2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!

I just want to wish everyone a Happy New Year!! May 2009 be a prosperous year for you and may you enjoy the year.

We are bringing in the new year right here at home. We'll probably both be sound asleep way before midnight comes. It looks like I'll be able to go out and work dogs tomorrow, unless it is snowing like crazy. Unfortunately Steve hurt his back at work on Monday and is pretty couch bound. He is taking drugs and we hope that his back will be better soon.

Take care.

The dogs of Sogn Valley Farm - taken 12/22/08

This first shot is of Jag. He is our oldest dog at 9 years of age. He is my open dog and he is one big goof ball.




Here is Phire. Or Princess Phire or Princess Pain in the Butt as we call her. She will be 9 in the beginning of January.


This is Bett who just turned 7 in October. She is our sweetie that we got from a friend in Florida. This friend still wonders how a Floridian dog can survive up here.


This is Steve's dog, Stryker. He turned 6 on November 1st. His daddy is Jag, who is pictured above. His mom is Ripley whom we just lost in August. He is a very sweet and special boy. Part of why he is special to us is that he was born with a hole in his heart and had a procedure done when he was 1 year old by the University of Minnesota and that is why he is still here with us today. Without this procedure we would have lost him. He always reminds us that life is worth living and that it is great being here.


Ah Cash, another one of our goof balls. Cash will be 5 in February. Where does the time go? He is a big, loveable boy. He is coming along on sheep and I plan on trialing him in 2009 in Pro-novice. He is a half brother to Stryker as Ripley is his mom too.


This is Corbie whose mom is Bett. She is another sweetie with us, but no push over for the sheep. I also plan on trialing her in Pro-novice in 2009.

Snow shots

I took some pictures today of the snow drifts that we got over the weekend. It snowed like crazy on Saturday. I am not sure how many inches that we got as it blew so much all weekend that everything drifted.




This shot I had to take as it always amazes me as how much of drift can be caused by a small tuff of grass.



It is also amazing to see all of the shadows caused by the snow drifts.

Steve's Stryker on sheep on Saturday.

Steve also worked Stryker on Saturday.


Here Stryker is fetching the sheep to Steve. I was squatting behind Steve to get these pictures.


Here Stryker is driving the sheep away to set them up for another outrun.

Working the dogs

I posted earlier about how warm it was on Saturday. Here are some pictures from us working the dogs that day.

This is Jag driving some lambs over the creek bed area. He is maintaining a nice distance.


This is Cash. He was fetching the sheep to me and was holding them to me in this shot.



Here you can see that he is fetching the sheep to me.


Here Corbie is fetching the sheep to me after doing a short outrun.

Sun Dog

Man was it cold this morning. It was -11 with a wind chill of -30 when I went out to do chores. Needless to say we didn't spend much time out there. I was told that I am getting soft in my old age cuz I didn't work dogs yesterday or today. :-) There was a cool looking Sun Dog when I was doing chores this morning. This was a really cool one as it had these intense bright areas to the left and right of the sun. I have not seen one like this before. I am guessing that it was like that because it was so cold. When I got back up to the house I took some pictures of it. There is one picture above.

A few hours.........

What a difference a few hours can make in the weather. Yesterday it reached the mid 40's and we were able to work dogs. Today it was 42 when I got up. We did chores and raked out the barn and shelter area. We wanted to get as much poop up as we could before it froze in again. Little did we know that by 1:30 it was going to be frozen solid again. Of course I am kicking myself for not working dogs while it was still warm this morning. But, that is life. It was like it was March this morning and January this afternoon.

It is now 6 above with a wind chill of -14. The winds are around 20 mph with gusts up to 34 mph. All I can say is brrrrrrr. The next few days are going to be nasty.

A warm day

Woo Hoo, we got a bonus warm day!! We both went out and worked dogs this afternoon. Steve and Stryker did really well. Stryker was doing beautiful outruns, going right to balance and then bringing the lambs right to Steve's feet!!

I worked Jag who was driving really well. Always need to keep an edge on him. Then I worked Corbie on stretching out her outruns. She did really nice. She only had one time when the dip at the creek pushed her to do a cross over. Other than that she was doing well. Cash I could not stretch out as far on his outruns, but he was flanking really nicely. I worked him on his pace which is really coming along.

Cold again

Some day I will get to work dogs again. Once again we have wind chills in the low single digits. If only the wind would stop then I could work the dogs a bit.

I went into town and got my new glasses today. We'll see what Steve thinks of them when he gets home.

Boy are my legs sore

We got plenty of snow over night. I got up expecting to do a little shoveling and was heading out to shovel the patio slab so that I could let the dogs out. Well, that didn't happen until two hours later. First off there was this huge drift in front of the door that I needed to shovel to get out of the garage. Then I walked out to shovel the driveway in front of the garage. I took one look at it and knew that I needed to get the snow blower out to clear it out. Now, normally I might have waited until Steve got home except that I had a dentist appt this afternoon and needed to get out. I finally got to let the dogs out later after I blew out the driveway by the house and the end of the driveway by the road. Once I let the dogs out I blew out an area on the south side of the barn and some other stuff down there. Shoveled up by the house and the porch. All in all, by the time I was done it had taken me four hours and it was time to eat lunch and get cleaned up for my appt. I knew that my legs were sore, but I didn't realise how sore until I went to walk up the stairs into the dental office. Ouch! So no working of dogs today. I was too sore, it was cold and windy this morning. Maybe I'll get a chance in the next couple of days.

Working dogs on a winter afternoon

Well, I went out and worked three dogs. Jag, Cash and Corbie. Jag I worked on driving mostly. Since we won't be trialing until spring I just work him to keep him fresh and because he would not be happy if he didn't get to work. When we get closer to trialing I will be fine tuning him more, not that I will let him get away with anything now. But he is a happy dog and was arooing me all the way back to the house.

Corbie did well, but I did need to get her out on a couple of her flanks. Then it was like she was sulking as she didn't want to drive very well for me. So, I got her to drive in a straight line, then did a left handed outrun and called it quits.

Cash did very well. He was giving to my pressure on his outruns. I have had trouble with him being tight at the top. I was rereading Julie Hill's book and worked on what she suggested for a dog who is tight at the top. I would lie him down and go part of the way out and then send him. I would then walk to where I knew he would start to be tight so that I could put pressure on him to get him out. He took to that very nicely and was then giving and flanking very nicely on his right handed outrun. Once I got a nice outrun I quit on a positive note for him. Then he held the ewes off of the feeder for me. I then wanted to show Steve how he has been flanking and he did a tight one right away. I had to correct him and then he did fine. I just can't give this dog an inch at all, I always need to be on my toes with him. :-)

Then when Steve got home he worked his dog, Stryker. He is working on driving as Stryker is wanting to slide up the side of his sheep. I had Steve be really quick to see when Stryker would start to sneak up on the side and be ready to down him and make him get back to where he is supposed to be. He was starting to catch on by the time we quit. We needed to quit as we were getting covered in snow. It was so cool to be out working dogs in the snow.

Winter has arrived

It appears that winter has arrived in SE Minnesota. We are waiting for snow this afternoon. It has just started to lightly snow and they are predicting 5 - 8 inches for us.

I will be heading outside shortly to work my two younger dogs, Cash and Corbie. We have to take the opportunities when they arise to be able to work our dogs in the winters around here.

Kathy