Kory and I walked on BLM land this morning, and (as has become exasperatingly usual for her) she ran and played and returned often to me, listening well until the moment that she didn't.
As I watched her sprint at warp speed away from me and down the trail we were on, turn right, and head down a second trail that led directly to the back of town I reached into the side pocket of my pants and hit the speed dial button for LC's cell number.
Without saying hello he simply asked "Where is she?"
I told him her general location and by the time I saw the truck LC had already corralled her.
When we are a long way out onto BLM land and our Tiny Tune Town is out of sight, Kory stays with us.
When we are simply wandering close to town it is now almost a given she that will make a break for town.
LC is threatening a shock collar. I am undecided about such things. She runs to town and is inevitably making her way back to the house by the time LC finds her. But there is more traffic through town now. The deer will one day return. One lady owns free range chickens. One guy has a slew of cats floating around his property.
In short, there are enough things for her to get into that could be problematic or dangerous.
Shock collar? Shock collar? I don't know...........
After picking up our wayward hound, and after picking me up, I asked LC to drive to the opposite end of town so that I could take pictures of the sheep.
About two months ago we were wandering on BLM land in the truck, and unexpectedly came across a very large herd of sheep happily grazing close to Cedar Butte.
After a very long winter of silence in Atomic City, it was startling to see them.
A herd of sheep. A pair of border collies and another pair of great Pyrenees. A couple of sheep herders standing in the center of this huge and very noisy flock, an extremely beautiful paint horse and a way-cool sheep wagon.
Since the time of that first sighting we have seen and heard them often.
They seem to move to a different section of BLM land every few days and we never know exactly where and when we will again see them.
This morning I had planned on taking Kory to the field where the hay bales were, so that she could run and jump.
Within a couple of minutes of leaving the house I heard them, looked ahead of me, and realized that they were close to both the road and the hay bales.
Not a place after all to let Kory run, but a place where I could finally take some good pictures of them.
If you click on the pictures they will enlarge.............
We slowly approached the sheep and I realized immediately that there were hundreds of sheep of all ages, that they were spread out over a span of 30 acres or more, that they were both very noisy and also very cute........................
One day last week I was walking with Kory on a trail on BLM land.
One of the sheep must have separated from the herd.
All that was left of him when we found him were bones and fur.
Coyotes ate well that day.
I will post pictures of that sheep in the next blog post..................
I am used to weather back east, where (aside from a few false starts) temperatures predictably become warmer and warmer through the spring.
In the west - in the Rockies - in the desert of SE Idaho - that is not the case.
I love this little wagon that the sheep herders have been living in for these past months.
Having said that, over the past two months we have had warmth and sunshine in addition to snow, rain, hail, dust storms and hurricane force winds.
Spring comes late and it comes in fits and starts for months, and I would not want to endure such conditions in this wagon.
Hardy guys (apparently from Peru) who will call this ramshackle home-on-wheels for many months to come..............
And this tall and beautiful thing will call the desert home for months as well................
There was much to see out there.
We were only a couple of miles from the house, but LC, Kory and I were all mesmerized by the sights and sounds in front of us.
We were so used to the quiet, and it was both wonderful and disorienting to see such organized chaos close to home. The sheep, the horse, the wagon, the buttes watching silently over this new experience.
I had been so busy watching all the action that at first I didn't even notice them.
But as we stood directly in front of the sheep wagon I finally noticed the little white fur balls underneath the wagon.
There was two.........no three............wide-eyed little butterball Pyrenees pups hiding under the safety of the wagon.
One day they would be GREAT PYRENEES, but for now they were just sweet little white things hunkering close together in a large, noisy, dusty world................
One of the adults. I have seen this guy before.
He doesn't get excited like the other Pyrenees or the two border collies.
He just stands. Or sits. And watches. Very. Closely..............
But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into
a tremendous bleating of-
"Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs
good, two legs better!"
It went on for five minutes without stopping. And by the time the sheep had
quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse...........Animal Farm, George Orwell
No comments:
Post a Comment