Just Stuff

Well, things are shaping up for the clinic this weekend. The weather is calling for "mostly sunny" and 51 degrees. I am starting the "No Wind" prayer today and will chant it every day this week. Janie's making lasagna and salad for lunch, so it looks like we're good to go.

My ewes are so fat. I can't believe I don't have any lambs yet. Looks like we might need to rent some sheep for the trial. We'll see.

I never really did discuss the trial from last weekend. Jaenne and I went out Friday night and spent the weekend at the Sheep Shack. That was awesome! Friday night, Jaenne grilled burgers on the George Foreman grill, and we had chips and salsa, etc. Good stuff. Sat around laminating running orders for a few hours while the dogs rough-housed.

Saturday, the weather was pretty good. Although cold, and a bit windy, the sun shined for most of the day. I was able to take a few photos with the new camera, using Kirk's 300 mm zoom lens. That was kinda fun. Anyway, my run with Echo went as well as can be expected, I guess. The outrun was further than it was for pro-novice, but not quite as far as open. The really good thing was that I did have SOME control on the fetch. Her fetch was very straight -- however, it was about 50 yards to the right of where it needed to be. But she wasn't all up their butts. We got them to the post and around the post, I think ... squiggly line to the first panel, very squiggly line to the general vicinity of the second panel, and around the pen a couple of times before we got them penned. The important thing was ... we made it through the whole course, and got a score. Woo hoo!

Jaenne and I got back to the SS around 6:30. Janie and Kirk came over for spaghetti dinner and some good conversation, etc. We were pretty beat and ended up crashing early and sleeping late the next morning. Got up and took Rhonda out to breakfast at Mr. V's. That was pretty good. Back to the trial. We hung out in the truck for the most part. The weather was pretty nasty -- windy, cold, raining, etc. My run was quick ... sent her on the same side, she came up short, I was able to whistle her around, where she came whipping in, circled the sheep a couple of times, but I got her to down or something up there, one sheep took off back to setout, I thanked the judge and went and helped her get control of the three she had. A bit frustrating, but we'll work on that.

All in all, a good learning experience. I was glad that she did take a few of my whistles and I was able to see that I did have a little bit of control at that distance. Kinda cool.

Anyway ... back to today ... came home tonight ... still no lambs. The ewes are as fat as fat. I fed sheep, and then went out and starting digging the irrigation canal. It's about 165 feet long. I need to dig it one shovel length deep and two shovel widths wide. I got through about 10 feet tonight. This will take a while. It's a good thing the water doesn't come in until ... the earliest ... April 15th. So I'll try to work on that as much as I can. This is just the canal that runs East and West through my pasture. That's not the little "arms" I have to dig to make sure the water is reaching all the spots it needs to reach. The sheep knock the walls of the canals down over time, so they are all pretty shallow now. I couldn't do it last year with the surgery on my arm, so I am paying for it this year. Oh well, I could use the workout.

I can't believe it's 10:30 p.m. already. I feel like I just sat down.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. More soon ...

Jodi