Farm Fresh Blog

Oh my! Where has the time gone? The holidays are here!

The leaves are dropping and winter is creeping up on us. Cattle have been moved and so the pasture south of the house is available for sheep now.  Because this isn't fenced for sheep it means I have to go with them to loosely keep track of their comings and goings lest they end up too far from home. Most of the time I take a few Border Collies. On this day I took a camera instead. And as always, a couple of Livestock Guardian Dogs.

The nice thing about tending sheep is that it gives me time to study them and find their personalities. The flock is now split in half because the ram is with the Navajo Churro and so the Dorper and Jacob ewes have been moved to another pasture. This gives me more time to photograph and study the churro alone. Without the Border Collies, the churro are more relaxed and I'm able to get better pictures.

The south pasture is much more wooded and some of the sheep have developed a taste for the acorns underneath the oak trees. Avis is normally an easy-going ewe but when her honey hole is threatened, I see another side of the unassuming little ewe.

She has discovered a stash of acorns. Judge, the Anatolian, is curious to see what has her attention so he horns in on her honey hole.  Her first reaction is to run.

Then she changes her mind,

and gets pissed. Judge notes the change in mood and hastens to assure her that he has no bad intentions.

She decides to leave anyway, and storms off, but then gets madder and decides to give the dog a piece of her mind.

She rushes forward and stamps her feet at him.

Then she marches right up front to take charge of her honey hole again.  The dog, who had no interest whatsoever in her acorns to begin with, backs down in the the face of her temper. (Yes, I know he's skinny. For the life of me I cannot tape weight onto this dog.  He gained a little bit after he was neutered but then lost it again when the temperatures dipped and he became more active. I really do feed him, he just has the metabolism of a hummingbird.)

Judge doesn't get upset at the sheep's display but still insists on holding his ground.

They reach a compromise. The dog settles down beside the fence to glare at cattle on the other side, and the ewe goes back to snarfing acorns like a toddler eating Cheerios.

Seriously. Who needs cable television when you have a farm? A farm is much more entertaining than any Reality T.V.