Around the Farm

This is a trial post to see how it actually turns out once published, instead of just in the publisher and preview modes. Because most/all people view my blog on mobile devices, maybe the horrible quality of the images will only bug me, and not the rest of you. It just frustrates me because I put a pretty bit of effort into getting good photos, and then when I upload them it totally takes away the effort I put in to make them look nice. 

Also, to keep the publisher from deleting my pictures or just flat out crashing the page as I try to arrange the pictures and write my post, I guess I have to upload one photo at a time and write the description for it before doing the next one. Takes a bit more time, but oh well-can't let a dumb little technical update put me down, now can I??

The porch is looking nice and fall-ish...

 

...while the planter out front is looking nice and spring-y with all these gorgeous flowers. 

 The sedums are changing color for fall, too. 

After procrastinating for several years, I finally got myself some climbing roses. Brittany and Mom put a row of shrub roses, and I put my climbers behind them, right along the fence. I'm not sure how much climbers spread out at the base, so I hope there's enough room between them and the shrubs to keep them all happy. 

Four of my sheep are resident weed eaters. I was able to borrow a nice portable electric fence from Valerie so I can move them around as they graze down the patch they are in. The only drawback is trying to get those posts into our parched ground, which is nearly as solid as concrete this time of year.

Silly it may be, but one great accomplishment is to sneak up on the dogs while they are sleeping. 😆(Oh look, the emoji's are back!)

Betrayed by the sound of the shutter!

 

Who woulda thunk-I got another dog since my last post. This is Missie, aka Bat, Batmobile, Bat Ears. She's a really nice little pup so far and I LOVE the ears. I hope she turns out! 

See what creative pictures they can make?? 

I had a pretty good year selling eggs and ducklings so I've expanded my duck flock a bit for the 2021 season. I have a bit more color now than I've had the last couple years, so hopefully they'll produce less of the solid whites like I had been getting. 

And lastly, these are the two pups I kept from Jinger's last litter. The white one is Rose, and the other is Libby. 

They are really laid back and nice pups, but they just aren't very courageous at this point, and I'm not real happy with them. Jinger has been bred to 3 different, unrelated males so far, and just doesn't seem to throw the right temperaments for my wants. Though she herself is, and always has been, very confident about most everything, the majority of her pups are not that way. As far as their working ability it's harder to tell, as I've only raised one up to a good working level. I'm not sure I've really liked what I saw of the younger ones on stock either, but I can't really condemn their stockwork when they weren't at an appropriate age to judge that. I have raised 5 of her pups for long enough to know that their temperaments just weren't as solid as I'd like, besides hearing of the same timidity in 4-5 of her other pups that went to other homes. That is besides my disappointment in these two I've kept so far, bringing the number up to 10-11 of her pups that have temperaments I'm just not impressed with. With that in mind, I don't plan on keeping anymore of her puppies. 

That's not to say that the buyers are not happy with the pups-a lot of them seem to be-but they just aren't what I'm looking for. 

I found out after the fact, that one of her first pups made it to the stockdog finals in Wyoming this July. The trial was recorded even, so I was able to go back and watch the runs. That was pretty cool! I wasn't watching the livestream of the trial, but I was keeping an eye on the score and names that I knew. I didn't catch this pup because her name was changed, and the owner is having someone else train and trial her. This pup was Sue, if you remember her from 2 years ago on my blog.