I am so grateful for all of the messages I am getting thanking me for writing and urging me not to stop. I certainly will not, Maria says if I end up in any hospital, I’ll have a laptop sent in with me to blog. We are serious about this shit here.

I realize I do have work to do, even in this great shutdown, part of that work is getting people to smile, or to distract them, or to uplift them. Hard but essential work, me and the animals here are up for it.

Take today. Something is wrong with this picture. We have two big and well-bred and proud working dogs standing behind Susie, a sweet Border Leicester sheep. Now, the way it is supposed to work is this:

Sheep are supposed to run from a big hunting dog or a big working dog, or a Border Collie from champion stock in Wales. That would be Zinnia and Fate.

When Bud goes into the pasture, he goes right at the sheep, and they move quickly and without complaint. But he was inside the house.

Susie could not have been more peaceful or relaxed that she was Sunday when Zinnia, already the size of a pony, and Fate, the sheep-obsessed border collie, came into the pasture.

I wanted to shout, “hey stop staring at each other and stare at the sheep!” but they both would have just blown me off.

I thought I saw Susie yawn once, but what I did not see Susie do is get up, or move, or stop chewing her cud for a second. Susie has been around; she saw no threat or trouble there.

I will concede to being a little embarrassed by all this, but nobody was fooling anybody. Fate tried some intense stares, and Zinnia came up to sniff Susie’s butt. She never did bother to move.

If you have border collies or Labs at home, do not show them this photo.  They might get the wrong idea.