October 08
Lambing Blogs: April 08* April 08 Part 2* May 08
June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08
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6th of October Une petite Berger!
Very good news today. Midge has had her rabies titre test and is allowed to enter the UK anytime after the 23rd March. Hooray!
Midge says "mais j'aime tout à fait ma position ici!" I am not sure if she has been practicing her English or whether she may be fluent in French and German instead. However she means she is quite happy with her position here!
Midge also lets us know "Je sais diriger les Border Collies. Monsieur
Remy vous êtes prochain!" Which seems to be some kind of veiled
threat that she has learned how to beat up Border Collies about twice her
size, so Monsieur Remy will be no problem to her!
These three handsome boys are (L-R) Fame (who is being beaten by Midge above!) who is a son of C. Spot and Mist, Avalon, a son of Ghost and Tammy, and Slate, a son of Mole and Spark, who is Fame's litter brother therefore Slate is Fame's nephew. They are part of "CorrieDhu Germany and Switzerland".
10th of October Seeing Spots
Corrie Dhu Spot has had a successful couple of weeks coming second at Yarrow trial (on the same points as the winner beaten just on OLF) and winning Yetholm trial. You can see the write up for Yetholm here. I will get the one for Yarrow up shortly.
14th of October Shetland Homecoming
Norma and I went to collect my Shetland sheep yesterday. Despite getting stuck in traffic for three hours on the way there and not getting home until 9pm I am glad to have them back. Whether they are happy to be home remains to be seen, I am hoping they have forgotten about the inch gap under the fence which was a favourite escape route!
There are 16 Shetlands in this photo but due to their magical powers some are out of sight. The original members of the gang, Sox, Angel, Rusty and Lovage are still going strong with a few additions which are their progeny by a tup out of beloved "Hazel the Sheep" by "Northdown Thunderflash". I won't be lambing the Shetlands this year.
19th October Puppies on the way
Elsie is whelping at the moment. At 3pm she has had three puppies, 2 bitches and a dog, all classically marked brown tri colours:
I will update as the puppies are born.
3:30pm another dog pup. I will take a photo when he is dry. He is very like his Grandfather Eryri Roy, and has a lot of tan on his face. My pick if he were a bitch!
Here he is!
This was at 4pm.
At 4:10pm another bitch was born.
19th October 7pm - 3 all!
Looks like Elsie has finished at three dogs and three bitches, all very pretty and active.
28th October Gathering
I've added a new video of Ffi and Mist gathering one of our sites. Over the Summer we have around 200 sheep here but as they are going to their winter grazing they are thinning out! It still needs two dogs to do the job however as the sheep prefer not to flock and like to hide where possible. Click here to see the video (it will take a long time to download even with a fast connection but I hope it's worth it!).
Today we were contracting and this mainly involved shifting hoggs around. The trouble with hoggs is that they love to go through any open gate and escape if they possibly can, until you line them up to a gate, then they decide there is no way they will go through it. Ffi hurt herself yesterday when she had to do some rock climbing (more about that later) so it fell onto Mist and Chance to get the job done.
Mist is gathering the hoggs. Chance looks on wondering if she would like his help.
Knocking the corners together.
Order nearly established.
Chance takes his side.
Mist takes hers.
Took a little video on my phone to try it out!
Successfully through the gate.