Jan 17 2013 winter training

Not much going on here. Winter is here and not much consistent training is going on.  Sheep have been cranky as they always seem to get this time of year. Either running full tilt or not wanting to move at all. We started replacing a large bit of fence line in Fall. Winter came and now we'll have to wait to carry on with the project. I took advantage of the missing fence to do some different out work for Rush and Flint. It was fun to set the sheep in the low pasture in back and send dogs from the top of the hay field. Lot's of dips and rock cropping to negotiate. Opal is learning her flanks, off balance and comfortable flanks. She is getting pretty solid to voice but sketchy on her flank whistles. At this point I don't really care too much what the sheep are doing. I just am trying to help Opal learn left and right as well as her listening and taking a flank that may not seem the right thing or comfortable. I do see in this video I am asking too much for a lie down. I also see I am not getting the lie down about 50% of the time. So that is a good thing for me to pay attention to as I go forward.
I apologise for the tiling of the video. I don't know why it is so pixel ed. Annoying to spend a good bit of money on an HD Camcorder and videos don't look that impressive to me.

Other than that I have been busy inside. Have painted the kitchen a new color and I painted the main living room wall a shade darker green than what I have on the other walls. I never really was happy with the green I had used the last time I painted. It just seemed too pale and you really could not see it was green due to the natural lighting in that room. Now with that one long wall a bit darker it has pulled the green out of the other walls and I like the result.

Another thing I am excited about is we are going to replace our range from electric to gas. I hate the stove we have , that came with this house. I love to cook with gas  and we have been eyeing a range that we like and it's on sale. Since we have LP gas for the fireplace it won't be to bad to have our plumber come in and run a line to the kitchen. Can't wait to cook with gas!

on my family front, my brother Michael who lives in Arizona happened to be riding his mountain bike past my parents old house and saw it was for sale. He bid on it and got it! So it's kind of cool he'll be living in our parents house. He plans to rent his to help offset the cost of owning the two homes. I am really excited for him and have always loved our parents house. I am happy he will be living in it.