Vacation Time!

While his owner (Scott) works his butt off on the road, Pleat is on a vacation!

photo by Sarah Novak

Read about Pleat's good times Here

For Sara...

My friend Sara (The Crazy Sheep Lady) down in Kentucky has had it rough this summer.  The heat and the drought have been hard on her flock.  Every one of her sheep has a name and a personality (they LOVE 'Nilla Wafers) and most have been hand raised by Sara.
They are her family.
But the drought has wreaked havoc on the grazing land for her sheep, changing the chemical make up of the grass and making some of her friends sick.
She lost Sherman the other day.
To cheer her up I thought I'd show her what we've been working on - it's her favorite thing in the whole world...
More lambs!

Yes, it's as much a surprise to me as it is to all of you, but we've never been known for a short lambing season.
We don't usually name our sheep but there have been the few who get names and never get sold such as, "Grandma", "The Cocker Spaniel", and "Chocolate And Vanilla Swirl".
Since we only have 3 lambs right now, they were bestowed with names.
You remember that The Cocker Spaniel lambed while we were gone?
Well, here she is with her new hair cut and her quick growing ewe lamb, "The Teddy Bear".

And then there was this surprise a couple of weeks ago.
The clever and self reliant, "Rabbit".
(she hops around like one)

Sorry.  She was too busy pretending to eat to smile for the camera.
Then, finally (we hope) there was the newest one born last Thursday, "The New Lamb Without A Name".

As always, they have 24 hour protection.

The lambs all send hugs, Sara.

The Dog Days Of Summer

Although we've been lucky in Alberta not to have the terrible heat that the East and South have been getting, we have had some hot days this month. Scott and I found that while Mikey needs to stay  home and swim in the pool for his therapy, the best way to exercise the other dogs has been in the lake by our house.
My dogs have been swimming since they were pups.
Even my youngest dog, Ford has found water to be a great game.

But Scott's dogs needed a little persuasion.

Each one was called out individually to come to Scott out in the lake and then with  the help of a long line, they swam around until they were allowed back to shore.

The dogs on the shore watched, hoping they wouldn't hear their name.

On the other end of the spectrum, you couldn't get my dogs out of the water.

Ford and Laddie worked on their tandem dives,

and Hemp used it as a rare time to relax.

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay all day and soon enough we had to get back to our responsibilities.

Until tomorrow...

Waiting On The Weather

In order for Mikey to recover fully from his knee surgery, he needs to have some hydrotherapy.
So we bought him a pool.
Well, we waited too long and all the good pools were gone so really, we bought him a glorified kiddie pool, but it will do the job.

There it is.
And why is this not a picture of Mikey and I working on his leg in the water?
Because I have to go in with him.
And this is a picture of what the farm looks like today from another angle...

It's not even going to reach 63F today!
Sorry, Mikey.
We'll work on your exercises outside the pool today and try it out tomorrow.
When it's 83F.

Stay tuned.