November 13, 2007: Back out Gathering
We had an absolutely spectacular day here yesterday. Although we started with a very hard frost and it was cold, the day turned out to be sunny, windless, but cool. We were back out gathering first thing. The sheep are being brought down from the hills for the big count, and placed in fields closer to home ready for tupping time.

Kelvin set off up the hill with Tuque and Blade, while Angie, Roy and Bailey walked up the valley next to the burn. Hugh, Richard, Moss, Don and Rock disappeared on the quad bikes to the tops of the hills. The water in the burn was frozen in places and judging by Roy's reaction when he crossed it on his first gather of the morning, it was freezing cold. He shook himself off and eagerly raced up the steepest part of the hill.

The gather we did was one of our favourites. It is steep but we have very clear sight to the sheep being gathered, and the dogs doing the work. Without any wind, the dogs could hear every whistle command perfectly and both Roy and Blade were working well together...and then the sheep took off, split up and made a valiant attempt at freedom! They escaped right in a very bad place - about the only part of the gather where the contour of the land makes it easy for sheep to hide. While some raced uphill and in the direction of another heft being gathered by Richard, others snuck around the hill and out of sight. With our attention turned to making sure our heft did not mix with Richard's, we made the mistake of not seeing others sneak around the side of the hill. We struggled for what seemed like an age to get Roy and Blade to go back for the sheep escaping up the hill. Finally they understood what we wanted and within a short period of time, we had the sheep being driven down the valley.

BUT, we forgot to do a check to make sure we had all of the sheep...and yes, we left some behind - the ones that had escaped around the hill and out of sight - a cardinal sin, and a 'fining offence' on this farm (yes, we owe a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream to Richard). Richard, you see, was bringing the heft he had gathered in behind us and picked up the ones we had missed and brought them in. Good team work! We all make mistakes now and then so we jokingly 'fine' each other for various offences - leaving sheep behind on a gather, forgetting to put the foot trimmers in the box, running out of drench halfway through a job and forgetting to put a new bottle in the car, and, well, we fine each other for silly things too. Thankfully we've all done something worthy of being fined! It is nice to have a work place where mistakes are jokingly fined - and forgiven! Mind you, we'll be a bit more conscientious the next time we do this gather.

We spent the rest of the day continuing with our renovation projects. We finally finished painting our stairwell and have scraped the wallpaper off our guest bedroom. Next up will be a crash course in wallpapering. They have this paintable wall-paper here so we'll be putting that on and then painting it some suitably fashionable colour. When we tire of that colour, we'll be able to paint over it as we like. This wee cottage is starting to look quite spiffy!

Archives:

November 6, 2007: Some Down Time at Last.

October 26, 2007: A Day Out at the Tup (Ram) Sale.

October 22, 2007: Pheasant Shooters.

October 15, 2007: Trials, Trials and more Trials.

October 2, 2007: Back to Work.

September 17, 2007: The International Sheepdog Trial, Ireland

September 12, 2007: Foot and Mouth Again

September 4, 2007: Blackies go to the Beauty Salon

August 25, 2007: Sheep Spa and Nationals

August 14, 2007: Roy goes Gathering for the First Time

August 7, 2007 Foot and Mouth Scare

August 3, 2007 Country bumpkins go to London

July 28, 2007 Whales and Wales

July 21, 2007 Blood sampling ewes.

July 16, 2007 A week of gathering sheep