Farm Fresh Blog

Other Half is not a big fan of this dog.  This is why . . .

When I went to bed last night this dog was clean. 

She was white and fluffy . . . and huggable!

Every morning she throws herself into what is left of the hay pile,  and she

rolls and plays and looks so cute . . .

 So this morning,

I picked up my camera to capture a Big White Fluffy Dog playing like a polar bear in nice clean hay.  But I forgot . . .

This is Briar we're talking about!

Briar, yes, the dog who cannot resist a muddy pond when the temperature rises about 65 degrees. So instead of cute polar bear pictures, you get shots of a muddy dog wallowing in hay that used to be clean.  I apologize for that now.

Paula in Nevada sent me a link to a site that I simply MUST share with you!

It's a website called http://www.ranching-with-sheep.com/   with a fascinating partner blog at http://ranching-with-sheep.blogspot.com/ .  I just loved it!  The author, Arlette Seib, has a  style that is as stark, simple and beautiful as the Canadian prairie that she writes of.  An earthly spirituality emanates from many of her posts. 

In "Out Here The Air Has Eyes" you can literally "feel" the coyotes watching.  I'm still exploring the site, but you must take a moment to read, "Fixing the Past or Creating The Future?" and "When Old Friends Die."

When she wrote "The Ending Of A Life" I felt her pain and I was reminded of a black day last winter when I was forced to do the same thing . . . 

(Read: Tomorrow is Another Day   and  Ready for Tomorrow )

Please take a moment to look at her website and read her blog.  Your life will be richer for it.  I, for one, will never gripe about another Texas winter.

The Great White Beast spies an intruder . . .

"Prepare to be disassembled, Intruder!"

"Oh, good grief!  You're kidding, right? The sheep aren't even out here!"

 "NO! You are wolf! I am a wolf-killer!"

"But I'm poopin'!"

"Prepare to die, Wolf!"

"Tag!  You're it!"

 And thus continues the saga of Ralph & Sam, the wolf & the Sheepdog . . .  off-duty!

The sheep are lambing and so Briar has been pulled out of the pasture.  She is still a giant baby and I don't want any accidents with the lambs. 

She visits with them daily while I can supervise her and sleeps beside the fence at night. 

Briar has recently proven to me that she is quite the agile little critter (agile Big Critter?).  Do you see how high these stall doors are?

Did you know that a certain Big White Dog can climb these stall doors to get in with her sheep?  Very impressive.  I was inside the sheep pen and had left Briar locked in the barn. A few minutes later I turned to find her ambling through the sheep.  Whudathunkit?

 I'm now convinced that if coyotes climb into the pen with the sheep at night, then Briar is quite capable of climbing the fence to get inside and protect them.  Pretty darned good for a mutt dawg! See!  Blood will tell . . . I'm sold on these Big White Dogs now. 

Despite her appearance, underneath all that fluffy hair is a lean, mean, climbing machine!

Briar is a Great Pyrenees/Komondor cross.  That little brown & white dawg behind her is a Liver-coated Sneak-Stalking Sheepdog!

This is for all the people who have an uncommon breed of dog, or a Border Collie that isn't black & white:

One of our Homicide Investigators saw a photo of Trace.

"That's my new puppy," I said.

He peeked at the camera phone. "Oh. It's a Springer."

"Actually, he's a Border Collie."

Pulling the photo closer to his face, he verified that Trace WAS a little brown and white dog. "Looks like a Springer cross," he said.

"Yeah, he does, but he's really a Border Collie. We drove all the way to Oklahoma to get him."

Then he gave me the polite, patient look that is usually reserved for little old ladies who have just been duped out of cash by the widow of a Nigerian prince on the internet.

Oh dear!  Poor Trace will forever be marked as a mutt because he isn't black & white.  It's okay.  I've had Belgian Tervuren for 20 years, so I'm used to it. The public thinks they're longhaired German Shepherds, or Afghan-Collie crosses.  We had family members who tired of trying to pronounce the breed name and simply called them "Albanian Lavernes."  So it stuck. 

Meet my first Albanian Laverne:

Perhaps I should come up with some clever herding dog breed name for Trace!  Maybe I can call him a:

. . .  Celtic Collie!

. . . .A Cheyenne Shepherd!

a Highlands Herding Dog!

Or what he is . . .

a Liver-Coated Sneak-stalking Sheepdog
 

CRASH through the work day! 

The weekend is NEAR!

If you have goats, you never run out of fence work to be done.

Over the years I've been systematically replacing sagging field fencing (which goats drag down by climbing on them) with cattle panels. (very $$$ project!)

But I told myself that in the end, I would have this farm completely fenced in cattle panels which will keep in sheep, goats, cattle and horses!  Unfortunately I didn't figure on having The Goat King.

Oh, he's a handsome rascal, isn't he?  But this is the Border Collie of horses!  (I know this because I've raised him since he was "knee high to a grasshopper!" ) Montoya is a 'thinking' horse.  Thinking horses are good because they don't tend to explode out from underneath you when you're riding them.  Thinking horses are bad because they tend to tear shit up to get the things they want. (pardon my French)

See this fence line?

 I didn't put those panels up like that!

 SOMEONE (someone BIG) is standing on my cattle panels and dragging them down so he can get behind them.  SOMEONE then walks all over the downed cattle panels, thus twisting and contorting them so badly that they can 'barely' be tacked back up again!

 I can understand this. Force of Nature. It happens.

But this also appears to be a Force Of Nature  . . .

. . . a very expensive Force Of Nature who needs to become intimate with hot wire!

 "Whut?  WHUT?!!"

Read more about The Goat King:

Trespassers will be eaten!

Perhaps I need to post this photo on the front gate for foolhardy meter-readers who by-pass "WARNING - POLICE SERVICE DOG" signs.

Actually, Lily bit her tongue.

She continued to work as the blood steadily dripped.  (Poor kid)  It mixed with saliva, (Lily drools when she works sheep.) and in no time Lil looked like a "slavering beast!"  NO SHEEP WERE HARMED! (But Rasta now has a better understanding that she shouldn't attack Lily.) The dog looked so bad that I was afraid she had broken a tooth, but upon thorough examination, it seems that she had just bitten her tongue badly. It made me wince just to look at it, but it didn't slow the little dog down a bit.  What a trooper!

(Don't ask me why I name the sheep, but when I begin to recognize them as individuals, they seem to end up with names.  Rasta is so nasty that she certainly stands out enough to deserve a name.) 

Don't forget to say "I love you."  Don't get too busy for a hug. Take the time to share a glass of wine and a piece of chocolate (or a whole pan!) with a girlfriend.

We had our glorious Ladies Christmas Party on Saturday.  We laughed. We loved. And if only for a few hours, we were silly little girls again. 

Then Monday afternoon one of our girls had a seizure and died. She was so young. We are still in shock. But we are thankful for the good times we had together. It is so important to live and love each day as if it is your last.   Godspeed Kim, We love ya!

Adorable, isn't he?

Smart, isn't she?

Makes ya wanna run right out and get a Border Collie, doesn't it?

But here's the Dark Side Of Border Collies:

My back yard looks like this . . .

and this . . .

. . . because a certain adorable little Border Collie puts every smidgeon of brain power into finding a way out of the yard and into . . .

. . . here . . . .

(Read: High Drive To Insanity )

And the boards in my horse barn look like this . . .

YES!  THIS! 

(No, a child with a chain saw did NOT do that!)

A certain obsessive compulsive Kung Fu Panda is overstimulated by the sight of horses between the boards.  Take the horse out of the stall and it completely diffuses her.  The horse MUST be on the OTHER SIDE of the boards for the obsession to take hold.  But make no mistake.  She is helpless before the power of her obsession. . . and she's damaging her teeth.

Soooo . . .

We installed a gate in front of the barn to keep out Border Collies!

Note: Yes, we KNOW the gate is upside down.  We had to install it upside down to keep The Crocodile Hunter from slithering underneath it!

Now I'm not saying they are not the most adorable, remarkable dogs in the world, but if you get a mind like this . . . be afraid . . . be very afraid.

For your life will never be the same again.

That said, I cannot imagine how we ever ran a farm without one!