It has been a busy couple of weeks, ruled mostly by sheep. Throw in my husband, kids and granddaughter, followed by dogs & working on a couple of website designs it does not leave much time left to blog.
Speaking of which...
Check out
Dianne Deal's new website - Orchard Run Border Collies. It was a joy working with Dianne and I hope her new website represents her well.
www.diannedeal.com
Now that I have covered that, the rest of this blog post will be ruled by rambling. Blame it on the cold medicine. Being busy leads to being exhausted, which means the beginning of a yucky cold. You know the deal, headache, sinusitis, sore throat, ear ache, grumpy disposition. My husband thinks the grumpy disposition is normal, ibuprofen and decongestants do not typically help with that, much to his chagrin.
Wednesday I am leaving for Fire Ridge SDT. I am hoping that Brynn and I can actually finish a pro-novice course. She has been working well at home. Daily work and chores has helped
me more than anything. Confidence is the biggest combatant against fear. With the confidence I am feeling things mesh, and hopefully able to project it through my whistles to Brynn.
Today we had a lovely session. My whistles have been so harsh in the past and I am learning to tone them down, soft & consistent which Brynn responds to nicely. In turn I feel myself relax, Brynn stops fighting me and we work as a team. Lets hope I can keep this 'zen' handling up when I am in front of people. That is my weakness & our downfall. Time and miles, I know.
This weekend we were busy. We put the redneck sheep hauler back into business. Saturday we drove to Ferndale, WA (where I grew up) to check out a flock of border leicester/coopworth sheep. The gal who raised them had been doing so for 17 years. She raised them for fleece and meat.
She has decided to switch to Finn's for their wool which she uses to create felted hats. Her entire flock was in excellent health, beautiful well bred sheep.
Together we corralled them and trimmed feet. She wanted to make sure I had a chance to thoroughly inspect them. We made a great deal. We brought home two ewe lambs and left the ewes I selected there to be bred to her handsome ram, Roy. We will pick them up in a month. That will give us two distinct unrelated crops of lambs which it a good thing. The best part was making new friends & connections.
On Sunday John and I drove the redneck sheep hauler to Olympia to pick up the baby Behemoth rambouillet ewe lamb (she is 6.5 mos old and HUGE!). She is a black rambouillet.
While she will compliment the direction I want to go in breeding I bought her mainly for her fleece, which is incredible. She is cute too, she has a white spot on her head, which is unusual. Another acquisition from a closed flock.
To give you an idea of how large she is...here is a group shot. She is standing behind the full grown Katahdins, remember she is just past 6 months old.
Jim was not quite sure what she was.
They got it sorted out in short order.
Thus ends our sheep shopping, much to Monique's relief.
As I type this, Brynn and Bea are snuggled up together at my feet under the desk. I think Brynn is going to have a harder time letting Bea go to Dianne for training than me. These two are a matched set.
This post would not be complete without picture to make you go awwwwwww.
Have a great week!
