The in- between days

The week in- between Christmas and New Years. Kind of a limbo time. I have to go back to work tomorrow, but probably won't be very busy at all. Then next week will start life anew.

Today we took Carl's folks out to see the progress on my house and also show them the property Jill and Carl are buying. The dogs love running on the golf course. As soon as I open the car door they take off for the wide open spaces. It's going to be hard when people start fencing off their properties and the dogs don't have the 100+ acres anymore.

But for now they had a good day!

Meg and Torka (in his sweater)

Crue, Seth and Reign running

Mike's infamous pond, still ice and snow covered. He stayed well away from it this time.

My house and the rain gutter that is in desperate need of replacing!

The chicken coop with the snow piled on it. That I didn't notice till I looked at this picture!

Seth

Seth, after rolling in something.

Me and Meg walking on the ridge above the pond. Meg is such a loyal dog. She stays with me and if the other dogs go running off she may follow a bit but constantly looks back to make sure I'm coming. She never does anything stupid like the boys.

It was a beautiful day in the in-between week.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The dogs all say....

 "hats off to everyone this holiday!"

Actually that isn't what they said at all. They really said "you aren't going to get me to wear that stupid hat!"

Merry Christmas anyway!

Been a bit nippy out

Last week was a bit chilly.

We got just a bit of snow and the dogs loved it!

Then came the ice storm which prevented driving and even walking.

How's  this for teeth?

Today I took the dogs for a walk on our land. There is a pond in the middle of the property that is hidden.

Mike found it and either jumped in, or fell in, I'm not sure.  It was as he was trying to get out that we realized the pond was covered in ice and he had broke it and fell down in. Twice he broke through and struggled to get out. Of course it didn't faze him one bit, after he got out he just shook off and continued on his run.

This is the pond.

This is the pond after Mike, and yes, those are ice cubes from him breaking through the ice.

The rest of our walk was fairly uneventful. The golf course that surrounds my house was divided into lots and sold at auction last weekend. My daughter and son-in-law bought a 7 acre parcel right next to mine and that is where the pond is. Part of it is on the golf course, the other part is wooded and with lots of brush. Until the bank authorizes the auction sales nobody can do anything with the land they bought, so...I figure since the golf course is now closed, the dogs can enjoy the open spaces to run. They love it!

and it looks nice and sunny, but its cold!

Me bundled up.

Looking out this way is about 40 or so acres all nicely clear and mowed for the dogs to run on.. Now if I just had my sheep!

Later driving home with the dogs in the back seat all I could smell was swamp!

Where's the color?

Brave Kitty

Kitty (AKA Captain Jack Sparrow) is either a very brave kitty, or a very stupid kitty. He is mostly blind. But that doesn't stop him from trying to be a normal kitty. The water heater at my shop sits on a ledge above the basement stairs. Its high up enough for a tall person to not bump their heads when going down stairs. "Brave" Kitty does not like spiders. In fact he freaks out if he encounters one. But after I cleaned up the spider webs around the water heater Kitty decided its a nice place to hang out. It is a precarious journey, but Kitty feels his way along the narrow ledge to and from the water heater.

Hiking, with dogs

I don't get out enough. People are always talking about places around here I've never been. I am always either at work or working on my house. So last weekend, we packed up all the dogs and the 4 of us met some friends to go hiking in the woods. We met out at my house first then drove from there. It was a beautiful hiking trail and only about 5 miles from my house! It had lots of water that the dogs could go in. We all kind of hiked at our own pace, me at Crue's pace. Seth and Mike were in the fast group and Crue was determined he was not going to be left behind. But alas his walker, me, was just not in shape enough to keep up with the younger set. I was in the middle with Jenna and 2 of the friends behind me. After awhile of being pulled I decided to wait up till Jenna caught up with me. She had Reign with her and that made Crue feel better. I also had Meg with me who doesn't pull at all but I guess Crue wanted to hike with the guys and not the girls. Most of the time I was by myself though and Meg really did a good job of following the trail which was completely hidden by all the leaves. I just let the dogs lead the way and when we came to a fork in the road I let Meg decide which way to go. I just told her "go find Seth". My friend later asked why I said go find Seth instead of go find Mike. I said mainly because Meg probably wouldn't want to find Mike..LOL Mike is kind of the "special" dog in our pack.  We had a lot of fun and it was an absolutely beautiful day for a hike in the woods. We saw deer, raccoon and probably fox prints at the water's edge. All in all we hiked about 5 miles. I figure Crue worked the hardest though. It was nice being pulled up the hills, I'd let him go on the downhill sometimes so he wouldn't pull me down with him. I guess I could teach him to walk properly on a leash, but my dogs are so seldom on a leash and I liked the extra help walking up the hills. So it was nice getting out of our routine and comuning with nature.
As usual, only a couple pictures even though we did have the camera with us. So here is part of our group. We never did meet up with Jill, Carl, Jim and the dogs, Seth, Mike and their dog, Lucky (a big black Lab). Jill says they had a great time and Mike was the perfect dog, Seth was the jerk. Figures. If I'm not there Seth thinks he's in charge.

ok, house updates

I've been hesitating posting anything more about my house because #1 I keep forgetting to take my camera out there, and #2 Although we've made some great progress, I just wanted more before I posted again. But I decided an update was in order, so here it is.

We finally have gotten the whole living room and kitchen drywalled. Jenna's room is completely insulated and has the new window and would have been drywalled, at least partially, but it was raining and we couldn't transport the drywall in the rain. My room is partially insulated, has one new window and still needs one more. So without further ado...I give you before and afters.

The kitchen before (a way long time before) The laminate flooring you see here was what we put down (when the previous owners were still living there) as a requirement for the loan. Stupid as we tore everything out anyway, but they required all this superficial stuff to be done and of course the owners weren't going to put one dime in so while we worked putting in this flooring in the kitchen and carpet in the bedrooms and baseboard heaters, they sat on their uh duffs watching tv and eating little Debbie's cakes.

This is pic is after we took out the first 3 of 6 layers of flooring. Obviously they had just kept putting on a new layer instead of replacing the old properly.

And this is what the kitchen looks like 10 mos later. We removed the one window in there to give me more space. The door we put in is window all the way down and its going to be an open kitchen so it has plenty of light.

The living room before. We had already redone all the electrical and flooring in this picture. But the walls and windows were not done yet.

After.

Well, that's about it for now. Except the Chicken Coop!

It is mostly done and I keep all 6 in there. Oh, but it isn't the chickens I keep in there yet.

It makes a really good kennel for now. I bought 9 bales of orchard grass hay and the dogs love to stay nice and snug and warm in there while we work on the house. I've decided since the building is so big, I'm going to divide it in half and the chickens can have 1/2 and I can store stuff on the other side. I'm really still hesitant about putting the chickens out there before I'm living there. Plus its getting cold now and they aren't used to the weather. Plus I'm getting about 6 eggs per day out of 6 chickens because I can control the lighting. I wouldn't get as many if they are outside.

Well, that is it for my update. Jenna and I did mow down the back lawn yesterday so the well pump guy can get in there to fix my well pump and give me running water again. We also put up some good fencing between my property and the golf course. I need to take down a couple dead/dying trees before I can finish that job though. No pics of the fence, I keep forgetting to bring my camera. 

Focus

Border Collies have the best ability to focus.

No matter what is sitting on their head.

Autumn

I waited almost too long to get some pictures of the beautiful colors this time of year.

I did manage to snap a couple pictures this morning on the way to work.

Some of the trees have completely changed colors already and some haven't. But after the bad storms yesterday, being under a high wind advisory all day, plus being under a tornado warning most of the evening and the heavy rains, most of the trees look like this now.

However, you can still see the lovely Fall colors of their leaves.

The trees behind my shop don't look good enough to take pictures of, but as you can see the poison ivy is still doing very well.

Crue and House updates

First Crue. He seems to be doing just fine. Can't keep him confined! I'm not letting him run around much, but the leash thing was more dangerous than running free. He is still favoring his leg just the slightest bit, but its getting better. His eye looks good and I'll be taking him to my own vet in a few days for a recheck and to get the sutures removed. He is enjoying all the extra attention and treats and is getting quite good at taking his meds and letting me put in the eye ointment. I think I can stop worrying now.


Now for the house update. We have taken out the ceiling and I'm still getting the rest of the remants of drywall and nails off the ceiling. I'm almost done with that, then we can start putting the ceiling back up.

We've also finished insulating the living room.

I know it doesn't look like much after all this time, but we're finally on the home stretch! The demolition part is finally over and now we are beginning to rebuild. Good thing I got this place for a song or it would not have been worth it. As it is my mortgage payment is smaller than a car payment so I should be able to get it paid off fairly fast. Now if the dogs can just stay healthy and my truck can keep running  (its across the street getting 2 new tires that are costing me more than my mortgage payment) and nothing else goes wrong, I can get my house finished and move in!

Poor Crue

Crue got hurt yesterday. He somehow managed to run into the side of our lawnmower/dump run trailer.

The offending trailer

The thing that makes me mad is that trailer has been sitting there for months and just the other day I was thinking maybe it should be moved before one of the dogs accidentally runs into it. I should learn to act when these thoughts go through my head as they seem to inevitably happen once I've thought them.

I had him at the ER vet within 15 minutes. He nicked the third eyelid, scraped the cornea and ripped open the skin at the corner of the eye. The vet said it was very deep and into the tissue under the skin. Can't remember what he called it. They anesthetized him and sutured it up. He was also limping really bad but we couldn't find the reason for that. The vet thinks he bumped his shoulder at the same time he cut his eye. He was still a bit wobbly from the anaesthesia when I brought him home but immediately went back to the ball he was playing with when he got hurt.

He's full of energy today having spent the past 24 hours either crated or on a leash. He should heal up with no lasting vision problems. I certainly hope so. I hate when my dogs get sick or hurt.

My poor boy :(

Crue found new toys

Crue found some really fun new little balls to play with.

He bats them around and chases them down. Unfortunately if he applies too much pressure they pop.

They are HIS toys and HE found them, so back off.

He thinks its so cool we grew a ball bush just for him.

sheepdog demo

We got to help out with the sheepdog demos at the East TN Border Collie Rescue's annual reunion. We had a lot of fun!
The weather was not very cooperative at first. It's been hot and dry here for a few weeks but not today. No we had quite a bit of rain today. We sat under a tent with our dogs waiting for a lull so we could go work the sheep. Really we didn't mind getting a bit wet and of course the dogs didn't mind, but we didn't have much covered space for spectators to keep dry, so we waited till it quit. Second round the sun was out and it was a bit hot.
The dogs did very well and I think we had a decent demo. 3 of our dogs are older, 9, 10 and 10 yrs. And the other was a youngster 3rd time on sheep in the past week. The oldsters did great and even though they hadn't been worked in a few years they were very spot on for us. Seth still slices his flanks and in the small area we had to work just lacked the finesse it took to have much control over the sheep. He did well on his outruns and was dependable holding sheep for the young dog. Meg surprised me by being very good and very responsive to my commands. She still hates to down, and was very pushy, but did well considering she hasn't been worked in over 3 years. The other older dog hadn't been worked in a while either but she is very calm and methodical and didn't seem to bother the sheep like Seth and Meg did.  The young dog is very impressive and shows good balance for her limited time on sheep.
The audience seemed to enjoy the demos and asked good questions. It was a very fun day.

Meg putting the sheep through the fetch panels.

Seth lifting the sheep off the fence

Seth fetching the sheep.

Seth holding sheep for the young dog.

Meg actually lying still.