A new leaf?

Since we aren't doing TMT until after Christmas I thought I would try to keep up with updating my blog on Thursdays anyway.  Its week one so we will see how I do :)

There are some changes at the farm.  This spring/summer my 2 first dogs went over the bridge to be free of pain and suffering.  Emma passed when her bone cancer got too bad to bear and Oliver passed unexpectedly from hermangiosarcoma.  It was a sad time with both of them going but I will say I know they are no longer in pain and will be waiting at the bridge for me when it is my time.

So I was down to 4 dogs of my own Jen, Dutch, Duke and Spottie.  Spottie will be 14 on Monday and recently had a stroke type event so I'm not sure how much longer she will be with us either.  She is enjoying her newfound freedom in the house, at least in her old age she is somewhat trustworthy!  There are a few dogs at my house on trial.  We will see how they work out in the end but for now I have a trio of tri's.

I'm trying something new with myself.  I typically shy away from people, I don't like people, don't like people in my business and would prefer to be alone.  But for 1 month I am going to try to be outgoing and meet new people.  It is going to be a BIG stretch for me but I figure anything that doesn't kill us makes us stronger.  If I don't die from this maybe I will be a stronger person when it is all over?

Oh and I need to update on my survivor sheep.  Buddy is doing well, his wounds have healed and he is his typical goofy self again.  Dot still has a ear that sort of hangs, she can move it but its just a big "different" now.  She also appears to be pregnant.  That means that my st. croix ram that died in the attack may be able to live on through her lambs, lets hope she's pregnant and not just super over weight! And poor Friendly is still chugging along.  The wounds behind his ears have almost healed and hopefully the very slow healing wounds inside his mouth will continue to heal as well.  I will try to update with some pics in the near future!

Poor Poor Doughnut

So, I had several request for the pictures of poor doughnut.....


Here they are, they really don't show quite how bad he looks in real life, but the other sheep pick on him. Beside Doughnut in the 2nd picture, with the brown head and one spot is Polka Dot, she is a lamb ewe born this year, when I say she is huge you can now see I'm not lying!























I also wanted to add a picture of my Jen, she is the topic of most of my blogs as she is my only working dog......so here she is watching a sheep dog trial back in April. My mom has to be credited for this nice photo of her.













I need to get some pictures of the rest of the gang!! I'll try to do that this weekend.

The adventures of Doughnut

Last week I needed to do something with at least one of the several sheep who aren’t shedding well. They are getting really hot when being worked and their hair doesn’t seem to be coming out at all…..

So Jen got to do some practical work. Holding sheep isn’t her favorite thing, it’s boring to her and sometimes she feels the need to bust in and make work for herself. So it’s good for her to have something like this to do. I got out the horse body clippers and decided to attempt to shear some sheep. I had Jen push all the sheep into the corner where the “sheep hotel” is, which is basically a small wooden sheep house with a gate on it. And sorted off the ones who appear to be shedding and locked them in the hotel. I wasn’t sure if it would work and if it did how long it would take me per sheep. So I had her push the other non-shedders back to me and grabbed and haltered Doughnut.

Poor Doughnut, his name has been changed, he used to be Sammie, but Tucker (who named all the sheep) decided that he was more of a doughnut after he came home from Liberty. He was the poor lamb that was the chosen one for my experiment…it was definitely an experiment. While I am an expert body clipper, not so much on the shearing side with horse clippers and don’t you know every neighbor stopped by just to say hi that afternoon. It was hot, I was dripping sweat and constantly reminding Jen to lie down, but me being me was determined I was going to make this work and I was going to get Doughnut sheared. Well he is kind of sheared; not nearly as short as what I saw when I was at Julie’s during shearing time. But he at least has shorter hair now…Well except his head and neck.

Tucker says the other sheep call Doughnut names now, the clippers were too big to be able to clip his tiny neck and head, so he has a full coat there. I really should get a picture of him but it might be too embarrassing for him and then the other sheep might really pick on him. What they don’t know is that as soon as it stops raining they are all in for the same experience, except maybe this time with hand shears. But I can’t promise any of them that they are going to look any better!!