Ginny’s First Lessons

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Robin

Ginny is 11 months old and a few weeks ago I took her for “instinct testing” at Herding-4-Ewe, a training facility just a mile from my house.This is a photo that Dona took on that day. Clearly Ginny is interested. Debbie, the owner of Herding-4-Ewe, makes a determination if she thinks a dog is ready to begin training. Ginny had her first lesson last week and today was the second. Ginny before 2nd lesson Here Ginny is waiting outside the arena while Debbie gets the dog-broke sheep out.Pretty soon I’ll be the one in the arena with Ginny and we’ll both be getting a lesson (and I won’t be taking photos), but for now Debbie is the one working with Ginny. Look at how controlled Ginny is. This is the look of a dog that is thinking and can learn something new.

She starts off with her favorite direction, “come-by”, or clockwise. Her tail is down and she is focused. Dogs have a direction that feels better to them (similar to people being right- or left-handed). They avoid going the other way. One goal of training is to eventually get the dog willing and confidant in going in the less comfortable direction. (By the way, Rusty’s best direction is “away”, the opposite of Ginny’s.

In this photo Ginny is heading “away” in the less comfortable (for her) direction. Notice her tail up. That’s a sign of a dog that is not thinking. She’s in “play” or “chase” mode like in the first photo.

This is a calm dog.

This looks good for Day 2.

Splash Dog!

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Robin

This is the favorite Jump for the Toy spot. I took these photos with the iPhone.

Farm Club Appreciation Day

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Robin

I love my Farm Club, so I hosted a day just for them when there was no work (although Stephany came early just to help me stack hay in the barn), just food and visiting…oh, and party games. Thanks to Dona for all these photos. There is always good food when Farm Club does a potluck. No skimping on desserts. Kathleen shared her treasures from a recent trip to Russia that included seeing sheep and visiting with the shepherd in Gotland. Stephany charted an old Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern and is knitting it up in Imperial Yarn Company’s Columbia. Prizes were awarded to the winners of the party games. How many sheep pellets in the container? 660. Stephany seems stumped (or frightened) by the contents of the bag–things gathered from the barn. I had told everyone that there was nothing disgusting or dangerous.Mary shared the warp just off the loom. This is four towels from the Friendship Towel Kit supporting the Natural Dye Project in Guatemala. In the background is the preview of my big Estate Sale that will be over Labor Day weekend.

Beating the Commute

Posted on August 29, 2015 by Robin

For the last couple of weeks I’ve seen helicopters transporting equipment and parts for work on the high voltage power lines that are about a mile from here. I get a good view from the haystack, but even with my 300 mm lens I have to do a lot of cropping to bring in the image and then it’s not sharp. Today it wasn’t just equipment. They were transporting people from one tower to the next. There were two helicopters going back and forth. The yellow one has equipment in this photo. This was fascinating to watch. Here is a very grainy close-up. That looks like a giant picnic basket. Do you suppose it’s lunch time? Off to the next job.

Views from the Pasture

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Robin

This morning in the pasture.

White-tailed kite.

Road Trip to TX – Day 10 (Part 2)

Posted on August 11, 2015 by Robin

When I left off the last Road Trip post we had just entered New Mexico on the evening of the tenth day of our adventure.

When we drive I have a mapbook open on my lap–not because we don’t know where to go, but because it is more interesting to see the names of geographic features and points of interest that me might not otherwise know as well as figure out which are public lands where we can camp. I supplement that with looking things up on the iPhone.It was late and we needed to stay somewhere. I saw that if we veered off Highway 10 a bit we could camp in the Organ Mountains. The mountains lit by the setting sun, taken while driving up Highway 70.Water tank outside of the Space Mural Museum at the town of Organ (population about 300 in 2010). Organ Mountains, NM (1) This is a photo of the east side of the Organ Mountains, taken as we drove past the entry sign. That is because I was actually looking for something a little different. I don’t remember what I googled but what I found on the iPhone was Organ Pipe National Monument which, yes, does have camping, and where we figured there would still be space on a weekday night in the middle of the summer. We had to drive a few miles down the road before we could turn back to the road to the campgrounds. A view of White Sands at the base of these mountains. White Sands Missile Range is almost 3200 square miles and the town of White Sands is at the southern end. We had considered going to the White Sands National Monument before going to Texas but it was one of those times where even though we drove “right by it” according to the map we weren’t really that close. We chose to go to Carlsbad Caverns instead. Here was White Sands again. The map shows that there is a visitor center and a museum in the town that is separate from the National Monument, which is 40 miles or so further north. But this was late in the day and at this point we were on a schedule to get home.

We found the campgrounds which were at the base of the Organ Mountains. What I didn’t figure out until I was looking at my iPhone later that night was that the reason the road didn’t look right and the other descriptions were a bit off was that we were at BLM’s Organ Mountains National Recreation Area, not Organ Pipe National Monument which is in southern Arizona. OOPS! Good thing it all worked out or we might have found ourselves trying to find a motel back in Las Cruces.

Ginny and the Drone

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Robin

We had an interesting day here yesterday. Sarah and Bruce Barker of RightAfterThis.com were here to film an episode of a documentary series called Farm to Table and focused, at least for the first episodes, on women in farming. Farm Club members were here to weigh and sort the older lambs and Sarah and Bruce flimed us as well as other aspects of the farm.

The only chance I had to take photos was when I heard Ginny barking at Bruce’s drone. Backgrounds aren’t great and I didn’t have a very long lens so I cropped a lot, but here are the photos I got of Ginny.

So Many Blogs, So Little Time

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Robin

I am behind on blogs and I don’t know which to do first. I didn’t finish the blog posts on our trip to Texas. The last one I did was Day 9 but there are three more. I want to share photos of my very cute granddaughter whose birthday is today.

I interrupted my Texas posts with a post of the Wragg Fire and now I have more photos of after the fire flared up yesterday.Then there is the State Fair which is worthy of a couple of posts.

However I am too tired tonight to do any of them. I woke up in the chair at my desk, dragged myself and my computer to the other room where the whole house fan is pulling a breeze through the house after our 108 degree day and I may just go back to sleep here.

Keeping Cool Across the Road

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Robin

I’ve been taking the dogs for walks Across the Road every evening. A big part of that for them is getting in the water. And I don’t even mind getting splashed with dirty water since it’s been (as the weather people are fond of saying) in triple digits. Rusty showed photos in his blog of Ginny’s new toy that floats. That’s an improvement over me having to fish the old toy out of the bottom of the canal. However, it doesn’t mean that I still don’t have to do some fishing. I think that at first it was a mistake, but now Ginny purposely drops the Toy on the side of the cement canal. I guess she has learned that someone will fetch the Toy if she doesn’t. She has also learned that although she can swim against the current in this canal it’s a lot of work and it is hard to get out with the steep angle of the concrete. I have learned two methods–if it is close enough to the side I can usually just reach it with the leash looped into a lasso. My newest method is to scoop it out before it goes under one of the “bridges” (2 x 12 planks). My best idea is to teach her to NOT drop the toy in the cement canal. We’re working on that.In this ditch it doesn’t really matter. Usually there is no water here, but this week they are irrigating the tomatoes and this is the tail-water. This is at the beginning of the walk so Ginny got in the water right away. She was surprised with the Toy disappeared through that hole in the tarp.She really couldn’t figure out where it went.I brought her around to the other side but when she looked in the right place the Toy was in the vortex of water.It’s hard to get a dog to look where you are pointing. Ginny never did see the Toy and guess who fished it out.

This is the canal where it is acceptable to drop the Toy in the water because Ginny will bring it out.

I throw it and Ginny fetches.

Two wet dogs. By the way, Maggie is with us all the time but she doesn’t get in the water very much–only up to her chest. She is usually hoping to find ground squirrels or other varmints.

Kirby in California Again

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Robin

Kurtis, Katie, and Kirby made a quick trip to California this month so there are some more cute granddaughter photos to share.

Getting ready for an outing. We spent a few hours with Uncle Matt and Aunt Kaleena at a park in Folsom. Matt entertained Kirby by blowing her hair, which she thought was very funny.