headed out to the ElectroNet.  The sheep had wandered several fields over, precariously close to my landlord’s blueberry bushes.  I quickly off-loaded the water and hay and headed up with Gel to bring the sheep back.  It was a very, very good lesson in his whistle-listening skills which are still a bit shaky.  I really need to work on my come-bye whistle because it ends in what sounds like a “there” whistle which causes him to hesitate.  There were several times when I asked him to change directions using whistles where he stopped and changed direction like a cutting horse.  It was cool to watch.  We had another lamb born the day before yesterday to the chocolate ewe we got in South Carolina (one more South Carolina ewe to go) so she was slowing down the production and the flock kept getting progressively more and more spread out so Gel had to do a lot of sweeping back and forth to keep them going in the same direction.  I set him up to drive them through the gate into the field adjoining where I have the ElectroNet set and he handled that very well.  That gate was not open fully so there was a pretty narrow opening to push the sheep through.  Then I asked him to drive them on through the field towards the ElectroNet.  That didn’t go quite so well, but I kept insisting that he listen to my commands and we got the job done and all of the sheep are up.

Wally is quite thrilled with Gel these days.  Several days in a row now he’s gone down with Gel to bring the sheep up and Gel has worked well for him.  The first time that he went down with Gel and had success, he carried a stock stick with him.  Not to be used as a stock stick, but as a walking stick.  Every time he goes down now I tell him he had better bring the stock stick as that may be his lucky charm.  For all the time that I’ve known Wally, Gel has only thought of him as a stick or ball throwing machine and wasn’t ever willing to work for him.  I’m glad that’s changed as right now, Gel is really the only dog capable of bringing that flock up.  Fern can do it, but only for me and with a lot of managing on my part.  Fern has a lot of eye and would be difficult for Wally to work, if she were to be inclined to work for him, which she is not.  If we set the ElectroNet closer to the house, Kessie or Cian might be able to bring them up, but as it stands now, there is too much draw coming across that field and those sheep know that neither Kessie nor Cian are strong enough to keep them from going where they want to go.  Hopefully that will change as they mature and I get more training on them.

I am committed to working both Cian and Kessie and hopefully I’ll be successful with them.  Only time will tell and right now I’m holding off on working anyone other than Gel until that last ewe lambs and her lamb is at least a week old and can keep up.  The lamb that was born a few days ago is a big, strapping ram lamb and he’s keeping up amazingly well already.  I left that ewe and her lamb up in the fenced in area yesterday, but today, she went down with the flock and they did quite well.  Dreadlock’s baby was very small and I carried him down for several days before I felt he could keep up.  Now I can barely catch him.

Speaking of catching lambs, yesterday a lamb got left behind with the ewe I left up.  He belongs to black-headed Dorper #78 and was born here a few days before Dreadlock’s baby.  I had a heck of a time catching him and was very glad for Gel’s assistance in that task.  It’s amazing how fast those lambs can run.

Rose continues to do amazingly well with the new babies.  When we brought up the chocolate ewe with her new lamb this week, Rose was all excited about meeting the newcomer.  The ewe was not willing to let Rose get too close, but it’s interesting to see how Rose hones in on the new babies.  While I was trying to catch the lamb that got left behind, Rose had the opportunity to get acquainted with the new lamb while the ewe was otherwise occupied.

Farming, cooking, dog training, it’s all a great thing and I’m incredibly happy and satisfied these days.

Walmart is killing me.  I cannot work closing shifts, I just can’t.  I didn’t get to bed until 12:30 this morning and my feet still hit the floor between 4 and 5 AM.  I tried to go back to bed to sleep a bit, but that just made me feel worst.  I am supposed to do it all again tonight and I am dreading it.  I know darned well I’m getting run down and am likely to catch another cold.  I am not a night person, never have been and likely never will be.  I can get up at 3 or 4:00 AM and function just fine, but staying awake past 9 PM is incredibly difficult for me.  I’m one of those in bed with the chickens type of person.

Luckily, I have no more closing shifts for the foreseeable future and as soon as I get a few minutes I’m going to go in and remove my availability for hours after 9 or 10 PM.  Right now, I’m listed as available from 12:00 AM to 12:00 PM and I may loose some shifts by pulling those hours, but the money I earn there is just not worth getting run down for.

The economy is likely worst than it was when I lost my job in October.  I know it will get better and I should simply stop worrying about it, but it’s hard not to.

After I milked, I put Kessie and Cian on tie-outs and just let the sheep out.  I went back into the house and did a few things, then brought out Gel and Fern and went out to find the sheep.  Some were up near Red’s so I sent Gel for them and then headed down back with Fern to find the rest.  Gel met us with the sheep he retrieved and we walked further on down and found the rest of the flock.  Gel pushed his sheep into that pasture and then he and Fern brought them along the fence line to an opening in the fence and then to the ElectroNet.

It’s much easier keeping the flock together with two dogs.  Gel and Fern work very well together.  Both of the dogs are extremely effective at their work.  Gel keeps the back going and Fern keeps the eye of the lead sheep to keep them from bolting ahead of me.  In a little bit I’m going to put a bale of hay on the back of the ATV and bring it down to them.  There is virtually no grass where they are now.  Granted, sheep can survive on what seems like no grass, but I want them to stay in good condition.  In another month the grass should start to grow and I hope we get to the point where they cannot keep up with it.  Putting hay down on the ground will help reseed the area so I’ll essentially be killing two birds with one stone.  Moving the sheep on a weekly basis helps to keep the parasite load down and fertilizes in a more concentrated manner.

Wally and I decided to hold off on worming the flock until the last two ewes have their babies.  That way we can worm, inspect feet and tag the lambs and what ewes who do not have tags all at the same time.

I’m starting to research cuts of lamb and recipes so we can figure out how to get that lamb processed.  We are scheduled to take them on March 18.  Good that the local processor is so busy that they could not take them until then.  I’d love to get to the point where we can eat lamb in place of beef.  I love beef, but raising beef is much harder on the environment than sheep or goats.

Until later …

First heading out into the back pasture:

Over hill, over dale we will hit the dusty trail:

Almost there!

Just got back up from bringing the sheep and Rose down to the ElectroNet.  When we go down, the goats come along as well.  Often it’s only Rain and Dawn who come with us, but today, everyone, including Dusty came along for the walk.  I have to trick Rose to get her into the ElectroNet (which she has the utmost respect for) and staying with the sheep.  She’s much more bonded to the goats and doesn’t like staying with the sheep.  I always bring some really tasty food and make sure Rose is good and hungry.  As soon as everyone (including Rose and the goats) are in the ElectroNet, I give Rose her food and while she’s eating, close everyone in.  So far, it’s worked well.  Getting Rain and Dawn out of the ElectroNet is no problem, they follow me out like dogs.  Luna and Penny are a different matter.  This was the first time I had to get Luna, Penny and Dusty out.  I’ve been working with communicating to Gel that I need “this one” moved and he’s slowly getting it.

This morning, Rain, Dawn and Penny came out on their own, but I had to send Gel in for Luna and Dusty.  Luna challenged Gel a bit, but came out within a few seconds and we all headed back.

As I write this, it is only 25 degrees out.  Yesterday was miserable!!!  The wind was high and it blew right through you.  I was going to spread the rabbit manure, but ended up coming back inside and watching television for a couple of hours.  It felt funny on a Sunday to be lazing around, but I suppose there is no harm in taking it easy every once in a while.  Time enough to get everything done.  I hope to get the rabbit manure spread this morning so I can get the bags out to the curb for trash pick-up.  Even though it’s cold, the wind died down so it will be reasonably tolerable to be out there in a few hours.

I don’t know how people live in extremely cold climates.  I think I would die if I had to go out to care for animals on a daily basis in extreme cold.  Then again, I’m sure I’ll be complaining about the heat in a few months.  I want it to be 70 degrees during the day and 50 at night every day, with rain every three or four days.  Wonder if I’ll get my wish.

I just made an appointment at the local slaughter house to have one two-year old Dorper wether and one of last year’s wethers (still considered a lamb since he’s not a year old yet) slaughtered and processed.  I am going to use the lamb for human consumption and the older one for the dogs and cats.  The slaughter house charges $45 to slaughter which includes skinning, gutting and quartering and it may be worth it to have them do this particular wether as he’s a big boy, well over 100 pounds.  While I am more than capable of slaughtering him myself, given his size, it may be better to have them do it.  I am not at the point where I can eat something that I slaughtered so I’ll have the processor do the one that I’m going to eat.  They charge $.40/pound to process and package the meat.  I’ll bet the lamb will dress out close to 50 pounds.  I’ll have them do lamb chops and grind the rest of the meat for lamb burger.  Whatever is left over from that will go to the dogs.  I have a few people wanting grass fed lambs so this will be a way to see how much the lambs will dress out at and the total cost so I can price them accordingly.  Wally and I are not going to keep any of the ram lambs and only a few of the ewe lambs from this year.  They are all growing really well so in a few months, we should have some that can be sold.

On Saturday, Wally and I reset the ElectroNet then I went back to the house and got the Three Stooges (Fern, Cian and Kessie) and Wally and I went for a walk.  The Three Stooges were up in their runs while we set the fence because we had the flock of sheep running loose while we set the fence. Gel will lie down and leave the sheep alone.  The Three Stooges are not so accommodating.

It was a lovely day and it felt good to walk and let the dogs run with us vs. riding the ATV.  When we got back, I decided to work all four dogs.  I worked Kessie first and once again, she forgot that she knew what lie down meant and I chased her off the field a few times.  Once she was reminded that lie down meant that her belly had to be flat to the ground, we had a good lesson.  She’s behind Cian in knowing her flanks, but she’ll catch up quick enough.  She works very much like Cian, but as I’ve said before, she’s much more in contact with her sheep.  Then I brought out Cian and it started to go bad when he couldn’t move the sheep so I called Gel in and I discovered I was able to work the two dogs together.  Cian started to pick up on Gel’s whistle commands as well.  Gel has no trouble moving the sheep so I think Cian earned some confidence working with Gel.  Maybe he knew that it was Gel moving the sheep or maybe not, but I’m going to try doing this a few more times to see how it goes.

The last time I had Fern out it was to bring the flock back from the pasture and she did a stellar job.  I mentioned before that Gel was a bit too quick to use his teeth with Dreadlock.  I was extremely impressed to see that Fern had no trouble marching her back home.  She stayed off her well enough so that Dreadlock continued to move and never got close enough so that she felt she needed to turn on her.  On Saturday, however, she didn’t work so well at first, then she settled down and we had a good session.

All of the dogs are having trouble moving the entire flock because they are not a true flock at this time.  The wether and young ewe flock have been here for several months; the ewes and lambs have only been here for a month.  The South Carolina ewes and wethers remembered each other so they have the tendency to form their own flock, with the young ewes and wethers who have been here forming a second and the ewes and lambs who just arrived forming a third.  Any dog working them has to do a lot of sweeping and covering to keep them going.  Factor into that two ewes with brand new lambs who move much slower and prefer to be off on their own and you have a lot of work for one dog.  That they all want to go to where the fresh, young grass is adds to the difficulty.  I really saw this tonight when I was bringing the flock back.  I was a bit concerned with how Gel (and even Fern) managed the sheep the past few days, but I don’t think it is the dogs’ fault in this instance.

The amount of moving around that the entire flock was doing while I was working the dogs on Saturday is minimal so I plan to continue to train the dogs on the entire flock for now.  We’ll see how things progress on down the road.

Until later …

Over the next couple of days, Gel is going to get lessons in appropriate use of his teeth.  I went down to give the sheep water and they drifted out of the ElectroNet.  I had the other dogs with me and it was a good lesson in lying down and not going after the sheep.  I let the sheep drift out to graze while I took the dogs for a run.  We were gone longer than I intended and when I came back, the sheep were up in the area near Red’s house where the grass is always so green.  I should just set my ElectroNet up there and maybe we will, but that’s a topic for another time.

I put up the “Three Stooges” (Cian, Kessie and Fern) and took Gel to bring the sheep back down the hill and out to the ElectroNet.  All was going well until he started pushing too hard on Dreadlock.  She kept turning on him and initially he behaved himself.  I turned my back on him and when I turned around again, he was hanging off her wool.  Shithead!  I ignored my command to get out of that and continued at her.  G-r-r-r-r-r-r-r that dog sometimes!

I have a perfect exercise for him to learn to walk in straight and use his presence to move stock rather than his teeth.  When they are out, Rain and Dawn like to cling to me (a very irritating habit) and I frequently ask Gel to walk up and back them off me.  We were doing it this morning actually.  They are really, really, really hard to back off and he’s quite prone to flying in and gripping.  He isn’t always appropriate in his grips either.  Whenever he went in to grip this morning, I growled at him.  We’ll be doing more of that over the next couple of days.  All I need is for him to do that in a trial.  Chances are, the sheep we are going to see in trials in this area are very going to challenge him, but you never know.

I did get most of the house cleaned and rabbits cleaned and ground (yea! cat food!).  Soon I’ll go and take a shower and wait for Wally to pick me up to go to Tractor Supply.  We’ll also need to take a trip to Lowes to get a couple of heavy-duty rugs to put down in front of both the cat door and the back porch door and that’s where these dogs are going to start coming in and when it’s muddy or wet outside, they are going to go right into crates until they dry off.  I’m bloody sick of muddy dog AND CAT prints all over the house.  I wonder how people live with multiple animals in their house.  Are they constantly cleaning or do they not care about muddy prints?