It just seems so wrong that Midge's first owners, after having her for 20 years, 'chose' to move to a condo that didn't allow pets. Maybe there's more to the story than what they are telling us (I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt).
Last night I was looking through the PNW border collie rescue site, and imagine my surprise when I saw Phineas up for adoption. Yep, they found him three weeks ago, which really makes me smile:)
He's sure a cute one. Wish we were looking for another dog right now....I'd have my application sent in. He'd actually caught my eye before he went missing.
I check the PNW BC rescue site every few weeks....mmm.....well.....just because:)
Quite often we bring April and The Old Ewe out of their field and let them have some other grazing. The two younger fatter ones protest loudly, but they don't need any extra feed.
What's that stuck on the bottom of your sandal......sheep muck?
I did take a picture last Sunday, Aug 28th, I swear, but it disappeared to the Oregon State Fair with David and his camera before I got it on the computer. Not that you are missing anything. I did fail on Aug 29th though. It was late in the evening, again, and I just couldn't think of what to try and get a decent picture of, and I just said to h*ll with it.... The first day this year I haven't taken a photo, and hopefully the last.
Part of the reason was that we had been rushing around all day on Monday to get ourselves ready, the farm ready, and all the ripe blackberries picked, before we went away for three days, Tuesday to Thursday. That post is yet to come. We left here early Tuesday morning, and got back Thursday evening. Friday was spent trying to catch up with the farmers market stuff, which translates to a million batches of jam to be made, as well as picking blackberries again. Which in reality translates into 7 ice cream pails of blackberries, and four batches of jam. And then, the raspberry jam had the nerve to not set..... So anyway, we survived another market weekend. I ended up doing two more batches of jam on Saturday afternoon. Another raspberry, which was a success this time, and some strawberry rhubarb. Of course on Sunday, we hardly sold any of that, and people were asking for the things I hadn't got made.....mango chutney, rhubarb, cherry..... etc. There's probably about 20 different varieties that need to be done this week.
Since I had done the jam Saturday afternoon, I was extra tired in the evening, and I just could not get myself to go into the garage and make the bouquets up. So that meant I had to get up at 5am and do them then. I didn't do too badly, got 12 made before I had to pick the rest of the stuff and we rushed off at the last minute as usual. I made the rest up while we were at the market.
After visiting with our mothers we met at Harvey's (Larry's brother) place and had a nice visit there with Larry's cousin Doug, and his wife Lynn, who are here from Australia for two months, doing quite the tour through Canada and the US.
And here we are on Labour Day. I'd better make it live up to it's name today. First off, we'll tour the blackberry patches and get those picked again. We now have 30 buckets picked:)
Friday's photos
Saturday's photos
Earlier in the day I'd seen the mare and filly in the field next door. By the time I'd finished what I was doing and got the camera they were at the far end of the field where even the 20x zoom wouldn't do much good.
Later, in the evening, they were in the part of the field below the garden where I was picking the last of the flowers.
And Sunday....
Harvey has a peek-a-boo view of the ocean from the deck of his house.
This is cousin Doug and his wife Lynn.
(photo removed until I get their permission to post it)
It's kind of depressing thinking about Fall already, but we sure are noticing the signs. Spiders..... their webs are everywhere. Thankfully spiders don't really freak me out. I'd rather walk into a spider web than thoseleopard slugs doing their mating dance. When we walk down the bush trail in the morning, the person in the lead is constantly breaking through the spider webs. I don't really like to, but I'm not about to get down on my knees and crawl under them all. I feel sorry for the spiders, all that effort they've put out, and their web is instantly destroyed. It fascinates me how they build them across a wide space like that, I'd love to see a time lapse video, of which there is probably one out there somewhere. This morning I picked up a thin stick and waved it in front of me as I walked along, kind of like I was conducting an invisible orchestra. Luna wasn't impressed, in fact it really freaks her out. Last year Larry did it with a bigger stick and her tail was between her legs and her ears were down. Dredging up unpleasant memories from her past?.....who knows.
Some mornings the dew is incredibly heavy, and then you get the sun shining through it, and it's glistening like diamonds. The dogs end up soaked, and the humans wear rubber boots.
Rubber boots and shorts. We are just so darn stylish!
We take our blackberry picking very seriously. That's a 12 ft ladder.
The zucchini are in full production now. I love the brilliant colour of the blossoms. The bees are working hard to make sure we are swamped with zucchini.
We have both yellow and green ones.
And most of the dahlias survived the slugs and some are now blooming.
That thing that is undercover....well that's a couple of blueberry bushes. I had bought some gauzy drapery fabric, really really cheap, no more than $1 or $1.50 a metre, and was using it as blueberry netting. (The stuff is 10' wide). Worked great, and I've been leaving it on in case any deer wander by and decide to snack on the new shoots.
Buckets of blackberries picked - well only part of one, and then we put them in little containers and sold them at Sunday's market, so that doesn't really count.
The sheep shearer came today. Here he is shearing April. I'm stood in the kitchen, stirring apricot jam with one hand, and trying to take brilliant photographs with the other.
Not going to happen I'm afraid.
Eventually Pride wandered down. He must have thought he was missing something.
This is sheep number 3, known as 'the young ewe'.
You can see 'the fat ewe' over Pride's back. Actually, 'the young ewe' could now be known as the 'the fat ewe', or maybe she should be called 'the young fat ewe'. But who really cares:)
One of the 'three bags full'
April and 'the old ewe', and Luna of course.
Poor April. At 15 1/2 years old she's like an old lady with dementia. She still toddles around and eats, but isn't carrying any weight. It was tough to shear her, so she looks a little rough. The shearer moves and bends the sheep in various ways to round out the part he is shearing, to create a nice smooth surface to run the shears over. It was hard to create any smooth surfaces on April, there is no fat, she is all points and angles.
I don't think she'll be around much longer, but so far she isn't suffering. She's the closest thing to a pet sheep we have.
