As I stood by the barn trying to adjust the settings on the camera, the storm swept across the sky, the sun, in retreat, simply fled. The sky turned dark and then opened up, the rains came pouring down, the wind swept across the pasture, the barn hid behind the clouds.
When the storm came in last night, we saw the clouds beginning to darken on the right, the sun being chased off to the left. I had my IR camera, my big sky camera and pulled over and stood behind an old barn. It is beautiful to see two of these weather systems collide, a lot of sky drama this week. How beautiful to me.
I’ve never had a border collie like Fate. She is different in every way. She has ever herding trait and instinct a border collie could have. She moves along with the sheep, keeps an eye on them, moves in relation to me, is instantly responsive to my commands, does wonderful outruns, lies down quickly. She has all the focus, agility and drive.
She just doesn’t have the eye and determination to move the sheep. She works in wonderful tandem with Red, but if the day comes when Red can’t work, I’ll have to get a border collie who can move the sheep, we need that on the farm. In the meantime, Fate is having a blast.
People ask me if I think Fate’s eye will strengthen and develop, I don’t think so. I think Fate is the dog she was meant to be, and she is a great dog. You can’t ask for more than that. The odd thing about her is that she has ever skill and instinct but one – the eye-stalk. It happens, and the good thing is that she loves working with the sheep, being with them, working with me.
I was watching the new ewe Izzy, to see if she had any fear of Fate at all, she doesn’t. She also ignored her from the first. But Fate loves to be around her.
Our summer fly campaign to help Chloe be more comfortable is going well. As horse people know, flies can be an awful plague on horses, the huge horseflies swarm and bite. We do several things. We have good creams and sprays that repel flies and heal their bites – we apply them every other day to her haunches, face and ears. We have shelter in the Pole Barn where the flies usually don’t go.
And we are alternating fly masks that keep them off of her face and eyes. Chloe seems to get the point of the fly mask, she accepts it happily and easily. We like this new mask, it forms a kind of bubble to her eyelashes don’t brush against the mesh. I told her she looks like a pony from Mars.
