It has been a hectic and sad time lately.
My lovely Border Collie Balto cut his hamstring in a freak working accident. I still dont know how it happened as I did not see it.
So he is now in a cast and facing a long re-habilitation.
Fortunately he is a good natured friendy dog and is coping well so far with the confinement and Veterinary visits. It has been a difficult time for all of us.
We have also just been through a very full on 8 days of lambmarking.
Very high percantages meant many more lambs than we anticipated. Some mobs got as high as 118%. Our overall percent was just a tick under 108.
Mustering ewes and lambs is always tricky, even more so this year, but with the help of my faithfull dogs we got the job done.
My three main paddock mustering dogs were Leena, Jake and Rio. My main yard dogs were Dolly, Angel and Caleb. Drift and Yindi were mainly used for returning the mobs back to their paddocks.
All my dogs can do both paddock and yard but for tricky jobs like these I tend to use the dogs that excell in a particular task to make it as stress free as possible. Jake and Angel were also used to help "mother up’ the mobs the next day. When you return ewes and lambs back to the paddock after the lambs have been marked they often run all over the paddock trying to find their mother. So I always go out the following day and mob them all up again. Jake is super at this, he knows exactly what to do and will disappear into all corners of the paddock to find any strays and bring them back together. He is a tireless worker and loves his job.
We are still desperate for rain as the season nears an end. Grass is very short and unless it rains in the next couple of weeks it will be a long difficult summer with the extra mouths to feed.
So prayers are winging their way upward daily.
　
　
　Below are a series of snaps I took with my new camera, the Fujifilm Finepix HS10.
These were taken on burst mode of Caleb blocking a ewe in the yard.
Caleb and Angel inviting a confrontation.
Jake and Rio gathering the mob
Leena, mustering in the early morning.
Jake and Leena gathering a mob.
Leena, Jake and Rio working a mob.
Caleb and Angel drafting the ewes and lambs.
We now have a bit of a break from farm work, so perhaps I will get some time to train the puppies.
And I may get to the Margaret River trials in mid Oct, depending wether we are shearing or not. I have missed the states at Ballidu the weekend just gone and I also missed the Dowerin trials due to farm work. Oh well, priorities I suppose. | 
