Moving cattle

Couple of days ago Kyle needed help moving some of our cattle from our west pasture to the pasture just north of our house. Usually Kyle's dad does all the cattle help but this time he was away for work meetings. I have a strong hatred for the cows they take up to much room and suck up most of our money. Anyways I love going out west and brought Isla along for the ride.

Isla thinks she likes working cows but let me assure you she is no cowdog. I think if she worked cows regularly she would learn to love it because she does like to bite. I have just taken to much bite out of her due to our sheep trialing career.

As soon as we got there she knew what was going on. Also our cows are not dog broke so it could be dangerous to send her in there on her own. So I used her to drive the cows to the alley. I was always right behind her if she ran into a strapy cow. Instead we ran into a strapy calf.

I let her handle it because there was no danger of getting kicked or ran over by a big cow.

She did a really nice nose bite here but I missed it with the camera. However after the nose bite she wanted to chase the calf and teach it some more lessons.
Safe and sound in the corral.

Funny thing was we were not the only ones moving cows that day. We ran into this herd on the way out.

And a different herd on the way back west to pick up another load. I must say I would have been a way happier volunteer if we were moving cows with horses and dogs. These guys had the right idea.

Enough Said

A snowy day to catch up

I was trying to avoid the snow and cold outside today. So I decided it was time to update my website. It is so hard to keep both the blog and the website up to date. Now everybody has their own page and all their pedigrees are up as well.

Check it out if you want

http://www.phantomridgebordercollies.com/

I also found my most favoritest picture of baby Craig while cleaning things up.

With his buddy Reese

A life cut too short (not sad)

In an effort to find something to blog about I stumbled across this poor fellow cut down in the prime of his life.

Someone probably Justice. Just slammed the microwave door and murdered this poor guy. Can't blame Justice he was probably desperately seeking a pizza pop or a Michaelina's and was faint from hunger.

Knocking on our door

Winter is definitely knocking on our door. The last week it has been snowing off and on and super cold. If this is what the months ahead have in store for us clearly I am going to need a lot more wine.

OK, OK

Threats were made, Some feeling were hurt and then I decided to blog. Just kidding. Not really there were some threats but in all honesty she was right it was time to blog. Now that the last piece of Oregon dust is washed from the truck and my clothes. I have sufficiently caught up on my farm duties. I can fill you all in on our trip. We had a great time. Sunday night started with some really good fun lead by my new Californian friends who want to remain anonymous because of his teaching job.

Lets just say Monday was not a fun day. I spent most of the day in bed or laying down. Monday afternoon I had to drag my ass to the practice field. Not a good idea. The sheep weren't great. Lesson learnt.

Enough said about Monday.

Isla and I ran early Tuesday afternoon. The sheep were tough. Some said as tough as Meeker sheep. We got around the course but due to Isla incredibly slow lift we timed out at the shed and left 40 points on the field. Ended up with a 100. Not bad for our first time but I knew Isla could have done better. As each day went by I started to feel better and better about our run. Funny. Not sure if it was the amounts of alcohol consumed or my lack of memory. Who cares.
The rest of the week went by so fast and before we knew it, it was Finals Sunday. Saw some really good runs with some of the best turn backs I had ever seen. Sunday night we all went out for Mexican food and a local restaurant. Monday we hit the road for home. We found a couple of strays along the way.

George with his dogs Gyp and Kate.

Wendy had an unfortunate incident with her vehicle in central Oregon and need a lift. Including her 13 dogs.

We spent the night in the Cabelas parking lot in Post Falls, ID. I must say Cabelas is the best kept secret. Nobody there except other dog riff raff (Scott & Jenny). We pulled in with our 18 dogs and got a good nights sleep.
Not sure if we will make it to Finals in the east next year. But it would be nice to go somewhere other than sagebrush dust balls.

Finals run

I needed a day to recover from my run to post about it. The sheep were not at all light like we were told they were going to be. In fact they were evil. The. Day started with Ian Zoerb and gyp getting an RT. On the lift the sheep split back to the set out and Gyp could not stop them. I thought the sheep were getting sweet before I ran but isla had other ideas. She started with a super wide outrun and then stopped short. I had a really hard time getting her to lift them after she lifted things looked nice but she did not want to push on them so it was sloww and we timed out at the shedding ring. She looked good but needed to push and they would have moved. Other Alberta are not fairing so well. Milt walked off, Joanne had a wild run. George and scott got good scores.