Winding down, winding up
Only six more days of school left, so winding down that for the year. Getting ready to ramp up on summer activities. The hard part of teaching right now is I'm not motivated and neither are the kids. Such a bad combination! Ha! We'll get it through it. I've had a very good class this year. Hard workers and great problem solvers. Several of them are dog lovers too, which has been fun.
Beep on the left, Rooster in the middle and Poppet on the right. Noodle is cold, so on the bank, driving me nuts.
I've been taking the dogs swimming three days a week. We're up to 10 minutes of fetching. Beep is holding up well and LOVES his swimming time. Out by the pond where we swim, there's an old barn. In that barn are three baby great horned owls! They are huge! They did a weird hoot when I peeked around the corner. They look like they weigh about as much as Noodle.
Great Horned Owl babies.
Another Great Horned Owl baby.
On May 31st, June 1st and 2nd is our first sheep dog trial. We were supposed to have a trial last Sunday, but it was canceled for various reasons. Will be running pro novice since Rooster has aged out of nursery. This trial is at Sonia Craig's in Payette, so fairly close at about 45 miles away. Rooster had a stellar trial there last fall and we also did a practice trial there, where he handled the sheep well too. With herding it's all a crap shoot!
Rooster
We been working mostly on driving and stopping on balance on the fetch. He has been wanting to over flank at the top. I did a shed with him yesterday where we shed off two. Then I asked him to take a single from those two and let the other one go back to his friends. We then worked that single away, which Rooster loves. I then blew a look back whistle, he turned on his haunch and gave a nice outrun and lift on the others. Todays sheep were a mixed bag of fast, slow and two who didn't want to hang with the other four. Rooster had to work hard to keep them together. I could see the sheep at the trial kinda being like these today. We'll have three ewes and two lambs.
My favorite pond
I've been asked to come drive tractor and swather again this year. Might be doing some of the over Labor Day weekend! Oh! My girlfriends, Nat and Biff turned four! Time is flying!