Smart Dogs

Several weeks ago I took a day off and the wife and I went up into one of the side valleys near us to watch some sheepdog trials. It was a beautiful sunny day and being high up the mountain we caught the sun and came back glowing. Folks were there to compete from all over western Canada and north western US. Most of the dogs performed well, though the odd one had stage fright and was a 'no show'. One thing I noticed was that 80-90% of the handlers were women which suprised me , as while growing up in England it was the opposite, well done ladies.We watched for several hours and had a very enjoyable time watching other people work! We travelled in a circular route so we could explore some valleys we had not yet seen. We have tried to do that lately and the more we see the more we realize we bought our farm in the right location. Close to town on a black top road, plenty of water for irrigation and low elevation for more heat units.Now we just have to find a crop to utilize these attributes that is profitable and legal!!

Over the River

The river running through our land is thankfully crossed on our property line by a nice walled goverment bridge which we use when moving stock from one side to the other. When we had cattle it involved more muscle power as steel panels were needeed to block off the road and steer the cattle. Now with sheep we find it so much easier and when they have done it once they know there is fresh pasture on the other side as the sequence of photos show. It was all I could do to stay ahead of them and they still beat me to the far side of the bridge. Note Rosa our guardian dog leads the way and is ahead in the pasture as well. We cross the river about eight times a year and it only takes a few minutes so we rarely hold up the traffic.