L Bar J Aussies

Winds of Change

2011-12-27T18:22:00.000-08:00

Larry

April 7, 1944 - December 8, 2011

Avery's Katahdins aka the GOOD BREEDER!!

2011-12-02T17:48:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, my last post about being careful from whom you purchase sheep cast an unfortunate bad light on my friend Dee Avery, and that was IN NO WAY MY INTENTIONS, so I have removed that post from my blog as it was being percieved wrongly, and just causing too much anxiety!!! Dee has been nothing but supportive, I purchased an excellent ewe and ram from her, that I am extremely pleased with. Not only that, I received their registrations papers in very short order :o)

Nooooo, the 6 ewe lambs that I purchased in 2010 were from a very different breeder.....'nuff said.

On a happy note, while doing chores tonight I'm almost positive I can see the little beginnings of an udder on one of the 3 girls I had babysitting my ram :o) I do believe the young man has been busy!

The Girls

2011-11-06T20:05:00.000-08:00

Just a quick picture of some my ewes. I put in a new bale today....they ate the other one down to only a small tractor bucket full of coarse bits. Cleaned up where the old bale was and set up a new one......this time on its end. will see if there is a difference on how they eat this one. Also bedded their sheds with some new straw on top of the shavings.

THE best hay feeder for sheep!

2011-11-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

For the last several years, I've been forking hay over the fence to my sheep each day, or putting out a round bale for them to eat free reign. Last winter was ugly, and free reign, a bale was only lasting them between 7-10 days. It was a less than successful way to feed sheep, but since I didn't have many of them I just "put up" with the mess it created over the winter months, and cleaned it all up in the spring. This year I have some nice Katahdin ewes, along with a few of my Barbs and I was determined to make my life easier when it came to chores this winter. I've been researching feeder ideas, and saw this feeder on a website....... I freely admit I "borrowed" this idea from Premier Sheep Supplies, when I built my round bale hay feeder for my sheep. The only difference is I used hose clamps to join the sections together. I have to say its been a HUGE success!! They are now on week 4 of the same bale!! This first bale was put in on its side, the next one I am going to stand on end and then decide which way works the best.

CONGRATULATIONS

2011-11-03T21:10:00.000-07:00

go to Will and Louise! After competing on Thanksgiving weekend at the Canadian Herding Showcase, Will finished the weekend in 3rd spot in the Started class and 11th overall!! What a heck of an accomplishment for them in their first year of trialing! The venue was Thunderbird Show Park, in Langley BC and it was beautifully decorated along with the obstacles which were very innovative :o)

Congratulations to everyone that competed or was involved in the organization!

Shay

2011-11-03T20:08:00.000-07:00

Reluctantly I am going to look for a new home for Shay. She is in season right now, and will be spayed once it is safe to do so. After that we will be looking for just the right home for her. Shay is a fun, active, very athletic girl who loves her toys! She is house trained, crate trained, and loves to ride in vehicles. She does not take stockdog training pressure well, and so will not make a good cowdog........she will however make one heck of a friend for someone with a very active lifestyle. Shay will be free to the right home........but it must be the "right" home for her before we will let her go.

Contact me for more information on Shay

Brother Will

2011-08-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

Talent runs in the family!

From this tiny newborn.....

to this adorable pup, who was once called "Shorty"........

Emerged, this exceptionally handsome young man named "Will".

Will, who is known more formally as L Bar J's Redi and Willing, and his partner who is my sister Louise, entered their very first CKC herding trial in June of this year. They not only earned their CKC HS title, they also earned a HIT Aussie.......and to cap it all off, they are now sitting at #9 Herding Started in Canada! Thats quite an accomplishment for a first time trialer, and we are so very proud of them!! :o)

Catching Up

2011-08-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

I've been a very bad blogger.........its been months since I posted anything, and lots of things have happened!! Where has the time gone??

Let's see........since my last post in April, we had another wet spring (and so far a wet summer too), and with all that rain came grass in abundance! The cows have all calved, the calves have been branded and vaccinated and all are turned out in the south quarter, there's so much grass they'll be there until fall!

In May a new fellow joined us from Maureen Elgert of MRE Farm at 100 Mile House, BC. Coal has been a joy to raise, he has exceeded every hope so far, and I am SO looking forward to starting him on stock! Coal is like an old soul in a puppy suit, its really hard to believe how good a pup he is......looking forward to some good stuff from this young man :o)

Coal and Shay relaxing on a rare warm day!
MRE's Knight Moves - "Coal"

In June our ASCA club hosted a 2 day stockdog clinic with Sharon Simmons and then 4 stock trials over 2 days, at SwedeLee Farm in Donalda, Alberta. The clinic and trials were hugely successful despite the torrential downpours that haunted one day of the clinic and both days of the trials! The winds were near hurricane force driving the rains sideways! The stores in town did a booming business in rain gear! Chili had an awesome weekend, earning ALL her Open titles (cattle, sheep & ducks) on Saturday, leaving Sunday for us to relax and enjoy the trials.

July came and I am so happy to say that I found a really good young ram for my ewes! I have been working on upgrading my small flock of sheep from my collection of "mutt" sheep that I use to train my dogs on, to what I hope will be a good flock of registered Katahdin's. I expect I will always have some Barbados ewes as they offer a very different challenge for the dogs, and besides I really like my Barbs :o) But I wanted to add some good Katahdin's for meat production and with any luck I'll be able to raise some excellent breeding ewes as well. When I purchased my ram lamb, I was lucky enough to also be able to buy a really nice 2 yr old ewe to add to my flock. (pictured above is the young ram, and beautiful dark red ewe) I'm so looking forward to lambing season next spring, its been a *long* time since I've raised lambs! My ram and ewe came from Averys Katahdin's, www.averyshairsheep.blogspot.com - thank you Dee for the opportunity to acquire such quality animals!

Chili Sorting Heifers

2011-04-24T20:54:00.000-07:00

This is a little short video of Chili that Lill took, while we were sorting some heifers thru a gate. This was the first time that Chili had done any real work for about 4 months....winter was just to brutal this year to do much of anything, so only the necessary things got done. I was really pleased with her, considering she was in near standing heat!

http://youtu.be/p5IAEebdJT0

We took a few video clips of Lill's dog Tray as well......you can find them on YouTube on my channel at 1234jholmes

enjoy!

Lots Goin' On

2011-04-24T20:24:00.001-07:00

Wow...its been a while since I posted! I think I went into a hole somewhere, the late winter/early spring weather really got to me! The sun finally came out, actually the better part of April has been pretty decent, not very warm, but at least its warming up now and the snow has all but gone! I even see some bits of green starting to happen :o) The calves started arriving about a month ago and we're 2/3 done now. I love seeing spring calves :o)

Something else exciting happened......PJ our filly finally went to be started! She is at our neighbors ranch, and Cody has, in a very short period of time (less than 10 days) given her a very promising start as a good ranch horse! He's been moving pairs with her every day, and although I'm sure it doesn't feel like it to Cody, she LOOKS like a seasoned ranch horse already! I"m really looking forward to some good things from her.

On Good Friday I went north to my friend Lill Roth-Lee's farm, for a couple of hours of working dogs with Lill. It was sooo good to go and have some fun and laughs with Lill! We were dog breaking the heifers that we'll use for our clinic and trial in June. I'll add a short video of Chili in my next blog... helping me sort heifers

Grumble Grumble - Bitch bitch

2011-02-20T14:25:00.000-08:00

SUCCESS!!
Well....I have just about had enough of winter, and the whole of next week looks like its going to be more of the same! To make matters worse, the power went off at 9:00am this morning just as I was sitting down with my cereal and a hot cup of coffee. This is a very rare occurance here, and I expected it to come right back on.....nuh uh, it took a good 3 hours before it came back on and in the mean time, to add insult to injury a strong south wind blew in. This combined with some rediculously cold temps equaled 2 frozen waterbowls and 40 cows plus 16 heifers and a couple of bulls that thought their world would come to an end if they didn't get a drink RIGHT NOW. Luckily it was only the top float assembly on both bowls that had frozen, they hadn't been without power long enough for the freezing to keep going south. Kya came with me and while I worked on the waterbowl, she gathered cows and pushed them back out to the field.....much nicer than having cattle breathing down your neck while you're trying to operate a wrench :o)

Completed Project

2011-02-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

Jaime....not real happy with this turn of events ! :)

Well here it is......my grooming table is complete! I've wanted a grooming table for a long time, just because it makes it so much easier on a persons back rather than bending over to groom dogs, or find an available "something" to put them up on. This design is from my friend Pat who owns two grooming shops and it works really well, its nice to have a shelf underneath the table to keep your tools handy! My dogs are pretty sure I've lost my mind, and are not very enthusiastic about this new addition to their routines, but with regular use I'm sure they'll learn to live with it :o)

Happy Birthday Old Man

2011-02-03T19:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Hawk turned 11 years old! I ran out of time yesterday and didn't get it posted.......and didn't even manage to get a new picture of him, so I'll post ones that are from his youth! He really doesn't look or act any differently now, except he's a little grayer in the face. Still a goofball tho :o)

Happy birthday old man we love ya :o)

Done!

2011-01-31T20:06:00.001-08:00

My website has at long last been updated! Thanks to Cherie Corrigan of Dream in Design web services! I hope now with Cherie's help to be able to update my website on a little more frequent basis. One day I'd also like to learn how to develop and look after my site myself. Thats one of those "roundtuit" projects tho, and it might be a while!

Stay Tuned

2011-01-27T21:18:00.000-08:00

Well I've found someone to overhaul my website!! Cherie Corrigan of Dream in Design has agreed to do maintenance on my site, on an on going basis, Yay!!

It will still "look" the same, because I really do like the format and color pallet, but the information is sadly outdated. SO, we are just in the process of updating pictures and text and adding a page for Shay.....stay tuned..............

Ellie's Birthday

2011-01-23T15:13:00.000-08:00

WTCH Westwind's Gale Force RD RTDs DNA-VP

"Ellie"

Ellie was born January 24, 1997, tomorrow will be her 14th birthday. She was an amazing dog to work, and my introduction to good working Aussies. Happy Birthday old girl :o)

Time Passes

2011-01-15T18:10:00.000-08:00

Chili working some heifers at home

Below are pictures of Shay and one with her 1/2 sister Chili

I can't believe how time gets away from me! It looks like its been about 2 months since I blogged last, and so I'm really going to try to be more consistent this year! Also my website is sadly outdated, and that is the next thing on the adgenda to get updated.

Early in December we had a nice visit from Noelle Hoorneman. Noelle is from the Netherlands and had been in Canada for a couple of months on a working holiday....mostly working, but she did manage to get in a bit of touring and visiting. We had a really nice weekend visit with Noelle, and also managed to get up to my friend Lill Roth-Lee's place to work some dogs and visit there. Noelle brought a rather nice camera with her, and was kind enough to take some pictures of our dogs working. Sure wish Noelle had been here a little earlier when I needed some pictures of Chili for the ASCA year end Merit Awards pics for the Aussie Times!!

Cowboy'n

2010-11-20T18:35:00.000-08:00

Part of what I really really love about living on this little piece of the planet here, is the awesome neighbors we have. We each have our own cow herds....ours is tiny at 40 head, compared to our neighbors 500+ , but no matter the size every animal is important to us all, and without each others help, it would be much more difficult to manage them. All the fall chores are nearly done, our neighbors herd has all been preg checked, and the last chore on the list for them was to move the heifers back north and join them with their main cow herd. We did that this morning, it was nippy out (about -15c) very thankful for insulated Carhartts! The sun came out tho making a rather pleasant ride.

Monday, the 22nd is weaning day for us, and with our neighbors help we'll wean, apply RFID tags, and load the steer calves and take them to town to the Auction Mart for tuesday's sale. We'll keep the heifer calves for a while, to decide on replacements, and then the balance of them will be sold.

So much to do, so little time!

2010-11-04T19:41:00.000-07:00

Wow, its seems like its been forever since I posted anything here! Life's been busy. I got my new lambs, and they are growing really well. Hopefully they will be the neucleus of my new registered flock of Katahdins. We finally got all our hay brought in from the fields and put into the stack yard. Things have been tidied up and put away ready for winter, although with the spectacular weather we've had for almost all of October, and the first few days of November, its hard to believe that winter will soon be upon us. Now that the mosquitoes have been killed off and the sun has come out, I have started working Shay on my really dog broke "puppy" sheep. She's coming along really well.....here's a short video of her on day 4 of training.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE-5CeYUiqw

Chili has become the go-to dog at home and helps with the cattle, and she also brings in the sheep and sorts the puppy sheep out for Shay :o)

The top picture is of Chili and the new lambs the first time they had been worked by a dog.

MCSS Letter Published in CVMA Newsletter

2010-09-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

ermission has been granted to cross post.
Well worth reading! Joan

I've not seen it yet myself, but today we learned that our letter to theCVMA and other vet councils in Canada was published in the CVMA newsletter. You can read it here:http://www.mscc.ca/news_events.html We received a reply from a veterinarian in Manitoba, who stated that theletter made her "angry". Apparently, she was offended that she might bearsome of the blame for the consequences that rigid selection for new traitson our already limited gene pool. I wrote the following back in response.

**** Speaking for myself and no one else: In 2011, for the first time in 30 years, there will be no puppies born here. One of the little understood facts of show dog breeding is that it'sdecidedly unprofitable. The sale of puppies sometimes offsets the costs of bringing that litter into the world, but most of the time, we breed dogs at a loss and support our hobby through outside income. We breed show dogs for the love of sport, and the love of our breeds. This is also the reason that we support veterinary research programs through financial contributions and direct participation. Many of the treatments youuse today were developed in whole or in part, by funding from dog showbreeders and the organizations they support.
You feel passionately about what you do, that is clear, and I have no desire to force you to perform any procedure with which you disagree. But it is deeply disrespectful to me, as a breeder, and as "your" client,that you cannot extend the same generosity to my passionate beliefs, or to those veterinarians who do not agree with your views.
In 2004 I helped co-author this paper with Dr. Bruce Grahn at the Universityof Saskatchewan. The research was based upon my dogs, my records, and thebreeding colony I maintained. Research into identifying the gene responsiblehas been ongoing since then.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15091321 I have already notified the Dean and Dr.Grahn in writing that myparticipation in this research ends the day that the SVMA decides theirjurisdiction extends to my breed standard. I have no desire to walk away from important research. For Dr. Grahn and histeam, it will amount to a tragic waste of professional resources andresearch grant dollars.
For me, it will have been a waste of time and finances, but most painfully, a waste of the puppies who were bred, and then euthanized to have their retinal tissues harvested. But as the veterinary associations seem poised for a full frontal assault on show breeders and our breed standards, my participation in veterinary research has become moot. If I can't show my dogs at the highest levels, I don't need veterinary opthalmologists, much less dna testing.
Back to my decision not to breed next year. While I have a wonderful relationship with my veterinarians, I am truly conflicted as to whether I want to place puppies in homes where they may be brought to be treated by people like you - veterinarians who are actively working to end my lifelong enjoyment of competition in the show ring. So, should the day come that you or one of your colleagues learns that the clinic can no longer sustain its operating costs, I sincerely hope that the first person you think of is me, and the puppies I will not sell next year.
When a profession that I have supported for upwards of three decades decides to "put me out of business", know just this one thing: I - and others likeme - will make every effort possible to return the favour.
-- Kate McMillan http://www.katwerk.com

2010 CNASA Nationals

2010-09-06T17:24:00.000-07:00

Pam and Sunny putting sheep thru the chute
Lill and Tray lining sheep up for the chute. Tray is the sire of my pup Shay.
Joan and Chili with judge Heather Forbes.
The end of August came very quickly! My good friend and former "almost neighbor" Pam Arlitt came from Black Creek with her dog Sunny for a 10 day visit. We had a great visit here and worked our dogs lots getting in some last minute preparation for the CNASA National Specialty in Watrous, Saskatchewan. Pam and I went with Lill Roth-Lee another good friend and travel buddy, and the three of us had a very successful trial, and loads of good laughs!! :o) CKC herding trials allow you to start at whatever level you think your dog is ready for, so Pam and I went straight into Intermediate, and Lill and Tray jumped right to advanced. We trialed in both arena trials and stockdog trials. The stockdog trials were very much like a cross between the ASCA Ranch Trials, and Farm Trials. The arena trials were held in a beautiful rolling 200 x 400 arena, and were a good test for "trusting" your dog! I'm happy to say we were all sucessful!! with my dog Chili winning the Intermediate division.

Put a tick in that box

2010-07-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

the steps are not dirty.....they are WET.....if you look just thru the crap apple tree to the right you can just see a part of the puddle that is in the lawn!!!

well......after a few days of kneeling on my little foam pad, cutting bricks, my project is complete.....another box ticked off, and I"m pretty happy with the results. I have plans to start on some castle stone raised shrub/flower beds around the house, but it has to really DRY up to start that project! Those blocks are heavy and they will need a good dry base to start with. First tho the lattice has to go back on around the deck, and there's some work on the barn that needs to be done.......maybe we'll get lucky and some of the lakes in the hay fields will dry up so we can get some haying done. Oh what a year its been!

Projects

2010-07-10T17:21:00.000-07:00

part of the bricks set in place
Getting started
preparing the bed
ick!! the right side full of weeds!
I've been busy and haven't posted anything for a while, so thought I'd better get with it! The rain, and mosquitoes have made working dogs most unenjoyable, and I've become kind of a princess about the mosquitoes, so I've been working on other projects. First off, I've been on the hunt for some new sheep. I've had my little band of "mutt" sheep for 5 years now and used them only for dog sheep, I haven't bred a ewe since we moved to Alberta. I really miss having good sheep around and I like lambing time, so I've decided to sell most of my sheep......I'll keep the better Barbados ones and sell the rest. I wanted to buy some Katahdin ewe lambs, but WOW, finding some good ewe lambs this year was proving difficult! I finally did find some that I will be picking up in mid/late August. That will give me time to thin out my flock here and get ready for the new ones!

I also decided that the flower beds on either side of the sidewalk that leads from the driveway area to the house needed refurbishing. I use the term "flowerbeds" loosely, as with 6 dogs roaming back and forth across the sidewalk, flowers would never survive there, so I never planted any :o) and container flowers are more my style! :) I've decided to brick in the beds, making a brick border on either side of the sidewalk. Its coming along, I'm almost done laying bricks on one side, and when its finished I"ll have to sweep sand into the cracks between the bricks. It would be really nice if the dimensions of the bed would let me lay full bricks, but of course that isn't the case, so I have to do a lot of cutting.......sure slows up the project!! Anyway, I think it'll look nice when I'm done :)

The next project on the board, is to do some major repairs to the barn.......that will have to be done before the snow flies!

I'll post some pictures of the finished project when I'm done!

L Bar J's Redi or Not STDcds DNA-VP

2010-06-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

picture taken in Montana July/ 09

The ASCA Merit Lists have just been posted for the 09/10 year and Chili (dark red dog, center of picture) ended up on the ASCA Merit List at #2 in Started Sheep, #5 in Started Ducks and #10 in Started Cattle. Unfortunately since we had to cancel our trial here in Alberta, and I can't make it to Montana this year, it looks like we won't be doing any ASCA trials this year. So, we'll have to practice hard for 2011! Congratulations to ALL the dogs on the Merit Lists.....but especially to the Canadian teams, travelling to ASCA events from north of the 49th, adds quite a bit in time, travel and $$.

Remembering Locie

2010-05-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

Ruff Stock Mi Vida Loca STDds DNA-CP

12/8/94 - 05/23/10

I've tried, but I can't even put into words what this little dog meant to us. Larry and I both loved her equally but she meant such different things to both of us. Locie was Hypothyroid all of her adult life, and it was this illness that was the catalyst for my interest in the health of the Australian Shepherd, and she also began my love of trialing. To Larry she was a best friend and truck riding buddy.

We loved her, and we miss her.

Kid Pix - Redi

2010-05-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

Redi says lets go Mom quit taking those darn pictures and get in, times wasting and we've got trails to ride!

And the best part about camping are those great sleeps after lots of fresh air and exercise!

Kid Pix - Shine

2010-05-14T21:04:00.000-07:00

Melinda sent me some great pictures of Shine......she is growing into a very pretty girl! There is a great deal of commonality in this litter, both in looks and temperament. Its going to be fun to see how all these kids grow and mature.

The weather is definitely warming up, there are about 10 cows left to calve, the mud is drying up, we are pretty much over our round of sickness, and life is getting back to some semblance of normal......finally :o) Enjoy the pictures of Melinda's "Shiney" pup.........

Be Careful What You Wish For

2010-05-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

A River Runs Thru it.....looking south into one of our hayfields....we now have river front property, and as you can see, some of the rain got a little "white"
My round pen....not really use-able at the moment :(
Pretty Shay :o)
Well, its been a while since I managed to find some time to post! Both of us spent a month being sick with a very nasty bug that started as bronchitis and hung around for far too long! Then the tractor decided to break down, (not a good thing when you have 40 cows to feed) the cows are calving, and THEN we got the rain we REALLY needed. Now I know we really really needed rain, I just wish there was some way to get rain, without MUD! The corrals as you can see turned into a bog, and so we had to turn the cows out into the field where we feed all winter. So, its not the cleanest field to calve in, but at least it keeps them closer to home.

Shay is growing up, she's going to be a pretty girl when she matures......she's also extremely intense, with everything she does, I think starting her on stock is going to be really fun! I can hardly wait for my round pen to dry up, to get her started, but judging by the depth of the mud we're going to need some warm weather to accomplish that!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's - 2 and 4 legged!

Brother Tuff

2010-04-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

I had a really nice email from Laura in Oklahoma where two of the pups from Kya's last litter are. The pups are doing well, and Kevin and Laura are very pleased with them.

Remember that video of (Mac) now called Tuff's first time on sheep.......well, Laura sent me some pictures of Tuff in the round pen with a few calves. Kevin is training a couple of border collie's and he really wanted to see what Tuff thought of the calves, so he put a line on him and well........I think Tuff has the makings of a pretty decent cowdog for the LK Cattle Company. What do you think? :o)

The Best Laid Plans....

2010-04-04T20:37:00.000-07:00

I was really looking forward to the Easter longweekend.....the grandsons were coming and we were going to have an Easter Egg hunt....and turkey dinner.....mmmm. That is until I started feeling really crappy last weekend, Monday I was coughing and coughing, spiked a low temp. felt nauseous, and generally like I'd been drug through a knothole backwards, and didn't go to work......in fact I got worse as the week went on, and didn't drag myself out of bed until Thursday morning, when I took myself off to the doctor. Apparently I have Bronchitis :( So, a trip to the pharmacy with perscriptions in hand, and home I went with all kinds of good stuff. I am now on the mend, but no where near back to normal.....what a PITA! A beautiful Easter weekend spent mostly horizontal. So Shay didn't get to see sheep as I do not have the lung capacity to even think about trying that! I did manage to work Chili on the heifers for about 5 minutes each night, as even if you're sick, chores on the farm still need to get done, and the cooler outside air is definately easier to breathe than the dry inside air!

Here's to a better week this week! Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend!

Kid Pix - Shay

2010-03-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't posted a picture of Shay lately I thought I'd put a couple up so you all can see the "Shay-ster". The monster in the cute red merle package :) She's intensely interested in ALL the livestock, and would dearly love to get in the pen with the heifers. I'm going to try her on a few sheep this weekend, and see if she can keep up with her brother and sisters. I'm pretty sure she'll be able to :)

Kid Pix - Redi

2010-03-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

Redi....the little cone-head that could! Redi is recovering remarkably well from her surgery, and is keeping Dave and Jessica in shape hiking the hills around Kelowna :o) Does this look like a pup that began life with a broken femur, and recently had her right hind leg operated on?? Go....Redi, Go! :o)

Kid Pix - Shine

2010-03-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

This is Melinda May's "Shine" at almost 5 months of age. All the pups are VERY tuned into stock and want to work BAaaaad.......time flies by so fast it won't be long until the ones in stock home can begin a bit of informal training. By summer they should be doing some nice fetching......or in Shine's case....maybe the little black bomb will be ready to being trialing!

A "Tuff" Mac

2010-03-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

Mac.........now called Tuff has made his way to Oklahoma, to live with his sister Diamond and the crew at the LK Cattle Company ranch. When the pups grow up they will be helping Kevin and Laura move cattle in the pens and pastures. They are keen to work, and Kevin has more than enough for them to do. We're looking forward to hearing how they turn out!

Also, a millions thanks to Mike and Melinda May & the kids of Hullabaloo Aussies in Fredericksburg Texas, for taking "Mac" in when he needed a place to go to.

Mac @ 4 months - first time on sheep

2010-03-02T19:44:00.000-08:00

Mac getting his first introduction to sheep. These pups are going to be awesome workers :o) LOVE them :)

Like a Boomerang......

2010-02-22T18:23:00.000-08:00

Mac will be coming back. Right now he's taking a little working/learning holiday at Melinda's house. How lucky we all are to have such a good savvy aussie friend in Melinda! :o) Mac is a super nice loving pup who just proved to be too much dog for his owners. We are looking for a new home for Mac, one that can provide him with lots of work to do, love, attention, and the rules of life to put in his toolbox. If you think Mac might fit into your household, call 403-876-2425 (evenings) or email me for details.

Texas 2-Step

2010-02-09T19:04:00.001-08:00

"Shine"

"Mac"

Or maybe that should be 4-step.....no wait.....8-step! The two Texas pups are making themselves comfy in their new homes. I don't think they're bothered one little bit that they don't have snow to go pee on :o)

I'm Just a Little Cone-Head

2010-02-07T20:12:00.000-08:00

Like all grandma's, I love to get pictures of "the kids" :o) (In my case both 2 and 4 legged :) For my 4 legged kids, I especially love to hear about all the neat things they are doing in their new homes, and how they are moving ahead in life :) Redi, will always have a special place in our heart's because of her rocky start in life. Getting your leg broken at the head of the femur when you are just a little baby is not a great way to start life, however Redi never let that stop her from doing "anything"!

We were extremely fortunate that Jessica and Dave came into Redi's life and have given her a wonderful loving and caring home. We all knew that Redi would eventually need a operation to remove the femoral head on her right hind leg, however "eventually" came sooner than expected. Redi's bone and muscle were atrophying, and so to allow her to lead a normal life, with normal movement, "eventually" became "now"! Redi had her leg operated on last week, and all reports are really good so far! So here's to the little "cone-head" who captured a lot of peoples hearts! Get well soon Redi!

And Then There Was One

2010-02-02T21:45:00.000-08:00

Today was a big day for Diamond, Shine and Mac......they had to leave their sister Sprite in Missoula, Montana, at her new home with Lisa and Dan Shafer to make the final leg of their journey to their new homes!

~Diamond has gone to live with Laura and Kevin Radford and their boys on the LK Cattle Co. in Alva Oklahoma,

~ Shine has gone to Melinda, Mike, Michela, and Oren May of Hullabaloo Aussies in Fredericksburg, Texas, and

~Mac has gone to Debby Divich and her folks in San Antonio, Texas.

~Shay is staying with us, cuteness seems to get her a long ways these days, and I think she'll probably live up to her registered name, L Bar J's Shhh It Happens :o)

We are looking forward to lots of pictures and updates of all the pups as they grow and begin to make their mark on the world!

1 More Sleep

2010-01-26T20:19:00.000-08:00

Well the countdown is on :) Lisa and Dan will be heading north over the border on Saturday, and come Sunday morning Sprite, Shine, and Diamond will be leaving with them, heading out of the first leg of their journey to their new homes! Boy.........will it ever be quiet around here!! Well not entirely all that quiet......because Shay and Mac will still be here, but a whole lot quieter than it sometimes is around here!

First Exposure to Sheep

2010-01-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

Shay had her first exposure to sheep today......and it reminded me so much of her mother's first time on sheep, it was spooky :o) At almost 13 weeks, Shay is about a month younger than Kya when I first put her in the round pen. I put Shay on the flexi and walked out into the sheep pen with her. The sheep immediately grouped up and turned to face "the attacker" :o) Shay immediately went out in front of me and could easily have charged straight thru the middle but she didn't. She did a lovely little (still on a flexi) outrun to the left and went around the sheep, who headed into the round pen. So we followed them in and then I let Shay gather them again and push them back out. We did this 3 times......Tons of instinct in this pup......I think she's a keeper ;o))

All of the pups got individual leash lessons today, and a big play outside in the snow. Tomorrow, if the weather smartens up a bit, all of the pups will get some sheep time ;)

January Thaw Part 2

2010-01-16T15:42:00.000-08:00

Shine has found her right someone :o)

Sprite - is patiently waiting for Lisa to come and get her! Get used to the snow Sprite...its just the same in Montana as it is here!
Mac -CAN YOU SAY WEAVE? :o) Mac has found his special someone, and will be living in Texas doing some agility :) He will probably get to visit with his sister Shine to!

Diamond - hope she likes heeling those Oklahoma cattle as much as she likes heeling me!!
Shay - Gets to stay here with me :o)
Just amazing January weather we are having, warm and sunny!! The snow is sure melting away, there's lots of bare patches now, and its really slippery everywhere there is snow from the cycle of melting and freezing. We need a wet spring, or we're gonna be in trouble, as we sure haven't had enough snow to help the lack of moisture for the last year.

The puppies were out for ages today, its so much fun to watch them exploring :) They even got *MUDDY*! :o) Redi left for her new home today, she might not be thrilled with the 8 hour car ride, but I think she will be with the rest of her life!

enjoy the pics........

January Thaw

2010-01-12T20:06:00.000-08:00

Shay
Redi
Mac and Shine
Diamond
Sprite

The weekend was beautiful......it has warmed up a lot, enough to get the puppies out for a run! They had lots of fun flying thru the snow :) Redi will be leaving this coming weekend, then hopefully Lisa will be home and coming the following weekend for Sprite. She's also going to take Mac and Diamond with her too and fly them from Missoula to their new homes. THANKS Lisa....Aussie people are the greatest!

Homeward Bound

2010-01-03T11:11:00.001-08:00

Redi has found a home in Kelowna! Thanks to Jessica and Dave, for making room in their family of critters for Redi :) She told me she's looking forward to springtime and going on some nice hikes and bike rides with you two :o)

Waltz Across Texas

2010-01-03T11:09:00.000-08:00

This is "Shine". Our Shiney puppy will soon be on her way to live with Melinda May and the rest of her crew (2 and 4 legged :o)) at Hullabaloo Aussies in Fredericksburg, Texas. Thanks Mel!!

2009-12-26T11:33:00.001-08:00

A couple more from today

Snow Day

2009-12-26T11:26:00.000-08:00

Its a beautiful sunny day.....still cool, but not too bad, so the puppies got to go outside for a run this morning! They had a ball chasing their Mom around, but pretty soon their little feet were getting cold so we came in, but they sure enjoyed their time in the snow, even if it was just for a little while!

They are left to right:

Elli beside her mom

Then Hickman, Diamond, Shay, with Redi and Shine trying to figure out how the gate opens!

Shay

2009-12-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

Shay, is staying here with me. What can I say....I've waited a long long time for a red merle :) You should never ever pick a puppy on color, but thats probably what I did:o) Along with the fact that I love her mom so much, and know that I found a pretty darn good puppy dad too :o)

Elli

2009-12-25T12:28:00.000-08:00

Elli......chatty Elli :o) Elli is becoming a "talker"....especially at dinner time :) Elli is going to join Janna Heuer in Urbana Illinois, where she's going to get to work stock, and learn to track and do just about anything else that Janna thinks they should try!

Hickman

2009-12-25T12:23:00.000-08:00

This puppy is waiting for the Hickman family to come and get her. She'll be joining Darrell and Leila and their family, and probably getting to hang out at the Lakeland College stockdog club. What a great facility, and a lucky pup!

Sprite

2009-12-25T12:16:00.000-08:00

Sprite is waiting patiently for her new mom Lisa, who's due home shortly from Iraq! Then Sprite will be living in Missoula Montana with Lisa and Dan, where she'll get to do some stock work with Lisa.

Diamond

2009-12-25T12:08:00.000-08:00

Did you wonder where this pup came from? :o) Diamond used to be Wtchy :) She is an incredibly athletic, and active pup! Diamond will be joining Laura & Kevin Radford in Alva, Oklahoma working for a living on their 2000 head LK Cattle Co. operation.

Shine

2009-12-25T12:05:00.001-08:00

"Shine", the shinest little black tri female you ever saw :o) Shine's bite appears that it will be undershot like her mothers. Shine is available to an active home on a spay contract. She loves to heel and very much reminds me of her mother, so I expect she'll be a heck of a working dog. Please contact me for pricing on Shine.

Danny

2009-12-25T12:02:00.000-08:00

This is "Danny". Danny is a very handsome blue merle male. He has a wonderful disposition, he loves to cuddle.....he also loves to heel :o) Danny would make a great addition to any farm or ranch, or any home who will love him and give him the active life he needs. Danny is available to the right working home.

Redi

2009-12-25T11:55:00.000-08:00

This is "Redi" our special needs girl. You see Redi's right hind femur is broken....

When?........ we don't know!

How??..........we have no idea!

And to watch her you'd never know it is broken. She uses her leg just fine, and she can run and chase her sisters and brother (and catch them!) with no problem. You see, it just doesn't seem to bother her! The surgeons at the Vet College in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan have looked at her xrays and have determined that nothing should be done to her leg, at least not now, and maybe never. Redi, is available free of charge to the *right* home, that will love her and give her that special life she SO deserves. Until then, she'll remain here with me.

Snow Fun!

2009-12-20T13:54:00.000-08:00

Today we got to go outside with Mom to investigate the yard and find out what snow is all about! And we can tell you ITS COLD! But we kinda liked it, and did you know you can eat that stuff??? Mom got the zoomies.....she's kinda goofy :) and we ran around a bit with her, but it was still kinda cold for us so we couldn't stay out long. Here's a picture each of us on our first snow day!

http://picasaweb.google.com/LBarJcowdogs/SnowDay?authkey=Gv1sRgCP_04dKqtPXV8AE#

We beep when we pass scanners :)

2009-12-19T19:29:00.000-08:00

Our big adventure was a trip into town this morning to visit our vet :o) We HOWLED all the way into town just so mom knew we were in the van ! We all got our first vaccinations and we got our micro chips implanted, and we were all *very* brave, well except for WTCHy she cried a little.....she likes to think she's 10 feet tall and bullet proof, but she's not :) Mom says maybe we can go out and play in the snow tomorrow as long as it doesn't get too cold, and then Mom's going to work our big sister Chili on the calves........boy, WE can't wait until we're big enough to do that too! :)

7 Weeks

2009-12-16T20:23:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe the little angels (and I use that term loosely!) are 7 weeks old! Life has gotten quite routine for them now. Up early, let them have a good run and play, then feed them breakfast and put them in their room for the day. Larry feeds them their lunch and then when I get home from work they have dinner and they are let out into the rec room to play until their last feeding of the day and then its off to beddy-bye for them. I had to laugh tonight when I gave them dinner......when Cathy brought me my new puppy feeding pan I thought it was so HUGE....its not so big now, and they are eating everything I give them.

here's a few pics from tonights round of carnage :o) I have to go clean the "wreck" room now!

as before, if this link doesn't work, copy and paste it into your browser....it should work then. I think I fixed this again, so this link *should* work now! :)

http://picasaweb.google.com/LBarJcowdogs/KyaXTrayPuppiesAt7Weeks?authkey=Gv1sRgCKrsjIiardHm4gE#

Dance little puppy Dance!

2009-12-13T20:54:00.000-08:00

You know its TOO cold out when.........dancing to a CD on the computer with 8 puppies and their mom is what you decide to do to keep everyone occupied! With a George Strait CD on the 'puter, the puppies all crowded around me, thinking I had clearly lost my mind.....but then one by one they they went "cool......that looks like fun!" and joined in :o) Then their mom came to join us, which just made everything that much more fun and it became quite a good game :) The dogs are all feeling very cooped up these days as with temps in the mid minus 30's, it doesn't take long for paws to freeze up. The weatherman is promising better days ahead, maybe even ABOVE freezing by week's end. I sure hope he keeps his promise!!

new puppy pics soon!

5 Week Old Puppies!

2009-12-03T20:39:00.000-08:00

A few quick candid shots of the pups tonight when I was supposed to be cleaning their room :o) Please ignore the few "pee patches" I was having too much fun laughing at their antics and trying to get a picture or two to get the pee wiped up before the pictures. I let them have the run of our rec room downstairs every night when I get home from work. It really is a "wreck room", but a great place for puppies to run and play when it is too cold outside.

Larry took these pictures this morning when the sun came out. I love the hoar frost....I think its beautiful!

Enjoy the pups! I've fixed (I think) the link to the pups pictures......hope this works better for everyone!

http://picasaweb.google.com/LBarJcowdogs/KyaXTrayPuppiesDec3?authkey=Gv1sRgCIDfnrL1z6zvGA#

Joan

http://picasaweb.google.com/LBarJcowdogs/KyaXTrayPuppiesDec3?authkey=Gv1sRgCIDfnrL1z6zvGA&feat=directlink

Little Monsters...

2009-12-02T21:15:00.000-08:00

Wow.....I can't believe it.....the kids are 5 weeks old today! Yesterday I let them out of their puppy room for the first time, and they ventured tentatively into the rec room for a look around. Then retreated back to their room.......then came out again. That cycle repeated a few times, each time they got a little braver. Tonight when I let them out.....they TUMBLED out the door and took off like billard balls all around the room! I thought I'd take this opportunity to clean their room, but it probably wasn't one of my better ideas :o) Have you ever seen a garbage bag fly across a room being towed by a very determined pup?? I tried for some pictures but my camera just can't focus fast enough so I will try for some stills.......hopefully tomorrow night. Maybe I should take them now......they're sleeping like little angels at the moment :o))

Sunny days and working dogs

2009-11-28T20:24:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure I've been transported to another galaxy, because this surely can't be Alberta at the end of November!! Today was such an awesome day......beautiful blue sunny skies, no wind and WARM (relative term, since this really is Alberta in November) temperatures! So after that pesky housework was done, out I went to start dog breaking calves. Chili still needs lots of cattle work, and so we brought about 10 head up into my round pen and started moving them, first one way, then the other. With Betty's lessons at her clinic last June ringing in my ears, it was pretty cool to see Chili respond so well. She really likes to heel but I found her equally good at holding her position on their heads when they tried to turn and challenge her. Chili did really well, she was able to control and move the calves, turn them back when they challenged her, and would easily release pressure on them when they turned and moved off her.

After we worked that group of calves, we put them back with the rest and then brought the sheep in and sorted off 5 head. We took the sheep into my arena and after a few fetching drills started some driving work. Unlike her mother, Chili has been a hard dog to start driving as her intense desire to group her stock and fetch them to me over-rides everything :) Parallel drives are very rounded as she leans so hard to the outside to flip around to head, but *FINALLY* today we managed to get some nice drives going!! Maybe the secret is to work her on cattle first as she seems to be able to easily hold her position driving them.

We'll try again tomorrow and work a different group of calves, and then another group of sheep.....hopefully this is the breakthrough I've been waiting for! ;o)

For those of you interested in the puppies, they are eating me out of house and home and growing like crazy! The whelping box has been put up, and they have the run of their puppy room now. I cover the floor with paper that I get by the roll at the newspaper office. It is roll-end newsprint and works great for covering the floor. Larry made me an over-grown paper towel holder that is attached to the wall. This makes it really easy to pull off 8 feet and with a flip of the wrist I can rip if off. The puppies are certainly getting an education, they are pretty used to that thing bumping and banging when the roll turns on it, and the paper goes sailing over their head :o) Then I get 8 little bodies trying to "help" me........I think we'll have to come up with a different plan at room cleaning time!

Will try for more photo updates tomorrow!

Puppy Photo shoot

2009-11-24T21:17:00.000-08:00

Well, its been a busy week! Last weekend some good friends came for the day to work dogs, and play with the pups. We had a great time working our dogs, my sheep got a good workout, and we figured out some portions of the Farm Trial we hope to have here next summer. Then we went inside and had lunch and the puppies got to come upstairs and have their pictures taken. Thanks to Cathy Bishop for the great photos!! I had fully intended to have the pictures all upload Sunday night, but its hard to upload pics behind closed eyelids...somehow a full day out in the fresh air took a toll on me :) Then on Monday, Larry and I went to the Flu Clinic in town and got H1N1 flu shots.......monday night seemed to bring more of those closed eyelids :( So finally here we are!

http://picasaweb.google.com/LBarJcowdogs/DropBox?authkey=Gv1sRgCKmfgufG8a-oFQ#

The pups are growing leaps and bounds ( there was some mention of little tanks ) they have a new puppy feeding pan, and they're making good use of it! The whelping box has been put up......the little mountain climbers could scale the sides with ease, so they are now sleeping in a big crate with a nice thick comforter in it. They probably won't think its too cool the day I put the door on the crate, but that lesson is a ways down the road yet :)

Enjoy Cathy's photography!

Joan

Looking At The World

2009-11-16T20:56:00.001-08:00

Here is a few pictures of the pups, and a couple of short videos, and a few pictures of some of the newly weaned calves. Since I've never used the video portion of my camera before, I wasn't even sure if it was on! It did seem to work tho, so I will have to investigate this part of my camera and see if I can't get something better taken. For now, this will have to do :o) This weekend some friends are coming to work dogs and both Cathy and Lyn have much better cameras than me (and they know what they're doing with them too!) So we should have much better pictures of them soon! The kids had their nails clipped for the first time, and tonight they also got their first taste of puppy mush.........mmmmmm, Kya thought they tasted pretty good when she was cleaning them up! Cheers until the weekend!

Joan

http://picasaweb.google.com/LBarJcowdogs/20091116?authkey=Gv1sRgCJe9_d_VsM7AhwE&feat=directlink#

2 Weeks old

2009-11-11T16:03:00.000-08:00

The puppies are getting quite mobile....they are learning to get up on their feet, and their eyes are just on the verge of starting to crack open. Thankfully Kya has decided to become a good mom again! :o) I didn't have to come home from work yesterday, and last night I got to sleep in my bed again :o)) The pictures were taken today at two different times. The ones taken on the green plaid were taken earlier, I didn't have such great success with them, so I deleted all the 'really' bad ones, :o) Then I decided to try again this afternoon right after they had eaten so they were a little more sleepy and slightly more cooperative!

Enjoy!
http://picasaweb.google.com/LBarJcowdogs/PuppiesNov11

Repairs and Curious Cows

2009-11-07T17:53:00.000-08:00

Today was a beautiful day, so after some morning household chores it was time for some outside fix-ups. The pad around the south waterer has been deteriorating for a while now, and we thought we'd better get it fixed up before winter really hits. It is made of railroad ties laid side by side and joined together, and the outside ones were in bad shape. So we hauled all the stuff out there to pry out the old ones and put in new ones, and of course the cows all decided that would be the best time to come for a drink and some mineral. And then of course they thought they'd all better stick around to see what we were up to. It didn't seem to matter to them that they were really in the way of the tractor either, so after a few feeble attempts to move them the heck out of the way, I went up to the house to get Chili :o)

In short order Chili had gathered them all and had them heading out to pasture! She did a beautiful job of keeping them altogether until they got the gate into the 60 acre pasture. Right there are few turned right and headed up the fenceline instead of going thru the gate. Chili went thru the gateway, then headed up the fence on the opposite side from the renegades, got in front of them, turned them and headed them back down the fence and thru the gate. All without any direction from me what so ever! She took them part way out into the field and by this time I had made my way out to the field gate and called her back. We went back and helped Larry finish placing new ties around the water bowl, and just as he was nearly done, back the cows and calves came for round two! Once again Chili gathered them all and pushed them back out to pasture :) We finished up the pad and it is now ready for the gravel truck to bring a load of gravel in.......I think we'll close the gate when the truck comes so the cows don't come and supervise THAT job :)

WE're a WEEK old!!

2009-11-04T19:57:00.000-08:00

Time flies! All was well in puppy land until Day 3 when Kya decided maaaaybe she didn't love her puppies quite that much :( She started to growl a bit at them, prompting me to panic and take her into the Vets on Sunday night.....haven't got THAT bill yet. Anyway, all is normal and well with her, I just can't figure out what is prompting the growl, so until this little chapter clears up, she is only allowed feeding/cleaning visits during the day, which she desperately wants to do, and I am sleeping by the whelping box at night, to monitor what goes on. hormones....aren't they a mystery! So here is the latest round of pictures. They are SO active, its very hard to catch them still enough to snap a decent picture!

http://picasaweb.google.com/LBarJcowdogs/KyaXTrayPuppiesNov409?authkey=Gv1sRgCOL-3ZOS5KyR1QE#

Enjoy :)

2009-10-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

After messing with pictures for the last couple of hours, and thinking this just "might" take over my life, I"m going to try something different. Below is a link to a web album which has puppy pictures in it. I just put them into an album for now of some pictures of moving cows and working dogs etc. If this works and everyone can access it ok, then I"ll create separate albums for the pups. I hope this works! If you can't access the pup pictures and would prefer them individually on my blog, just let me know :)

Just so you all know, the last 2 pictures are of the male. Everyone else has either 2 or 3 pictures each.

http://picasaweb.google.com/LBarJcowdogs/LBarJAussies?authkey=Gv1sRgCLmk-qfN8JauXw#

Blue Female #2

2009-10-30T20:54:00.001-07:00

Blue Female #1

2009-10-30T20:41:00.000-07:00

All of these pictures will be just "bad" until they stop rolling and tumbling a bit....wow, these are active pups!

One More Group Pic

2009-10-29T10:08:00.000-07:00

Here's one more group picture. The male is the darker smokey blue, and the rest are girls. There is altogether:

1 Blue Merle Male

2 Red Tri Females

1 Red Merle Female

1 Black Tri Female

3 Blue Merle Females

The Puppies Have Arrived!!

2009-10-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

After a busy night, Kya has a beautiful litter of 8 pups! 7 girls and 1 boy! I'll post individual pictures in a day or so, but for right now here's a family shot or two.

Weaning Day at the neighbors ranch

2009-10-24T18:51:00.000-07:00

I am waiting (impatiently I might add) for Kya to whelp......not long now tho, and she is becoming a bit restless making trips into the puppy room to check out the whelping box. She seems to remember exactly what that room and box are for :o)

Life goes on tho, and yesterday and today was weaning time at our neighbor's the Boulding's Lazy B Bar Ranch. I love it any time I can ride and work cattle so it was a great day for me today! It should have been only about 1/2 a day to finish up, however the calves that were weaned yesterday were an industrious lot and they managed to create a new gate in their corral, making their way back to their mom's in record time :( So, they had to be gathered and sorted all over again. I've included some pictures from today, and hopefully next week I'll be posting pictures of puppies!! :o))

2009-10-14T20:39:00.000-07:00

Here are the cows heading home for the winter......down the road past our place.

Vaccination day at Holmestead Ranch

2009-10-14T20:03:00.000-07:00

Last Monday was vaccination day at home. Our neighbors Doug and Rita (best neighbors in the world!) brought their horses over after dinner and the three of us rode down to our south quarter to bring in the cows and calves. Our cows are getting pretty used to being gathered by horse and dog so they gathered easy and off we went to the corrals. Once we had them all pushed up into the small corral we started sorting cows to Doug who was "gate man" on his horse Beamer. Rita and I would cut and push cows to Doug who would let the cows out the gate and turn the calves back into the herd. The cows are getting better at being sorted while we're on horseback, and so with only a minor bobble or two we quickly had the cows sorted out, and the calves run down the alley to the crowding tub.

So....cows out - check.

Calves in the alley - check.

One quick ride through the cows to make sure we hadn't missed any calves and we could start running the calves through the alley and chute to vaccinate. Didn't I say "calves in the alley" ?? oh noooo.........the gate to the crowding tub didn't get closed and half the calves came up the alley and through the chute and were back out with their bawling mammas! :(

Oh well........whats a good cowhorse for but to cut and sort cows :o))

Round Two........gather the escapees and their mommas and head back into the sorting corral. Hey......they're starting to figure this out :o) The cows were eager to cooperate, and this time we had all the gates closed, and all the calves in the alley!

Many hands make light work and 1,2,3 shots per calf and they were soon all done and back out with their moms. A month from now we'll do it all over again, only then it will be time for weaning and a few sleepless nights until the calves quiet down.

After we were done we headed into the house for some hot coffee (the temps were hovering right around freezing with a couple of little snow squalls thrown in) and cake. Just as we were pulling off winter coveralls, we looked out the window to see another rancher in the area moving a herd home past our place. I've attached a picture of Matt and Shauna Elines cattle heading home in my next entry because I can't see to figure out how to get those particular pictures to upload into 'this' blog.............some days this learning curve is almost too steep for me :o)

A short note about Kya

2009-10-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

Kya is really starting to show! She seems bigger to me this time and I can't imagine what she's going to look like by the time she whelps! She seems to feel really good, and is still quite active playing with Chili and Jaime and still looks forward to doing chores.

Last week I received her ASCA Award of Merit in the mail, Kya ended up at #2 Advanced Sheep for the 08/09 season!

Vaccination time

2009-10-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

This morning about 8:30 I loaded Mouse into the trialer with 5 other horses for the short ride over to the lake pastures to help my neighbors gather their cow herd and sort off the calves for vaccinating. The herd of about 250 cow calf pairs gathered easily...they know this routine well.......and off we went to the corrals. There was a very cool wind blowing from the north, and they were a little difficult to get into the corrals (remember I said they know this routine?) but we did manage to move them all in. With all of them in the corral it was very full, and so while Doug sat on Putz in the middle of the gateway, Donna, Gail and I rode into the herd and started pushing cows to Doug. Doug and Putz would let the cows pass him and turned the calves back into the herd. It didn't take us too long before we had all the cows sorted out and a corral full of calves left behind. A really good test for a solid cowhorse! ;o) Soon we were moving small groups of calves into the holding pen for the boys to push them into the alley. They were vaccinated and turned out to go find their waiting mommas.

Once all the calves were done we rode out and gathered the herd again and pushed them back north (remember that cool...nope make that COLD wind??) to the pasture we brought them from, and headed back to the trailers for some hot coffee!! Loaded the horses and headed for home......I was back at my barn by 1:30, a good mornings work! I had fully intended on taking some pictures but it seems I need to buy some new rechargeable batteries for my camera :( So I've added a picture of the herd at the corrals at branding time.

Weekend Chores....again!

2009-09-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

I'm really certain that weekends should be 5 days long, and weekdays 2 days......that way a person might stand half a chance at getting everything on the "to do" list done!

Yesterday afternoon we spent hauling bales from the field to the stack yard. I also wanted to redo some fencing around a small field behind the quonset to try and keep my sheep in, since the hot wires weren't working so well. So every time I parked the truck and trailer for Larry to off load the bales I would get out and pull staples and take off a couple of strands of barb wire and roll it up. This system worked pretty good....multi tasking at it finest :o)) I had bought 32" field fencing so I wanted to leave the top couple of strands of barb wire and put the field fencing on underneath, AND I left the 2 hot wires on the inside! By the time we were done hauling bales I had all the old barb wire that I wanted to take off.....and the fence ready for the new stuff. This afternoon right after lunch we went out and hung the fencing. Hey....it looks good and if those damn sheep get out of there.....they better keep on goin if they know whats good for them! I had Kya go gather the sheep from another field and bring them in for me. She can still get out and around her stock, I do see a little bit of a belly starting to develop, but its not slowing her down yet! :)

Back to work tomorrow.......its kinda looking like the mosquitos scourge has ended and there is still enough daylight hours when I get home from work, so with any luck I'll be able to work Kya and Chili for a while yet. I had fully intended to set up one of Sherry Bakers new proposed courses this weekend, but that didn't happen...guess that little chore gets moved to next weekend's "to do" list :)

Weekend Chores

2009-09-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

Spent the weekend getting things ready for winter, which like it or not will probably arrive sooner than we'd like!

We started hauling our hay in the from the fields, what little of it we have this year :( The 2 fields that we normally hay which generally yield 150-175 bales gave us 34 bales :( We also hayed about half of our 40 acre slough field this year......a first for us as since we moved here as it has always been toooo wet to get on to. This field yielded 106 bales, so we have a start to our winter feed, but still need to buy more......if we can find it :( I also fixed part of my electric fence in hopes that my sheep will stay put! I let them out this morning only to look out my kitchen window a while later to see them galavanting thru one of the cattle fields, so I sent Kya to bring them in. She did a lovely outrun and gathered them all up while I stood at the gate.......buggers! She seems to be feeling pretty good thru this pregnancy and shows no signs of slowing down yet!

Mosquitos.. or how to go broke buying insecticides!

2009-09-16T20:06:00.000-07:00

Kya bringing some sheep out of a pen.

Kya bringing sheep in to the round pen.

2 big bulls.

For 2 years we've been Mosquito free, then about 2+ weeks ago they arrived in droves and it seems they're trying to make up for lost time! They have been extremely viscious, so we haven't been doing much training, or much of anything at all if it involves going outside!

Last week Dorien Vogelaar from the Netherlands came to visit me for a couple of days. Dorien has been bit by the trialing bug, and entered her first trial with her Aussie this past August and they did very well! :) So, now she's thinking about what she would like from her next Aussie. Dorien is interested in a pup from Chili and so she came to meet and us! Dorien also takes terrific pictures, (check out some of them on Chili' and Kya's page) so we SPRAYED her down and went out and worked dogs each day! Poor Dorien, unfortunately they really liked her:( But she did get some great pictures!

Until the mosquitos die out my evenings are pretty much bringing the horses in and spraying them down, and then having Kya or Chili bring the sheep in.....feeding everyone and heading back inside.

I'll add some of Dorien's pictures over the next few days....oh and a couple of her Bison pictures....they were at the top of her list of things she had to see while visiting Alberta!

Getting Started

2009-09-14T20:55:00.000-07:00

This is a new venture for me, so bare with me while I figure blogging out! I've had a fun summer with lots of visitors, many of them dog friends with canine partners in tow :)..... so over the next few days I'll get some summer pictures up, and keep everyone up to speed on Kya's pregnancy! :o)

L Bar J Aussies

Winds of Change

Avery's Katahdins aka the GOOD BREEDER!!

The Girls

*THE* best hay feeder for sheep!

CONGRATULATIONS

Shay

Brother Will

Catching Up

Chili Sorting Heifers

Lots Goin' On

Grumble Grumble - Bitch bitch

Completed Project

Happy Birthday Old Man

Done!

Stay Tuned

Ellie's Birthday

Time Passes

Cowboy'n

So much to do, so little time!

MCSS Letter Published in CVMA Newsletter

2010 CNASA Nationals

Put a tick in that box

Projects

L Bar J's Redi or Not STDcds DNA-VP

Remembering Locie

Kid Pix - Redi

Kid Pix - Shine

Be Careful What You Wish For

Brother Tuff

The Best Laid Plans....

Kid Pix - Shay

Kid Pix - Redi

Kid Pix - Shine

A "Tuff" Mac

Mac @ 4 months - first time on sheep

Like a Boomerang......

Texas 2-Step

I'm Just a Little Cone-Head

And Then There Was One

1 More Sleep

First Exposure to Sheep

January Thaw Part 2

January Thaw

Homeward Bound

Waltz Across Texas

Snow Day

Shay

Elli

Hickman

Sprite

Diamond

Shine

Danny

Redi

Snow Fun!

We beep when we pass scanners :)

7 Weeks

Dance little puppy Dance!

5 Week Old Puppies!

Little Monsters...

Sunny days and working dogs

Puppy Photo shoot

Looking At The World

2 Weeks old

Repairs and Curious Cows

WE're a WEEK old!!

Blue Female #2

Blue Female #1

One More Group Pic

The Puppies Have Arrived!!

Weaning Day at the neighbors ranch

Vaccination day at Holmestead Ranch

A short note about Kya

Vaccination time

Weekend Chores....again!

Weekend Chores

Mosquitos.. or how to go broke buying insecticides!

Getting Started

THE best hay feeder for sheep!