the calm before the storm

It is hard to believe a winter storm will be bearing down on us in a few hours . Today was lovely. I mean  lovely for this time of year . Right at our average high, 38. F , no wind to be had. There were high thin clouds giving the sky a powder blue hue this morning but it has changed over the course of the day to overcast , milky white. Weather geeks say we will be in the 8 to 10 inch belt. Last night they said we would be lucky to see 4 inches. I am not making any assumptions. I'll just look out my window in the morning and see what we have gotten overnight.
Got ready just in case and made sure all the water tubs were full up to the top. Other than that ...bring it on !

The patio door saga continues. The contractor says it's the door, the place the door came from says it's the installation. The contractor said he was waiting on a call from the manufactuer of the door to explain what is going on with it and to find out if they have advice on how to make the door ease up and actually slide on the track instead of needing to be pulled open. I am discusted with this , that is about all I want to comment on this at the moment.

Got all five dogs out on sheep today. With the three older dogs I worked on splits today . They all managed well but can't say I saw brilliant work. I am not unhappy but still seeing some things that are sloppy or lazy on the dogs part. Now I am not the greatest at this, so I am sure part of the dogs issues are something stupid on my part.

Pups both worked well. I stayed down in the two acre field today. With Rush I focused on her moving in a more quiet way. Getting her to ease up a bit and , you know, trot around and walk into instead of full bore and fast turns. She was doing pretty well .
Flint did well and both are doing as well as I would expect any pup just coming up on nine months old. After working Flint out in the field and was giving me reliable stops on balance I brought him and sheep back to the control pen to work on getting him to lie down and stay while I walked to him . We had a %95 success rate in there. I think for now I'll give this a whirl and see if I can get through to him that if you stay put , it only means I am coming to pet your head and let you back on the sheep. I think I saw a glimmer of understanding in his little round eyes today.

That is about all I have to report today. I will leave you with one of my favorite fall shots of the farm.