Shuck ... Party of 7!

Since Bingo and Cedar decided they know how to get into my sheep enclosure in the backyard, and the twin lambs were now old enough, I moved the two ewes and the twins to the front pasture. 

This morning I woke up to a bit of a surprise.  

Umm ... there's too many legs there.

Oh no!  It's one of those headless lambs!

Bummer.  They both have heads.  I could have made some real cash off that.

And they are perfectly snuggly.  Two ewe lambs.  (Don't tell them, but we just picked up their dad and put him in Jaenne's freezer.)

Shuck is very happy that I put his sheep back where they belong.

Shuck ... Party of 7.

The wind is awful tonight.  The two new little ones were all snuggled up against their mom behind the straw bales, so hopefully, they'll be fine through the night.  I'll know in the morning.

Awww, shoot.

Had a fun weekend! Saturday, a gal from one of the local horse groups came over and helped me with Kahlua and getting her into the trailer. Two things came to light.

One: She obviously had a bad experience being tied in a trailer before, as she will not do it. She broke my trailer tie-down this time. However, when you just load her, she will stand there until you ask her to back out.

Two: She has my number. I am intimidated by her, and I need to step up to the plate, or she is going to continue to run over me. She is not convinced she needs to get in the trailer when I am at the helm, but when Cindy did it, she hopped right in. I really enjoyed watching how calm and statuesque Cindy was in dealing with her. Kahlua would constantly suck me into moving around, and the more I moved, the more she did. Cindy stool still, held her ground, and Kahlua respected it.

I have a lot of work to do.

Sunday, Mark and I went shooting in the Owyhees. We went up to Reynolds Creek, all the way up past the watershed and the little town of Reynolds, and found a cool spot to park and hang out. What a gorgeous day! Took Echo with us to see if she could adjust to the noise.

I love this ranch.

This is probably the nicest flying bird shot I have ever taken.  I think this is a light juvenile red-tailed hawk.

An old, abandoned homestead.  Loved it.

A different view:

We shot at least a couple hundred rounds, hit quite a few of the targets we aimed at, and I tried with everything I had to get a shot (like that really cool shot Shari Hart took ... if anyone is friends with her on Facebook) of the bullet leaving the gun, but instead, I have about 60 photos that all look like this:

This is the road we were going to take, but I wasn't really sure I wanted to attempt it since I wasn't familiar with it, and the ground was a bit soft.  (Hey Mark, talked to Dean.  He told me that at the top of this hill, there is a small section of this road that is "by permission only" of one of the cattle companies up there.  So we couldn't have gotten through anyway.)

Echo handled it all very nicely.  She didn't want to be right near us, but instead found her bubble, which was about 20 or 30 feet from where we were sitting, and even once or twice walked right up to me while Mark was shooting right next to me.  Not bad for her first time.  She wasn't stressing or anything, would just go find a shady spot to hang out in within her comfort zone and watch from a bit of a distance.  And here is the creepiest photo I have ever taken of her.

TMT ... #8

It's been a while since I've done one of these! I love reading everyone else's, but haven't felt much like writing lately. So here goes ...



1. What blogging tip would you give other dog-bloggers?

Do not put music on your blog. It takes forever to download, and more than likely, it's not something your readers are interested in listening to anyway.

2. If you were going to be stranded on a deserted island and could take five things with you (aside from the clothes on your back), what would they be?

1) My dogs
2) A lifetime supply of dog food.
3) A lifetime supply of whiskey.
4) Trace Adkins.
5) I won't need anything else. Neither will he. Ever.

3. How much pain are you willing to endure in the name of physical appearance? Do you have painful things done to enhance beauty?

I can't stand hair on my face, and I have a lot of it, so I pluck it.

4. Speed limits... how fast do you drive? Do you drive Miss Daisy? Do you do the Indy 500 to work?

I get 10 miles to the gallon. I see dollar signs flash across my windshield when I put my foot on the gas.

5. What trial (that you go to) is your favorite, and why?

I don't trial much, if at all, anymore, but one of my favorites was a large flock ranch trial I went to. It was fun working with that many sheep doing stuff that needs doing, with people who were really fun to hang out with. There wasn't any of the usual cliquey, nasty, high school bullshit going on, and I think everyone laughed as much as I did.

Snow dogs!

We got a bit of snow this morning (which is basically all gone now), but I took the dogs for a romp while I had the chance.

This picture is nowhere near in focus, but wouldja look at that pompom tail???  Geez, Echo.

Echo's nose is all bent out of shape with Bingo here.  She'll have to get over it.  Reminds me of high school.

Zip and Echo...

The whole pack.  Looks like Bingo (far right) has all 4 feet off the ground.

Echo being ... herself ... again.

And then she poses so dainty-like, you'd never know she was a Monster.

Bingo.

I was mad at myself that I didn't get any good photos of Reese ...

... so I took Bingo and Reese out on the deck for a more formal photo shoot.  And, of course, had to shoot a few of Kahlua (who was none to happy that I did) on the way.

Here's cute little Bingo.

And here's her chunky "brother," Cedar.  I'm trying to take some weight off him before putting him up for adoption.

To give you an idea of his size, here he is next to Echo.  Echo is just under 40 lbs.

But ... he's awful cute and will make someone a great buddy.

 

 Here's Kahlua again.  She thought this time, for sure, I'd have a treat for her, and walked away right after I snapped this shot.

And here's my Pieces.  Have I told you lately how much I love this little dog?

Sorry Slowpokes!

Today, the UPS guy showed up at my house and delivered a box for me!  It has the LowePro camera bag in it ... courtesy of Pia Gronvaldt at Just Another Dog Blog.  Thank you so much, Pia!  This thing is awesome!

I can't wait to use it!  

Jodi

Nesting

Depression is a beast.  Yeah, I'm putting it out there.  Hell, I talk about every other thing in my life on the internet, might was well delve into this. 

Having a tough day (that's putting it lightly).  The loss of my brother is as raw as the day it happened.  The economy and being jobless is starting to weigh on me.  The stress of it all is flat wearing me out. 

I can't wait for spring to hit so I can get some warm sunshine on my face again.  The grass is staring to green.  And my house is a mess.  I figured I'd better start cleaning the inside of my house, so that when it starts getting really nice out, I won't feel guilty for spending all the time out there with the animals.  A room in my house I haven't done anything with since I moved in is my bedroom.  The amount of dog hair was starting to make me gag.  Damn dogs.  The piles of old paperwork that I am clutching to for no reason was starting to become a fire hazard.  Time to move forward.

Little by little.

So I threw out a bunch of shoes, got rid of a bunch of old clothes, threw out a ton of paperwork and left a pile to be organized, vacuumed up all the dust and dog hair, got the pictures out of my closet and actually cleaned them and hung them on the walls like I'd been meaning to for the last two years, and it feels better already in here. 

Heck, you've seen the rest of my house ... here's my boring bedroom.  Yes, like the rest of my life, my bedroom is black and white, by choice.  I love black curtains.  They keep the light out of the room so you can sleep during the day.  I still don't have closet doors or anything to cover the cubbies with.  Haven't figured out what I'm doing there yet, as the person who built this house made everything to custom size since he was a contractor, yet the people who lived in it after him completely trashed the place and, therefore, the closets have no doors, and to buy them would cost me a fortune.  I'll figure something out eventually.

To the left of the foot of the bed is the giant mound of family photos I've been going through and scanning, a little at a time.  The photo hanging on the wall on the left is my mother's wedding photo.  The next two photos are two pieces of artwork done by an American Indian friend of my mothers.  The larger wolf photo was given to me by my awesome sister.  And the Ansel Adams ... is just one of my favorites.  Peaceful.  Serene.

(Oh, and the layer of black ick on my bedspread ... that's Echo's spot ... and she's kindly blowing her coat for some reason right now.  I'm sick of wiping it off, so I left it there.)

And I love my little Reeses box on the nightstand.  That was given to me by my very cool neighbor!

I guess the nesting is my reaction to the depression, I don't know. 

Something needs to happen. 

Maybe I need to make something happen.

J

Tidbits

We got a little bit of snow last week.  Wish there were a couple more feet of it. 

And what is that on my deck?

Close up...

 

Oh, that's just Chuck the Shuck (sheep/duck).

That's the poor singleton duck that hangs out with my sheep because all his buddies flew off in the fall.  Sucks being an Indian Runner.

How many people can say they have seen duck prints in the snow on their deck?

The birds are loving the feeders.  I have tons of red winged black birds which are dominating the entire setup, but occasionally, I'll see a cool little colored finch or something.  There are also quite a few juncos hanging around, too. 

Here are some photos of my new trailer.  I don't remember if I've posted any on here before, so here they are.

As I was fartin' around with my camera, a visitor came a visitin' ... who is that???

And he was gonna run me over!

Ha!  It's good neighbor, Dean.  :-)  He can run me over any time he wants.

The sun keeps popping out today ... feels good.  I'm trying to keep myself busy ... just cleaned out the bottom part of my closet, and now have a mountain of old paperwork to go through.  Yippee.  Not!