Finally- an update!

I saw a rainbow in July. A real one. From the farm. In this part of California, that is super rare. I'm sure part of the reason we had enough sprinkles to make a rainbow is that I had two stacks of hay delivered the previous day. Actually, I hadn't picked the day for the hay to be delivered. The way our local hay barn works is that you go in, pay for your hay, and they tell you an approximate date that the hay will arrive. In fact, this is not at all when the hay will arrive. It may be sooner than you planned, it may be weeks after you were expecting it. There is no way to really plan around the hay arriving because the Hay Farie will bless you with your hay stacks when she darn well feels like it, and not a moment sooner. And for this, you will be thankful.

July rainbows are about as rare as updates to this blog recently. It doesn't help that in February I had written a very long post, only to have my computer crash and eat it. I re-wrote the entry, complete with lots of pictures, and my computer froze up, forcing me to turn it off and again lose everything.

This was discouraging.

Then, the kids starting arriving, life went a bit haywire, general craziness ensued, and updating the blog went to the back of the line to hang out with the goat paperwork I owe people and intended to get done before show season started.

The February post with pictures was about our little trip up to Oregon. We went for a week, got to see some friends, sampled cheese, saw new places. I would tell you more, but it appears that talking about Oregon makes my computer very angry and I'd rather not lose a post again. I may try to upload pictures later, but I am not promising anything.

February also brought us our first kids of the year, and our very first kid was a gold, polled, blue-eyed doe! I only bred 17 does this year in hopes of bringing down the total number of kids from the high of 76 last year. I still ended up with 51 kids this year: no singles, mostly triplets, two sets of quads, and one set of quintuplets. The last kids were born June 2, and even though I keep trying to compress my kidding season, it lasted too long this year, with the last bottle babies being weaned in early August.

I did get a third lesson on herding in with Stella before she started going through her equivalent of teenagehood, and for a few months put her brain in storage. More training was done on a long line, and having a small herd of wethers to work her on really helped. But, I figured that she needed to get her brain back before I would get any benefit out of taking her to classes again. And, now that she has calmed down a bit and is listening better, I am too busy to go to class regularly.

Stella has managed to train the milkers quite well now- as soon as we go out to the barn to bring them in for milking, the girls get themselves into their stall before they even see Stella. This is good and bad-- good in that it makes that part of chores go quickly, bad in that Stella doesn't have as much to do work-wise, but still plenty of drive and energy.

Show season started in April, and I am hoping to do a seperate post on how the shows have gone for us. In general, we haven't been able to get to as many shows because of either Market committments, or due to conflicts between shows.

In May, I finally got to do the Whole Earth Festival with my English Hills Soap Co. booth. The festival is held for two and a half days in May at UC Davis, and they are pretty picky about who they let in (I had to write an essay!), so I was pretty excited about being there. Walking around and seeing the level of crafts from the other vendors was pretty amazing, and I came home with some unexpected purchases. The booth did well- definitely worth the effort, and I am hoping to be there again next year.

The garden has been doing alright this summer, although the beans were hit so hard by the local deer that we didn't even get enough for one dinner's side dish. The garden is mostly fenced, but determined deer can jump quite high. The tomato plants are huge, and our garlic, onions and basil all did quite well. We are mystified as to why cucumbers do not do well here. My plans to expand the garden area were put off until next spring due to the limiting factor of only having a 24 hour day and general there's-always-something-else-more-urgent-needing-my-attention-right-now-ness. In the mean time, we are making good use of the "goat tractor" to keep the weeds somewhat down in the area that used to be lawn, which also keeps me from resenting the wethers that are still hanging around these parts.

September looks like it will be a very busy month, but I really hope to get some posts up in the near future regarding: show wins, backpacking, state fair, and maybe even baby farm animal pictures.

Second Herding Lesson

I meant to post this last week since I've already had my third lesson, but better late than never...

This Friday dawned clear and still, which made working the dogs and conversation much easier.

Robin got to work her dog, Rusty, in a different pen with much lighter sheep than last week's group (that's Robin and Rusty in the picture). Some penning of sheep was attempted and almost accomplished, although Rusty seemed to tire more easily than usual. Robin recently changed his dog food and was wondering if this could have something to do with the lack of energy. I was hoping to get some good pictures of Robin and Rusty, but the sun was in just the wrong spot, and Rusty was working too wide to get everyone in the same shot, so I've got this sort of bled-out picture of them working.

Stella's manners improved while watching the other dogs work- most of her vocalizations were quieter, and she only did about three really loud outbursts. I've been working on "watch me" to get her attention off of whatever is causing her to get all wound up and it seems to help a bit. I did need to do a bit of basic heeling up and down the lane a few times to get her attention to refocus once she had seen Rusty do some work.

We went in with a long line to do some work with a different set of sheep than last week- only three, and they were lighter than last week's group. The first time Stella went out, she of course cut one ewe out and would not drop as I asked, but when I yelled "enough!", she did leave the ewe and came happily running to me. The trainer was pleased to see that Stella doesn't fold when given a correction and that we seem to have a good rapport. Several times, the trainer and I both gave Stella the same command at the same time, and the only real issue I had with Stella during this session is that she would not stay down as long as she needed, often times just touching her belly to the ground and instantly standing back up to keep moving up on the sheep.

By the end of the lesson, Stella had gone from being "a nice farm dog" to being "an awesome little dog!" according to the trainer. That's more like it!

After this week's lesson, it became clear that I needed a light long line to do some work with Stella. While picking up pepper spray (some of the dogs on our walks seem only sort of contained in their yards) at a sporting goods store, we found several diameters of rock-climbing rope. It's perfect- lightweight and strong, exactly what I need. My first session with it worked well, and now I don't get bothered by the big lead rope I had been using getting drug through the dirt.

This morning while feeding the boys, I noticed that the sheep next door were out, so I offered to help our neighbors get them back into their pasture. It was convenient to have a long line to use on Stella- and she was more than happy to help round up the sheep and drive them to their pasture. The only problem we ran into was that the guard llamas kept trying to drive Stella off. Stella kept her eye on the llamas, while working the sheep at the same time. These sheep have never been worked by a dog before, so they were pretty darn light.

The neighbors were VERY impressed, and I let them know that we'd be happy to help them move sheep around anytime. No sense in having them run after the sheep when clearly Stella would be more than happy to help out.

So between working on the boys, bringing in the sheep, helping me to gather up the wethers a couple of times, greeting all of the people who came to the farm today, and evening chores, I actually have a tuckered out dog laying at my feet.

Our First Herding Lesson

On Friday, Stella and I went to our first training session for herding.

The day started out cold, and got colder. When I got over to the training facility, the wind had picked up and continued to get stronger and colder the entire time we were there. Fortunately, my friend Robin was there with her Border Collie, so I had someone I could chat with and who would tell me some of what was going on.

Having trained dogs in agility, conformation, and obedience before, I am not a newcomer to the dog training thing, but herding is much different because you aren't just getting your dog to do what you want it to do, you are trying to get the dog to get the stock to do something, and not knowing exactly how the stock is going to react to the pressure from your dog makes the whole task that much more interesting. I've been working on some basics with Stella, but also worry about unintentionally letting her get into a bad habbit or two since she does chores with me every day, and there are only so many animals I can keep my eye on at any given moment. I was looking forward to also hearing an independent assessment of what the potential talent of Stella might be, as well as (hopefully) reassurance that I am not trying to stuff too much learning into the brain of a nine month old puppy.

Robin's dog went in with the trainer to do some pen work and to do some preliminary herding with the very dog-broke sheep used for beginners. Then the trainer worked with some of the not-currently-working-on-a-farm dogs. These are dogs that are a part of the "herding group" in AKC shows who could better be described as doing a sort of "dog dressage" than herding. Most of these breeds have been selected to conform more to the breed standards for appearance and have lost a tremendous amount of the instinct and brains they were originally bred for. The trainer I am working with is one of the few who will work with these (usually) retired show ring veterans, but she feels that there is value to giving these dogs something to keep their minds active. The most interesting to watch were the Briards since they have a very unique way of working with the sheep. The short of it is that Border Collies, Aussies, and Cattle Dogs basically keep their livestock in a ball. Briards were meant to bring livestock to market down one side of country lanes, which meant keeping the livestock in a somewhat narrow line. So, they run up to the front of the livestock, then circle back to run to the end of the group, keeping everyone moving and to one side of the road. They tended to work hundreds of head at a time, and are fairly large energetic dogs. The two we watched appear to have retained the instinct to spin, which looks kind of funny when applied to just three sheep at a time.

I took Stella into the 100 x 100 sheep arena and let her off leash with the trainer to see what she would do. Off she ran to the sheep, racing around, splitting a couple of them off, then dashing after them to get them back with the flock. She gathered them around the trainer and responded very well to the trainer's pressure cues and commands. Fortunately, Stella does not try to grip the sheep, so there were no mishaps there, and I think Stella was thrilled to have stock in front of her that would readily respond to her pressure. After several minutes in with the sheep, I was asked to call Stella, and back to me she flew. Good session, now for a bit of a break while others are working their dogs, and then another session in a bit.

You know that high pitched yip a dog makes when you accidentally step on it? Stella makes that noise continuously when she is excitedly watching other dogs working sheep. It is not pleasant to listen to, or easy to stop.

Finally, it was our turn to go back in with the sheep, and I was to try to get Stella to work on keeping the sheep around me, making a bigger or smaller circle, going faster or slower, and changing direction, using just body language and pressure, like you do with a horse you are working in the round pen. However, the sheep were more interested in following the trainer than in being around me, so we switched to just driving the sheep up and back along one fence.

The trainer also gave me a new command to use with Stella, as well as replacing a command I had been using (easy) with a softer (steady) one. Of course, when I needed to use "steady", all I could think was "easy-- no wait, that's not right, what the heck am I supposed to say?!", and that would be right when I could see that Stella was about to explode with a burst of energy and go running after the sheep. Border Collies are very fast, and stopping a young one can be tough once they get their feet under them. One time when she made the sheep split into a group of two and three, she was thinking of going after the three, caught my eye, I pointed her towards the two, said "gather 'em" and she took the direction perfectly. I was keeping my voice low and calm, but that didn't always keep her calm. Still, lots of errors made on my part, especially with giving commands just a second too late, and not being able to read the sheep as well as my goats. We did get the sheep into one corner, and partially back before calling it a day, so there was some measure of success.

The trainer did say that she was impressed with how obedient Stella was, and that she should be a good farm dog. The little competative voice in the back of my mind said "What? You don't think this is the next international champion trial dog?!?", but I had to remind that voice that we already have enough to do with all of the goat showing.
Besides, Stella is here because I need the help with moving goats. Robin also said she thought Stella was doing very well for her first lesson and for being so young.

So our homework is to work on our downs being faster, letting the break away member of the herd back into the group once their head is pointed in the right direction (Stella does like to go after the errant runaway, but then tries to continually head it off from joining the group- I need to stop her from trying to head so much in that situation), and slowing down her "walk up". I wasn't sure that I got a difinitive answer about how much training I should be trying to put on a dog this young, but Stella does not seem to be getting frustrated, and appears to want to keep going (and going and going).

I have to say, I LOVE having a smart dog.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2009 everyone! May your year be filled with blessings and lots of doe kids.

At left is a picture of part of the garden taken on one of the few sunny days we've had recently. Near the top, what looks like lawn is actually a large patch of "good bug blend", a seed mixture Andy plants to encourage good bugs to set up shop in our garden. These bugs eat bad bugs, and as a result, make it possible for us to have a good garden harvest without using any pesticides. You can also see our garlic, cabbage, swiss chard, and the multi-hued lettuce we've been using for tasty winter salads.

As has probably been well established, I do not like cold weather. We have been experiencing quite a few cold, dreary days, full of wet heavy fog that blocks out the sun. I have a hard time telling how much time has passed due to the lack of change in the light outside on days like this. It seems as though 10am looks the same as 3pm. It is too cold and damp to have a very good day of soap making, and every time I work the dog she gets covered in cold wet mud. Bleah.

However, even during the depths of our winter, signs of spring are around, if one looks for them. A few of our native bulbs are sprouting, the ceanothus (aka California Lilac) are already forming their flower buds, tree branches growing, and the resident Red Tailed Hawk pair have driven off their last fledgling and are working on their nest. Last year I saw them taking small branches from some of our trees for this purpose, and it seemed as though they were flying further away- this is the first time we have seen the actual nest, so I am not sure if they have changed trees for 2009, or if the hawk we previously saw was part of a different pair. I am pretty sure the abundance of jack rabbits and gray squirrels has something to do with why they like this area.

In addition to the usual finches and birds of prey we have year round, we've also had some small woodpeckers and what looks like a warbler species we haven't seen before. They look somewhat similar to the Western Goldfinches we have here year-round, but with smaller beaks, a slightly different body shape, and patches of yellow on their backs. Friendly little buggers- they land on branches very close to us in the barnyard, and they have been coming right up to the house as well. I'll try to get a picture of them soon.

Random Thoughts, Random Advice

A post in which I make a very public display of my passive-aggressive-ness. Aggressive in that I am annoyed and making a point of offering advice, passive in that I am not telling anyone this directly, hoping only that stumbling across this information on an obscure farm blog will change behavior.

To Charity Groups:
We all know that the economy is not doing well. We know that the need for your services is higher than usual. My piece of advice is this: return ALL phone calls to your general voice mail, especially from someone who wants to a)Give you about half of the items on your wish list, and/or b) wants to give care packages to the people in your shelter, but needs to know how many to put together. If the person who handles this is on vacation, a short call telling the interested party this fact will make the interested caller feel better about trying to help you out. And will keep her from becoming bitter. And annoyed.

To clerks who stalk pet owners in pet stores:
-There is a fine line between helpful and annoying. If I have a newly adopted pet and you have heard that a)I have been training dogs since I was 10 and b)the dog had some unfortunate social "issues", instead of trying to (repeatedly, continually) make suggestions (use a Gentle Leader!) that are not going to help with the dog's behavior, why don't you try to talk the woman with the four pound lap dog into using something more appropriate than the huge pinch collar she has on her dog. Seriously, that would be time better spent. Did I really feel the need to use a choke collar on my dog? Yes. You can tell because I am cheap and don't like to spend money I don't absolutely have to. While clicker training is great and there are definitely advantages to it, sometimes the dog does need a correction. That's life. Again, please listen to the words that are coming out of my mouth. I know how to train dogs.

-Also, when I tell you I have trained dogs for years, do not try to get me to sign up for your beginning obedience class. It will only serve to irritate me and to convince me that you are incapable of listening. The dog that I just told you I got earlier in the day is not indicative of my training skills- she has not even spent one night at my house.

-If you try to get me to buy a Gentle Leader one more time, I will write your corporate head quarters and complain to them about the fact that you will not let me alone when I am in your store. Seriously, do you get some sort of commission just on this one item?

To Petco Specifically
It is very nice that you give a coupon book for money off of supplies to people who adopt animals from a breed rescue or the local animal shelter. However, it would be nice if you went through them occasionally to make sure the coupons haven't all expired six months or so before you handed it to the people in your store.

Also, when the people bring the book back, hoping to get one that has coupons which expire sometime in the future, make sure that your clerk can at least read at a high enough level to comprehend that just because "dog" and "cat" both have three letters, they are not, in fact, the same thing. You can give me all the coupons you want for kitty litter, but that is not going to bring me into your store.

To Farmers Market Shoppers:
In general, I love the market shoppers. There are some things about some shoppers that I would be happy to do without:

-I think it is great that people see people they haven't seen in a very long time at the market and get to catch up. However, if you decide to catch up, please do not use my table as a place to set all of your belongings, and as a place for your toddler to amuse themselves. That is not why I am at the market. I am there to sell things so I can feed my animals and pay my mortgage. You blocking my table does not do either. Please move to an unoccupied spot, or over to one of the many picnic tables provided for you.

- If you cannot use the sort of thing I am selling, do not feel compelled to come over and tell me why you cannot use soap. If you don't use soap, you are not going to be one of my customers, and there's not much I can do about it. I wonder if these same people go into ice cream stores and explain that they can't eat cold food or they will double over in pain. Uh, thanks for sharing, I guess.

-Similarly, if you have a friend who makes soap and gives you all you can use and more, there is really no need to tell me that either.

-If you are thinking of making soap, find a soap supply store that will happily give you recipes on how to make this product. Do not expect someone who is selling soap to give you their recipe- lots of research and time went into their product.

-Also, if you have children who are big fans of really ripe strawberries, please, please keep track of where they are putting their hands. Strawberry stains are very hard to remove from the fabric covering my table, and having to re-wrap soaps with stained wrappers is not fun, nor is it free.

-If you ask me if I will be here next Saturday, I (and all of the other vendors at the market) know you have no intention of actually coming back next week. There's really no need to ask us this, just because you have asked a million questions and have no intention of buying anything but feel awkward about just walking away from the booth without at least making an attempt to sound like you may be back next week to get something. We're on to you.

-If you don't think that a soap smells exactly like what you were thinking it would smell like based on the label, do feel free to let me know, and suggest what it smells like to you. After the first mention though, if you go on and on and on about the scent not matching what you were expecting, I may get somewhat annoyed. Especially if you are emphatic about it.

That is all for now on the advice front.

Random thoughts:

I seem to be unable to post comments to 98% of blogger blogs, even though I clearly have a blogger account. Many times, the letters you are supposed to type in to make sure you aren't some sort of auto-comment spider don't even show up. When they do show up, I usually have to type them in several times before the blog will post it.

Yesterday was the National Bird Count day, and I am pretty sure some memo went out to the birds. I awoke yesterday morning to find the back yard positively alive with birds, including a couple of western blue bird pairs checking out the new bird box Andy put on the post in the "lawn". Lots of finches, a woodpecker, the blue birds, ravens, gold finches, purple finches, etc all there for the counting. Last night the Great Horned owls sounded as though they were having an animated conversation about where their next nest should go, or possibly how many owlets they should aim for in 2009.

This morning, nothing. Not a single bird in view.

In flipping through a book titled "1001 Reasons to Think Positive", I was quite surprised to see that about 30% of the one sentence "reasons" started with "don't". That seems sort of negative for a book on being positive. Also, they weren't reasons to think positive, they were more how-to oriented. I would have assumed from the title that it was a book convincing you why you should be positive (i.e. lower your blood pressure, you'll be more enjoyable to be around, friends will return your phone calls, etc.), but that turns out not to be the case. I suppose this is one of the reasons you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

I would have more random thoughts, but Stella is doing the dog equivalent of hovering behind my shoulder and asking me how much longer I need before we can leave. She's been promised a nice long walk once we have a break in the weather, and since we are having a somewhat sunny day, I must get her some exercise while I can.

Winter Solstice

Happy Winter Solstice Everyone!

Not only is today the shortest day of the year, it is also the official beginning of winter.That’s right- all the cold weather you thought was winter was actually autumn giving you a little seasonal appetizer. Nice, eh?

I hate cold weather, so for me the upside of this day is the knowledge that each day will bring with it a little more daylight (yay!). The downside is that I know my patience for crappy cold temperatures will run out long before the crappy cold weather does. I know, we need the cold so we’ll get a good apple crop (yes, apples need several hundred hours of very cold weather in order to be happy), and because it kills off the flies, or at least makes them slow enough to be easy targets. Rain means that soon we’ll hear the frogs in our seasonal creek every night, and the fields certainly need lots of moisture right about now. But it also means wearing 20 pounds or so of clothing every time I leave the house, taking about seven minutes to get dressed just to go out to the barn, and a very strong urge to stay under the covers where it is nice and warm for as long as I can get away with, happy to raise a white flag in the battle against gravity. These urges do not make for productive winter days.

I’m also learning that rainy days make Stella rather restless. It doesn’t seem to me that I am spending that much more time in the house when it rains, but judging from the number and volume level of the sighs emanating from the dog, I apparently am *quite* boring to hang out with when the weather is bad.

We now break for a public service announcement:

Should you, at this time of year, bring mistletoe into the house for the holidays, please keep in mind that mistletoe is in fact a parasite. It lives by sucking the life out of the trees in which you find it. Therefore, when you go to dispose of it, please place it in the trash, and do not put it in the “green” trash with the rest of the vegetative waste from your house, and do not put it in your compost pile.

If you find mistletoe growing in any of your trees, do the tree a favor, and remove it. This usually means removing the entire branch containing the mistletoe back to the main trunk of the tree as the mistletoe has set up a network of roots in the branch- if you just knock off the green part that you can see, the mistletoe will come back very easily next year. For some reason, our area, and Vacaville in general seems to have quite a mistletoe infestation afflicting our trees. One of our black walnut trees had six very large clumps of mistletoe growing in it (each one pretty much filled an entire trash can), and in the two years since I’ve gotten rid of the last of it, the black walnut has flourished with a much thicker canopy than the first few years we lived here.

Also, poinsettias are not poisonous. If you ate the leaves off of 10 plants, you might have a bit of a tummy ache, and your family might wonder about your general state of mind, but you would not die from doing so.

I know, now you will sleep easier at night. I do what I can.

Today, I was out in my workshop area, making a few batches of soap, and listening to "Car Talk" on the radio, and one of the callers was asking a question about his daughter's car. In the course of the conversation, he mentioned that his daughter lives in California, so "of course, the car never gets all that cold". I have to assume from this comment that they were talking about a car that lives somewhere south of Santa Barbara. Say, Los Angeles, or possibly San Diego.

California is not just the greater Los Angeles-San Diego metropolitan region. It is in fact, a very large state with a huge range of climates, from Death Valley in the south east to the Lost Coast (with over 100 inches of rain annually) in the north west to the Sierra Mountains lining our eastern border. When I have lived out of state, or even gone to other countries, mentioning that I am from California is almost always invites whomever I am talking with to ask if I surf. Just in case you were wondering- no. It is way too cold, Northern California beaches are about five feet wide at low tide, and sharks like to hang out just off the coast since seals and sea lions are also fond of our shores, and are quite tasty to sharks. But again, my point is, mention California to anyone who is not from 'round here, and immediately people think of LA. Since LA is one of my least favorite areas of the state, I find this rather irksome.

Anyway, I would challenge anyone who doesn't think that it gets cold in California to spend a day with me in December or January at the Davis Farmer's Market. Yesterday (and it isn't even officially winter yet- we're still in autumn until the 21st) at the market I was wearing:

-silk long underwear (this is supposed to keep you warm in the Alps, much less at sea level)
-polyester long sleeved hiking shirt
-turtle neck
-fleece shirt
-wind breaker
-thick barn jacket with Thinsulate liner
-scarf
-hat
-gloves
-two layers of pants
-super thick insulating socks
-hiking boots

And I was still freaking cold. I do not know if I could put on enough clothes to stay warm in the winter. Still, we have had frost for the last week every morning, and we expect early morning temperatures in the 20s in January and February.

There are some good things about winter- for one thing, the flies in the barn get slow and easier to kill, and I've dried off the girls so I spend a little less time doing chores in the morning, and quite a bit less time in the evening. Farm life is good in that it keeps you looking forward- I am always thinking about several months from now... when kids hit the ground, when show season starts, when we need to plant our next set of trees that we'll struggle to keep alive during the harsh heat spikes of the summer, etc. At least it keeps my mind off of how cold it is, and how long it takes me to get ready to go out to the barn because of the layering that is needed. I know it would look weird, but it would be sort of nice to just grow a layer of cashmere in the fall like the goats do so I didn't have to put on 20 lbs. of clothing every time I need to spend more than five minutes out side.

Oh and one more thing- as you are doing your Christmas shopping, strongly consider buying locally, from small businesses and from those of us who hand make useful gifts. Unlike shopping at a corporate store, the vast majority of the money you give local crafters stays in the local economy and doesn't go to some far away headquarters. Also, take some time to visit your local farmer's market where, even with the cold, there is still plenty of produce in season, such as: squash, persimmons, parsnips, turnips, lettuce, mandarins, oranges, lemons, boc choi, apples (near the end of the apple season, but still quite a few varieties available), peas, green beans, chestnuts, and of course, almonds. We have had several very good salads recently with the lettuce from our garden, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that the pea plants produce soon.

Stella

See? I told you she was cute.

I decided years ago that if/when we added a canine to the farm that a Border Collie would be perfect, and that a perfect name for that dog would be Stella. I have no idea why- just sounded like a name I would like using for many years.

Also, there was already cinematic evidence that Stella sounds good when being yelled. After listening to the neighbors yell various dog names over the years, this seemed to be an important element of the dog's name.

Anyway, the rescue people asked me if I had thought about a name for our soon to be addition, I said I had been thinking of Stella-- at that moment Stella's head jerked up and she looked right at me as if to say, how did you know? So, that name stuck.

We of course cannot know for sure what Stella's life was like before she was found wandering around Calusa, with what the shelter people figured was her sister. My guess, based on her behavior, is that she and her sister were owned by a young man who lived with an older woman (this is based on the way she reacts especially positively to men of a certain age, and how much more negatively she reacts to women of a certain age). She gets very playful around 6pm, which I would guess means that said young man would play with the dogs when he got home from his job. With the way she fears brushes, and the be-socked feet of my mother-in-law, I would guess these were used against Stella.

Anyway, we started on clicker training today and it seems to be going pretty well, although she does get so excited about getting her reward when she is retrieving that she tends to drop whatever is in her mouth in anticipation of getting her reward when she is only half way to me.

Stella

So, I thought I would next post about summer, the AGS National show and our first Linear Appraisal. This is the time of year when I am extra busy with the business and with trying to get the does bred for spring and have composed many posts in my head, but have not gotten them up on the blog.

But, I am pretty excited about the newest addition to the farm. Thanks to the good folks at Northern California Border Collie Rescue, we have our very own eight-month old(ish) puppy now learning the ropes on the farm. For some reason, Blogger won't let me upload her picture, but trust me, she is cute. She is a smooth coated, black and white girl, on the smaller side of the size spectrum at only 32 pounds as of yesterday.

She likes:
Coffee
Beer
Persimmons
Green lamb toy
Penut Butter
Chickens (a little too much)
Alfalfa stems

She Dislikes:
Brushes
Most women (unless they *really* like dogs)
Retrieving citrus fruit

In the last three weeks she has learned:
Sit
Wait
Leave It
Hugs!
Not for Dogs
Come (about 90% reliable)
Go potty
Take it
That'll do (about 70% reliable)
Off
Give
Easy

I have to say, I was quite surprised by the fear of women thing. She even barks at the television when a woman is on giving the news of the day. We are working to socialize her so she will be better about this "issue", but the vet told us that the more into live stock border collies tend to be, the less social they are. The first ten days or so that she was here, it was like I had adopted a Secret Service agent instead of a dog. I could not even go from one side of the kitchen to the other with out her following me the few steps. She is starting to figure out that she doesn't have to keep her eye on me quite so closely, but definitely likes to stay in the same room.

As she is getting more comfortable here, her herding instincts are bubbling to the surface. She has started exhibiting some of the "eye" that border collies are known for, and is dropping to the ground on her own at least once a session when we are up with the bucks. She is really eager to work every day when we go out to do chores, she is very eager to get out and try to get the animals to move. The mature does have given her a few good hits, and Stella is a bit intimidated by them. Last night, Sky Lupine decided to turn the tables on Stella, running her out of the feeding area of the barn and confining her to about a five foot wide space. Forget Babe- the pig who could herd sheep-- I apparently have a goat who can herd dogs! In a way, I actually find the doe aggression towards dogs somewhat of a relief- if one of our llamas falls asleep on the job, at least I know I have a few does who will take a stand against the coyotes or stray dogs that may get into our pasture.

It is really neat to see Stella working- just how strong her instincts are, and that any time we go for a walk and she sees sheep (more common than goats along the roads we walk on), her whole attitude changes, she's focused, and ready to round those critters up. We haven't seen any evidence of her wanting to herd anything other than small ruminents, but she is still young.

Spring Summary

Now that summer is just a few days from being over, it seems like a good time to summarize how our spring went.

Our 2008 kidding season ended in the first half of May, with a grand total of 76 kids on the ground. This is the biggest kidding season so far, and honestly, I hope the biggest one ever. Too many bottle babies! Too many kids to disbud at a time! In previous years, there have always been some fall kids, but Andy wisely suggested that I refrain from any spring breedings because he could see even better than I could that I really needed a break.

Shortly after my last spring post, we checked on the titmouse family, and found six fat and happy fluff balls in the birdhouse, and as far as we could tell, they all successfully left home at the appropriate time. The kestrels fledged out four young kestrels from their birdhouse over the heat pump. A few pairs of tree swallows showed quite a bit of interest in the unoccupied bird house on what in wetter years would be our back lawn, but still no takers.

In more domestic bird news, a couple of our hens decided to hatch out some chicks, although it is becoming quite obvious that Blackbeard, our fairly laid-back Red Jungle Fowl-Auracana cross rooster is way too related to many of our hens, because quite a few of the chicks had "issues". I'd like to find him a new home, and he really isn't human-aggressive, so if anyone is interested, do let me know. We also added just under a dozen New Hampshire hens to the flock- a welcome infusion of youth since many of our hens are now in the 5+ year range (not to mention that the majority of our hens were done in by raccoons last summer). New Hampshires are in the background of Rhode Island Reds, but tend to run a bit bigger, and these hens seem to be more on the copper side of the color scale. They are a bit of a sentimental favorite- this is the type of chicken that I got from UC Davis when I was in fourth grade, and the last of those hens died when I was in college. They are considered somewhat of a rare breed these days, and I'm finding that these are quite a bit friendlier than most of the other breeds of chickens we currently have. I think the only chickens that may be bolder are our Speckeled Sussex hens, and those girls love to roam.

This is the fifth year that our property has had a break from the copious herbicides (and we suspect insecticides) that the previous owners used here. We've seen quite a bit of plant life come back to areas that were suspiciously bare, and the beneficial insects have come as well. You can sort of see a few of the lady bugs that we found all over the place in spring on the yarrow (picture at left)- there were about thirty on this plant alone. We've also seen quite a few mantis, and more butterflies later in the season than in previous years. We typically see Monarchs, Swallowtails, Buckeyes, and occasionally a small blue butterfly a biologist once told me was an "Echo Blue", but I haven't been able to find a butterfly by that name in any butterfly-identifying book. I also saw quite a few types of spiders I haven't ever seen before, as well as the wolf spiders I am (unfortunately) used to seeing in the barn.

We again got a fly predator subscription, and those little buggers work really well. What they don't get, the lizards that have moved into the barn seem to get. I think there are four western fence lizards living in the barn full-time right now- the one that hangs out in the area where I make soap has become so habituated to my presence that if I don't look out for it, it won't always scurry out of my path. I've recently seen some teeny lizards around the barn area, so apparently the lizards are happy enough to expand their population around here.

In my next post, I plan on doing a summer update, which will include the AGS National show, our first Linear Appraisal Session, and milk test.