While It Lasted

Short, but sweet rain yesterday. Finally. We are dry. Not Texas or New Mexico dry, but too dry for me.







It started while I was out picking tomatoes. The rain felt so good I didn't hurry back to the house.







Eli, on the other hand, apparently had to ride it out under the Spirea bush...and didn't seem to have enjoyed it as much as I did.







Then, too soon, it was over and the sun came back out.







This is for Linda, the Queen of Rainbows. I think she could find a rainbow on a non-rainy day :-).







Just for fun I tried for a close up.



Wishing some gentles rains for everyone who needs it. And for those of you who don't, for goodness sake, send some our way!

Sunday Stills - The Letter B

B is for birthday! :-D. And a funny story Behind my Birthday Bounty. Saint Tim knew I was wanting a macro lens. Not sure what to get, he looked up Ed to ask some advice - one of the many reasons we call him Saint Tim :-).



He told me there was a funny story behind the gift and as I opened my package he explained looking up Sunday Stills, contacting Ed... I reached in the box, pulled out a Tokina lens and was dumbfounded.



Tokina? The story started to not jive.



"Really? A Tokina?"



Ed has on more than one occasion told me to only go with the Sigma.



Sigma, Sigma, Sigma.



Unbeknownst to Tim, that was the funny part of the story. Of course I had to pop off an email to Ed to ask and it all made sense, but still, first thing in the morning, the non-Sigma lens was a big, funny surprise.



Thanks Ed. This lens ROCKS!







We worked most of the day and I didn't get out to play with it until almost dusk. I really wanted to do the Sunday Stills challenge this week and I was determined to find something. I found lots.



I always try to put my favorite picture at the top, but can't pick a favorite here, so I picked my favorite flower. This is a geranium on top of our mailbox. Some Blooms.







A Bee.







Brown Eyed Susan.







Bugs. This is a huge yellow squash left out in our garden.







A ground view.







Sunflower Bud.







Borage Bloom. This plant was a gift from a thoughtful friend who told me all beekeepers should plant borage. Thanks Deb :-)







There's another tiny Bee in the center of this zinnia Bloom.



I had a Blast playing around with my camera last night - lots to learn. The day had been long and looking at the world in a new and different angle was sweet. A Happy Birthday.



For more Sunday Stills...

Good Dog U

Training any animal to do a job is hard work. You tend to get out of them what you put into them, whether a horse, dog, cat...wait a minute. Scratch cats off the list. They put a lot of work into training us ;-).



Last weekend - boy this week flew by - I got to go watch some stockdog trainers practice with their dogs at a beautiful farm just outside North Middletown.







Here the "local" dog is moving a group of sheep up to the practice field. The commute.







This is Debbie Bailey's Huck. Huck of the huge sheep in the wool house fame. Check out the horses watching sheep tv up on the hill. They'd watch awhile, graze awhile, check back in for the next dog... I could do an entire post just on them.







A kind word for the dog holding the small groups of sheep up on the hill, waiting for the running dog to come pick them up and bring them down.







I love the concentration between the dog and sheep in this picture.







I'm pretty sure this is Camp.







And this is her young dog Nick.







He was getting in a little trouble that morning, but that's why you go to school.







These are "hair sheep" by the way. They are shedding.



I love to watch these dogs work. I love listening to the owners whistle their commands. While I have no desire to have a competitive trial dog, some day I'd like to have a good herding* dog to help me at home. And then I'd have to go back to school too :-).



*Hank is obviously the best dog ever...

Psycho

I have had an unbelievably psychotic few days. They say if you don't have time to update your blog, post a picture of your cat. Here ya' go!







Betsy has weasled her way into the wool house lately and loves getting up into the drying/storage racks in the wash room. It's pretty hard to have a bad day with her non-stop entertainment.



Speaking of entertainment, I thought one of the dogs had grabbed an Adventure Chicken this morning. I heard the squawking, yelled first then looked. It was Betsy locked in a alligator death roll. "I caughts me a BIG 'un!"



Hopefully things will return to normal soon. I have several nice things to share.

20

There's a new sheep in the wool house. His name is 20. Says so right on his side. He's a big Serta sheep ;-). He's extra special because he was a gift from a couple of my favorite Border Collies, Camp and Huck. Huck won him by finishing 11th in the USBCHA National Open Sheepdog Finals last fall. That's a big deal. 20 is a big sheep.







I stopped in the wool house after doing morning chores and found 20 doing a little knitting. After the initial shock wore off, I noticed he'd picked my favorite, next project to hit the needles, B. Willard yarn.



(?!?)



At least he has good taste.



"So, um, what are you doing?"



"Knitting up a swatch for a sweater. I've heard it's a lot colder up here than Georgia."



"Yeah. So... Hmmm."

.

.

.



"Why did you pick that yarn?"



"Well, your Border Collie told me to sit here and stay out of trouble. This is the only yarn I could reach."

.

.



"I see."

.

.

.



"You do know I was getting ready to make myself a sweater from that, right?"







"It's knitting up real nice. Gonna to make a warm sweater for sure."



"For who?!?"



"Well, we could share it, couldn't we?"



"Your head is at least three times the size of mine. You'll stretch out the neck."



"What if we put some buttons at the top? Like a Henley."

.

.

.

(Resisting the urge to start whimpering...)

.

.

.

"Okay."



"Great! Let's get started. Do you want the arms or the body?"

.

.

.

"I guess I'd better do the arms."

Camp, Huck and Nick were up visiting and working sheep over the weekend. I have some pretty pictures to post tomorrow.







In the meantime, here's Huck and 20 at the finals. He's the 20 on the left ;-).

Happy Birthday Stella

The brains (I'm the brawn) behind Too Busy Bees adds another candle on her birthday cake today.







Her grandson Jason and I came up with a plan to paint and hang a barn quilt on her cute little shed. I researched quilt patterns and there is indeed a honey bee quilt. It looks something like this.







The middle is usually a nine patch square, but I changed it to a white "hive" and added some "honey comb". The pink "flower" was an attempt to add a. some color and b. give credit to the hard working flowers who feed the hard working bees who live in front of the hard working beekeeper's shed.







I wish I could say I planned it this way, but alas, it was (as usual) dumb luck/complete coincidence/divine intervention that the pink perfectly matches the flowers she has planted near the hives.







Saint Tim and Jason snuck up in the dark last night to hang it. They had to walk up through our back fields so she wouldn't see or hear them coming up the driveway. I was dying to go (always up for covert operations!), but have hurt my heel and couldn't walk that far without crying like a girl. My first thought when I saw it this morning was "Geez, guys, you couldn't have carried a heavy ladder all the way up there?"



Turns out if they'd hung it at the top, she would not be able to see it from the house. As it was she had to go trim the lower branches of one of her trees (which she had done before 8:30) to see it down low. Another bit of dumb luck :-).







I snapped some pictures of our favorite hive - The Audrey Hive. They swarmed and swarmed this spring to the point they were so low in numbers that they should never have survived. But they probably shouldn't have survived in the very beginning.



The old saying goes "A swarm in May is worth a load of hay. A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon. A swarm in July, let it fly by." That was a fun pick up though (go watch the video) and became Stella's first hive.



Bees need a certain amount of honey stash and a certain number of bees inside to keep the queen warm. It was a tiny group of bees heading into winter and I really worried they'd not make it. Stella had fed them sugar syrup religiously all summer and fall. They made it.



Back to this summer. While we were happy to add a couple new hives from this hard working group's genetics, we really hated the thought of losing our favorite hive. She noticed the other bees had started trying to rob the honey from this hive and with their numbers so low they couldn't defend themselves.



Most beekeepers would probably have combined this hive with another, but since they were still trying to work and still trying to defend their hive, we played around with a couple things to give them a chance.



First we stuck an entrance reducer in their "front door" and since it was a short one (to allow for a front syrup feeder if necessary) we added some dry grass to block off some more. This gave them less area to defend.



Then we made a screen to cover the ventilation gap at the top to keep bees from trying to come in that way. I don't have a picture of that because it worked so well that this tough hive has recovered and is in good shape heading into fall.



Stella is a good beekeeper, a good neighbor and a great friend.



Happy Birthday!

Behind The Scene

That was Lila yesterday - up front and center.







Keebs, behind her, was trying to take a nap. In his spot. His "office".







The Eli of the sheep world.







I don't know why these...these... SHEEP keep trying to hang out with me. Yeesh. They're annoying, smell god-awful, block my fan, and if that really loud one (Elizabeth) doesn't shut up, I'm going to punch her right in the mouth.



Most of the sheep have their own "spots". Keebs sleeps in the little stall, preferably By Himself. Ewen McTeagle sleeps in the back corner of the big inside stall. Ewenice sleeps in the middle of the outer shed. Henrietta sleeps just inside the big (soon to be) door on the inside.



Boudreaux has taken to sleeping right in the doorway leading out to the aisleway, aka the only way the old sheep have to get out and eat "cookies" in the evening. He's an obstacle.