Decisions

I don't generally dress my dogs up. They're tough working dawgs after all... but my friend Tammy is having an APDT rally obedience trial this weekend down in Calgary and Bruce and I have decided to go. For once the Border Collies can stay home and keep Travis company. It's Halloween this weekend which happens to be my favourite holiday so I dug through my tickle trunk (of things I don't dress my dogs up in) today to see what I could come up with in the way of a costume for Brucie.

Here are our options.

The classic bat bandana


A cute little ghosty number?


Or the Superman costume I used to force his grandfather Mateo to wear. Kind of a family tradition of humiliation...

Before anyone says anything. Yes, I've noticed that there's a "wardrobe malfunction" here. The S on his breast plate is upside. Rest assured I won't make that mistake again.

Being an equal opportunity kind of girl I dragged Hope and Kate over and dressed them up too. Now they have even more incentive to remain great working dogs!

Trick or Treat, smell our feet, give us something good to eat.
Not too big, not too small, Just the size of Montreal!

Finally!

A good picture of the three dogs together. For once Kate isn't beating on Bruce, Bruce isn't annoying Hope, and Hope isn't looking like I beat him with a camera on a daily basis. Generally all of that behaviour leads to me telling them to knock it off etc., which leads to less than happy "family portraits" - kind of like the ones you get of kids when they're told to sit up straight, stop picking their noses, no rabbit ears behind their brothers, and don't forget to smile - a real smile dammit! ;-)

If I didn't know them I'd think they were sweet and adorable.

Life is full of tough choices

when you are a cat.

Cushy dog bed?



or sunbeam?


it's enough to wear a guy out.

Border Collies are always serious

You know you're a country girl at heart

When you look forward to getting one of these in the mail.


In girlie pink no less!

Ok, so today I took the camera

Today was just as gorgeous as yesterday. I say "If it's not broke, don't fix it.", so I pretty much did exactly the same stuff today.

I worked Kate.

I worked Hope.

While I was out in the field I took pictures of the sheep. Because the sheep are new. Because I change my mind about sheep about as often as I change my socks. The new flock consists of 4 Katahdin ewes, 2 ewe lambs, a ram, and whethers to keep Gordon the ram company. Everyone but the whethers are registered. They're really nice stock and I'm looking forward to seeing what they'll produce next spring.

The girls.



Ewe lamb 1 - maybe we should call her patch? ;-)

Ewe lamb 2 - the dark sheep in the family.

The boys - Gordon and groceries 1,2, and 3.

Then we went for a walk and I took those fall pictures I had hoped to take last week.

Blogger insists that this photo is best viewed on its side - who am I to argue?

In case you think our walks are all peace and tranquility, remember that Bruce is present.

So here are the Bruce "out takes".

Bruce's favourite mode of transportation - running forward as fast as he can while looking back over his shoulder. We can only assume that when he kills himself he'll die happy?

Kate biting Bruce (one of her favourite hobbies) and Bruce taking it out on Hope (becuase he knows better than to try and let Kate know that he doesn't appreciate her biting him) and Hope just praying that they'll both just go away for good.

As usual - Border Collies doing what they're told...Bruce being Bruce.

Bruce and his usual "We're FRIENDS right Hope?" while Hope just keeps looking straight ahead..."eventually he'll just go away right?!?"

Hopefully that's enough pictures - you know who you are ;-)

All that crappy weather just makes me appreciate a perfect day all that much more.

Perfect weather. Perfect walk, Perfect dogs. It's a GOOD day. :-) No pictures - too busy enjoying it all!

Relationships are built on communication and trust.

Communication - as in I should have reminded Travis that there were sheep in the yard when we left for town and he decided that because I was driving he'd get the gates.

Trust - This is what I thought the gates looked like as we left the property.


but this is what they really looked like.


Which lead to some very choice communication when we got back home.

Nothing to the right....


Nothng to the left. Actually that's not entirely true. It turns out they were to the right of the white field you can see at the far end of the road.


On the lamb...

I was going to blog about this

Fall pics of the dogs. Every year I like to take pictures of the kids when the leaves are pretty.It's just something I do for myself.

This is Bruce last year,


and Bruce the year before.


My god he was a cute puppy. I'm being completely objective about my opinion of course.

That was my plan today. I had the dogs out for a nice run yesterday without the camera - so today I was definitely going to bring it with me.

Instead I'm going to blog about this.

Because these are todays "fall colours" here.

Hope and I moved the sheep out (they're the subject of something else I was planning to blog about this week), and then the dogs and I headed out for the trails.



Loads of fun was had by all even if it was a little early in the season for white stuff.

And when we got back Hope put in his request for naps by the fire.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...hopefully.

Random pics from the trip

That make me go HMMMM....

The USBCHA finals were GREAT. Lots of visiting, lots of great runs, lots of fun. Just about everyone I know who was there has written blogs filled with info about the trials.

Not me. I managed to snap some shots on the way down and back that are definitely what you could call "long road trip conversation starters". And now, I share them with you...

Gee - can't wait. Oh, and don't worry. We weren't disappointed - there was plenty of it.

Hey look, finally a tree!

full of shoes... in the middle of NO WHERE.

A minitiature mule with a flag sticking out of it's back. That's certainly...patriotic? (this shot was actually taken at the finals, but it did lead to some interesting conversation on the way home)

Who knew that Stop signs needed explaining?

The sign that got away.

Keep Oregon Green, Prevent Forest Fires.

in an area that looked like this.

Green? Forests?

Can't wait till next year's road trip adventures!