Border Collie

All posts tagged Border Collie

Snow Dogs!

Posted by kenleighacres on December 9, 2013
Posted in: Border Collie, Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Dog Photography, Dogs, Lab, Photography, Snow, whippet. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 5 Comments

To say we got a lot of snow on Friday would be silly!  We got more snow than we have had in the last couple of years…combined!

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Darby, my Cardigan, had a difficult time in the soft, dry, fluffiness.

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He was having fun digging through it…

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so cute with his face covered in snow.

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I love his sweet, soulful eyes.

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Kate is just disgusted by all of the cold, white stuff on the ground.  We were at -9 on Sunday morning and 0 this morning.  The critters are all doing well, but I think we will all be happy to see the warmer temps later this week.

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Rose may be the only one that is sad to see it go.

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She was even dragging her belly through it!

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Her boy is loving it too!

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Playing fetch in the snow is a favorite of theirs.

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Evidence of the under the snow retrieves she was making 😉

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A few Felt Pups got to play in the snow too.  This Greyhound was a good sport about posing in the cold stuff.

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The Newfoundland enjoyed it a bit more!

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Deuce, our Lab, was very interested in the Felt Pup…or maybe she just wanted his bumper.

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The snow makes a nice back drop for her!

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Love the snowy lips!

Paisley

…and this is how my Whippet, Paisley, is enjoying the snow.  In her jammies, on her bed, in front of the fire 🙂

Where have I been???

Posted by kenleighacres on May 9, 2013
Posted in: Border Collie, Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Dogs, family, Farm Life, Felting, Jacob Sheep, Lambing. Tagged: , , , . 4 Comments

2 months since I last wrote a post…what???  That can’t be!

I guess I can’t argue with the date on my last entry, but it sure doesn’t feel like a couple of months have gone by.

So, what have I been up to???

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Up to my armpits in sheep 🙂

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Bronwen FINALLY lambed.  She had two lovely ewe lambs – meet Chiffon and Magnolia.   I wish I could say she was the last to lamb, but she wasn’t.  Calgary was the last to lamb a week later with two ram lambs.

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I’m not a fan of April lambs, but it was fun having little babies again.

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Remember the soccer lambs, Blizzard and Ruby?  They have successfully become part of the flock and love to help lead the flock out to pasture.  Blizzard has become my little buddy.

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It only makes sense because his uncle Dreamer is my biggest buddy 🙂

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I have been busy keeping up with Kate’s full schedule.  When she isn’t managing the pasture rotation…

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she is ridding a local college of the pesky geese.

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Paisley doesn’t get to help Kate chase the geese, but she loves going with us.

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The boys have been doing a lot of fishing…

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we didn’t catch any fish on this trip, but the sunshine sure felt nice.

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A friend and I took a little roadtrip to California to deliver some sheep.  We found a lot of sunshine there!

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My Felt Pups are continuing to keep me busy and I love the stories and the connections people have with their dogs.

Ok, that was a VERY brief overview, but at least I feel like I am a little caught up and can get back to posting regularly.

Look at her go!

Posted by kenleighacres on October 23, 2012
Posted in: Border Collie, Dog Photography, Dogs, family. Tagged: , , . 6 Comments

My son has a nutty little Border Collie and they love playing frisbee together.

I love watching them together.  His throwing accuracy and speed is WAY better than mine 🙂

Rose’s accuracy is getting pretty good too.

She loves jumping…

and leaping.  Not sure what she was doing in this picture, but it captures her perfectly!

Love the motion in this picture.

I am so happy she has a passion.  She isn’t interested in the sheep and a busy Border Collie always needs something to do.

This is by far my favorite 🙂  The look in her eye and the stretch in her toes are examples of just how enthusiastic she is about catching a little plastic disc.

Meet Kenzie!

Posted by kenleighacres on October 13, 2012
Posted in: Dog Photography, Dogs, Farm Life, Felting, Fiber. Tagged: , , , , , . 5 Comments

On my Kenleigh Acres Facebook page, I have been introducing the new felt pups as they are created.  This particular felt pup is near and dear to my heart and needed her own blogpost.

Meet Kenzie!

Here she is in her later years.

She was my first dog and it was so hard to say good-bye.  I had her for 14 years and she was my heart dog.  I have a print hanging in my office that was done by Mary Anne Radmacher and part of it says…

‘kenzie – the finest walks are the longest ones with you.  no matter what time brings you will always walk beside me.’

I wasn’t supposed to get a puppy, my parents were getting a puppy for my younger brother, but I got impatient waiting in the car.  I walked into the area where the puppies were and she crawled out from under a ledge and I knew she had to come home with me.  One of the things I will always be grateful for is that my parents let me bring her home.  My brother came home with her brother, Willy.

This makes Felt Pup #42 that I have made.  With orders stacking up and Christmas gifts being ordered, she wasn’t on my list to make, but the universe works in mysterious ways.  My mom has been bugging  urging me to make a ‘Kenzie’ for my little mascot and I kept saying, at some point I will make a ‘Kenzie’, but not right now.

Earlier this week, I was working on a Border collie that ended up turning into a ‘custom’ Border collie and the coloring wasn’t close to the same.  Funny thing is that the coloring was exactly what Kenzie looked like.  She was a Border collie/Aussie mix and had a natural bob tail.  She used to love bringing the horses in and she would have thoroughly enjoyed the sheep chores, unfortunately we didn’t have the sheep before she passed away.

She can now sit on my desk, keeping me company and herding the little felt sheep.

I’m happy to have a littler version of Kenzie in my life again and I share the sentiments of my sister that had this to say about her felt ‘Kodi’ – ‘…looks just like her and how I wish that it could come to life!’

To see more of the Felt Pups, you can visit their new website – Kenleigh’s Fiber Studio

Barking for a reason

Posted by kenleighacres on October 7, 2012
Posted in: Border Collie, Farm Life. Tagged: , , . 3 Comments

Poor Kate gets a bad rap.  She likes to bark.  She feels like she has to tell us when anything she feels is important is happening.  That could be someone pulling in the driveway (appropriate), someone walking past our house (semi-appropriate), our neighbor two doors down sneezing (not really appropriate), or anything else that may be happening within earshot.

This evening she was being exceptionally bad.  I had looked out front, looked out back and couldn’t see or hear anything that would cause her to bark.  Regardless of not seeing anything, she continued to bark every 5 minutes.  I was going to bring her in but I had to get something in my shop first.  As I was headed to my shop, she jumped at the fence and started barking at something across the road up on the hill.  I looked and looked, but didn’t see what she saw….

until this guy took a step and crunched a leaf.

He was well camouflaged and was holding very still.

We don’t see many deer here, so it is a treat when we do.

I followed him up the hill and he didn’t seem very concerned.

I think he has been the cause for a lot of barking because he was very comfortable on his hillside.

He slowly meandered out of sight, but I’m sure he will be the cause for more barking in the future.

Almost there…

Posted by kenleighacres on June 20, 2012
Posted in: Crafting, Farm Life, Felting, Fiber, sheep. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

I am enjoying a quiet morning before the craziness that is Black Sheep Gathering starts tomorrow.  I need to pack my shop into my car for my vendor booth, clean the trailer for the sheep to be loaded into, brush Kate so she looks her best for the herding demos, print pictures and information for my farm display booth, and a lot of other little things….but right now I am taking a deep breath 🙂

While I was taking my deep breath, I realized that I had not shared my Black Sheep Gathering Fiber Arts entry on my blog.

I used the BSG logo as my inspiration, but wanted to incorporate all of the wonderful breeds that can be seen at the show.

I used wool from each breed and most of it came from farms here in the NW.  The only exception is the Wensleydale and that wool came from Jackie Post at Wooly Adventures.

She lives in California and the wool came from Marley, a sheep with a LOT of character.

The Romney…

and the Border Leicester wool came from Coleen Smith at Blessed Creations.

The Icelandic…

and the Gotland wool came from Wendy Hanson at Shaggy Bear Farms.

The Corriedale yarn came from Katie Orr at Critter Hollar Ranch.

The Coopworth locks came from Lora Withnell at Rocking Dog Ranch.

The Navajo-Churro wool and yarn came from Karen Lobb at bide a wee farm.

The Shetland wool came from my stash of roving from the Shetland sheep we had for a short period.

The CVM wool came from Correy McAtee at Custom Colored Critters.

The Jacob wool of course came from our flock.

The Bluefaced wool came from Robina Koenig at Tumble Creek Farm.

A lot of these farms are good friends and are going to be at Black Sheep Gathering – I can’t wait to see them!

 Yesterday, we worked on my son’s Fiber Arts entry and I made one of my own…

My son made his own felt Rose.  We used a new kit to make our own pups.  The kit has molds and it was a safe way for a child to make a 3D felt object, less chance of poking fingers with the felting needle!

Her little tag reads – Live, Love, Leap – pretty accurate for the Rosie pup 🙂

Ok, break is over…back to work!

Make sure and say ‘Hi!’ if you are at the Black Sheep Gathering.

I’m working!

Posted by kenleighacres on May 1, 2012
Posted in: Border Collie, Dog Photography, Dogs, Farm Life, Llama. Tagged: , , . 2 Comments

Kate and Magoo have come to an agreement that she will give him space and he won’t harass her.

He must have forgotten their truce this morning…

Poor Kate was just trying to do her job.

Her focus never wavered though.

In time, Magoo walked away and let her get on with her business.  I wish I could have that fierce determination to not get distracted 🙂

Mountain climbing sheep

Posted by kenleighacres on April 29, 2012
Posted in: Border Collie, Dog Photography, Farm Life, Herding, Jacob Sheep, sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . 11 Comments

Joan at Mud Ranch is hoping to add a border collie to help with their sheep chores.  They are going to get a trained dog, but the sheep need some training as well.  Jacob sheep can be challenging for a dog, they like to intimidate and some do a little more than intimidate…especially when they have lambs.  I offered to bring Kate with me when I came to visit and work with their sheep a couple of times.   You can read Joan’s tale of the day on her blog.

Kate and I had a slightly different take on it 😉

Her sheep have mountains and they are very good at climbing them!

I love the look on her face in this photo.  Kate had never seen anything like it!

She is used to working on flat ground without any obstacles.

The sheep thought they had outsmarted her, but after convincing her that the sheep were up there (she couldn’t see them) she went up and around and brought them back to the barn for us.

 

I forgot how much fun it could be to work ‘challenging’ sheep.  Most of our sheep are ‘dog broke’ meaning they are used to being worked by a border collie and ‘give’ to her when she puts pressure on them.  We have individuals that still like to give Kate a run for her money, but for the most part she has done a good job training them.

It took her a little while to get a feel for the different environment and the different sheep…

but she soon had them bunched up together.

She had to keep going left and right or in herding terms ‘away’ and ‘come by’, but she managed to keep them together so we could get a closer look at all the lambs.

It was much warmer than she is used to and her tongue was hanging WAY out in no time at all.

Luckily there was a little creek close by for a cool down.

Mud Ranch

Posted by kenleighacres on April 26, 2012
Posted in: Border Collie, family, Farm Life, Herding, Jacob Sheep, Photography, sheep. Tagged: , , , . 2 Comments

I will never forget my first visit to Mud Ranch, I swore I would never drive there again!  The road is twisty and turny with several places where the road turns back on itself.  Since then, I have become very good friends with Joan and driving to see her and all of our friends at Mud Ranch make the drive worth it.  Plus, the drive really is beautiful!  This is the first time I made the trip with a trailer though, I am happy to say that it went just fine 🙂

The welcoming committee was just as sweet as at Mendenhall’s.

When we pulled in, the three bottle lambs came running at us and Kate immediately felt like she needed to control them.  I did tell her that she was going to get to work sheep, but this isn’t what I had in mind.

After unpacking the truck and settling in, we headed out to see sheep.  The kids were very happy to play in the creek.

I wish every child could experience the imaginative play that comes with playing next to a creek.  They had little horses that were floating on logs down the ‘raging’ river.

While they enjoyed themselves, we had Kate gather the sheep and looked at all of the beauties.

There were many that I liked and I did a little bit of ‘in person’ shopping…

here is one that will probably call Oregon home in the future.

I also got to see some familiar faces…

Lancelot moved to California last August and he has matured nicer than I could have hoped for!

Joan has told me about his personality, that he is a funny guy and he was certainly showing off that evening.  He was having fun stirring things up.

The weather was outstanding while we were there.  We enjoyed a fire on the back porch and…

SMORES 🙂

   

Good memories!

After a visit that was too short, we were back on the road and headed for home.

Tomorrow’s post will be about Kate’s adventure with Joan’s mountain climbing sheep!  It was an adventure.

Lots of blue!

Posted by kenleighacres on April 25, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Herding, Jacob Sheep, sheep. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

California did not disappoint 🙂  Plenty of blue skies and sunshine.

After a couple stops in Oregon, the trailer was full and we were on our way.  We had 5 jacob lambs, 5 Romney lambs, 3 Romney ewes, and a Wensleydale ram.  While my son and I enjoyed the warm weather, the poor sheep weren’t sure of the 95 degree weather.  It was quite a change from the wet, soggy, cool NW!

We arrived at our first destination Friday night and more importantly it was where all of the sheep were getting off the trailer.

The Mendenhall Wool Ranch is beautiful and their welcoming committee made my son feel right at home…

He was in heaven!

I loved looking at all of the sheep and the colors.

They raise Romneys – white and natural colored.

 

As well as white and natural colored Merinos.

I also really enjoyed this little dog work.  Her name is Jill and she is only 6 months old.  She had the maturity and work ethic of a much older dog.

She had so much confidence and self-assurance, even with sheep all around her.  Nothing like watching a good dog work sheep!

Dapper Dan, Felice, and Hoopla will be making the big trip with the Mendenhall’s all the way to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.  From there they will be going to New Jersey and New York.  They looked good when we left Saturday morning.

 We headed North Saturday morning, but we had another stop in California before heading home.

A visit with our good friends at Mud Ranch!  More about our visit there tomorrow.