A Cute Smoothie Available for Adoption

Grace is an energetic 7 month old ,smooth coat, border collie.  Given up by her previous owner and now in foster care, Grace has transitioned well and is very content.  She is gentle and affectionate but can also be independent.  She is house broken, crate trained, knows basic obedience, walks nicely on leash and off, learns quickly, and is a wonderful companion that loves to be included in daily life.  She plays nicely with toys and other dogs.  She loves to chew on appropriate chew toys when not playing or she is just as content to be near her person.  Grace is easy to get along with and eager to learn.  She gets along with cats too, but I don't know about small children.  Grace has been on sheep and could potentially be a nice little sheep dog given time and training.


Please contact Phyllis Stevely at 208-440-0342 or bck9kids@gmail.com

Autumn in the country ...

I love this time of year.  The heat is finally gone, and the cooler weather is setting in.  The colors are incredible!  I am not nearly as far along as I would have liked to have been, but I still feel like I managed to get a few things done this summer outside.  It won't be long before I start concentrating on the inside of the house again ... and dog knows there's plenty of work to be done there.

Phyllis came over on Saturday, and we worked the ducks for their first time.  They were none too pleased, and initially didn't understand that they were supposed to move off the dogs.  So the dogs would be right in their faces, and not allowed to bite them, which made it kind of comical.  The looks on the dogs' faces was priceless at times.

Here's Phyllis' Rusty.  He's a Jock x Lil from Don Helsley's breeding.

Here's the drama queen of the bunch. Notice her friend laughing at her in the background.

It's nice to finally stand on my deck and see someone working out in the pasture.  This gives you a better idea of how small the area actually is (and this is my "big" pasture).  I really need to find a hot guy with a lot of land.

Then Phyllis worked Rook (Jenn x Zip).  He did a very nice job.  By this time, the ducks were figuring out they'd better start moving off the dogs.

I probably have 100 blooper photos of Zip like this (notice the tongue).

Dawn Marie Couch ... Don's wife.

Echo wondering why it's not her turn again.

It rained on and off all day on Sunday.  The colors are amazing right now with all of the trees and grasses changing color.  This, of course, means that the wind comes whipping through to make sure it doesn't stay pretty for too long.  I forgot to take photos of my neighbor's tree on Saturday, and was pissed at myself because there were high winds forecasted for Sunday.  But I got a few on Sunday despite the weather. 

If you remember, back in January when it snowed, I stood in my living room and took photos out my three windows.  Here's what it looks like in fall.  I think might do this in Spring and Summer also, and do a bit of a slideshow or something.  I love having four seasons!

Looked out a different window and this is what I see.  They're helping me clean up the place before winter hits.

The neighbor's tree I'm whining about.

So I grabbed the dogs and headed over there.  Took some photos on the way.  This photo lost the detail and color when I uploaded it.  It's much more colorful than this.

This tree is just starting to change. 

More color...

The Tree.

FAIL!

That's better.

Mother & daughter

Echo looks like she's on crack in this one.

That's all for now.  Hopefully, I'll get another opportunity to take some fall photos before the wind strips the trees.  It's getting dark pretty early now, though, so I will probably have to wait till the weekend.  And I'm busy this weekend. 

Oh well ...

Jodi

Elbow Grease

It's amazing what a few months and some hard work will do.

Here's that west pasture June 28, 2010.

And this is the same pasture in October, 2010.

In the next few days, I'll take a photo from the same angle as the original photo for a true comparison.

The long and winding post

The day started early.  Justin, my son, is living with me for a bit, and he needed to be at work at 7:00 a.m., so his alarm went off some time around 5:30, and I was out of bed by 6:15.  As soon as the sun came up, I went outside and started figuring out the best way to make the round pen ... round.   The green border is my property.  The red border is the corner I put the round pen in.  (The "building" near the round pen no longer exists.  That was the mobile home that was removed, hence the concrete pad you see in a lot of these photos.)

So ... as you can see, I had a tricky setup, but it's the perfect spot for it because it's out of the way.  We made it work.  Phyllis and Glenda came over, and we made quick work of it all.   It's hard to tell in these photos, but when you're standing in the middle of the pen, it's pretty round.  There's no real corners for the sheep to get stuck in.  I like the way it came out.  I am going to put a permanent gate in, but that's not for a while yet.  This will work for now.  I will also replace all of the field fence with panels little by little.  Glenda came up with some creative ideas for how to raise money -- including offering advertising right on the fenceline! - to get more panels, but I'll just buy one with every pay check.  It'll come together eventually.

Now what I need to do is turn my attention to the walkway leading to the round pen.  This is where I burned out the stumps, and also where all the glass is located.  This will take a while, like everything else, but little by little ... and it will all get done eventually.

Glenda likes this rock.  She thinks we should stencil a Border Collie and some sheep on it.

Phyllis worked Rook, Rusty and her new pup, Grace.  The sheep were great!  I'm so glad they weren't taking headers into anything.  Here's a few pics of Rook ... who is 4 years old today.  Hard to believe that litter happened that long ago.

Speaking of which, here's Russell -- Rook's brother in Florida.  Photo taken by his owner, Randy.  Thanks Randy!

It feels good to finally start working Reese.  She was quite lovely today.  After the last time I worked her, I wasn't quite sure she was ready, but she showed me something completely different today.  She's getting out and around and keeping her tail down and working quite nicely.  She does some of the woohoo young dog stuff, but for the most part, she's looking good.  I am liking what I'm seeing from her.

Jodi