Thanksgiving: Food & Herding In That Order

Although it's now half over, the Thanksgiving weekend has been good. For our Thursday feast, Jerill and I picked up my mom and dad and headed over to my sisters house in Redmond, WA. In total, there were 10 of us eating, er, that is "giving thanks." I brought a ham, roasted root vegetables and a winter spinach salad.

Here is the ham I made (picture taken after glazing but before the final phase of cooking). Yes, that's a pineapple ring with cherries in the ring. It was glazed in an orange glaze (made from scratch). I even scoured the ham and inserted roughly 25 cloves into it.

Here are the roasted root vegetables, in the oven. Included in this are carrots, turnips, parsnips and fennel. Baked in olive oil with fresh thyme - very tasty.

On Friday, I went to Diane's farm around 1 o'clock and we worked our dogs on some new sheep owned by her neighbors. These sheep have not been worked by dogs much, if at all. I brought Scott and Diane brought her Roo (aka Roo Bear, Roobie Red Lips, Rooster, etc.). We spent about an hour out in this new pasture with these new sheep. With Scott I worked on his fetches and drives with some super "light" lambs - light meaning skittish/fresh/wild. They were quite a challenge, but the greatest challenge of the day was working with the flocks protection llama, Gallo, who wasn't so thrilled we were there to herd his sheep.

Roo is one of Diane's Open class trial dogs. He is amazing and really a strong dog. Roo is also one of the sweetest dogs you will ever meet. He sings too (ask Diane for a demonstration). Here is Diane and Roo shedding off the lambs for Scott and I to use.

Here is a nice picture of Diane with Roo. He is a real go-getter for sheep - you can see he is a little worried that the sheep are taking off behind them. As soon as I took the picture Roo got to fetch his sheep back to us.

Here is Roo driving sheep with the llama in pursuit. Roo didn't really want to mess with the llama, and the llama didn't really want to mess with him so they kept their distance from one another.


Here is my pooch, Scott. He's driving the lambs.

Here is Scott driving the lambs away from me after we "turned the post."


Some more driving of the lambs...

...and, some more fetching the sheep back to me.

Here is a nice straight fetch to me.

N0w, below is another pic of Scott. He is pretty intense in this photo - a bit more than usual. Do you know why? Well, do you see the perfectly round dirt-foot print on the middle of his head (on the white spot)?

Well, this picture of Scott was taken after the llama, Gallo, and Scott had "words" - herding style. After getting a swift kick to the head from Gallo, Scott rectified the situation by pulling out some of his best cattle dog moves. Shortly, Scott had Gallo wrapped around his paw and was able to work Gallo with the sheep at the same time. Apparently, llamas act and work a lot like cows. And, since Scott has such a rich background working cattle, the llama really didn't have a fighting chance.


I love this picture. While I couldn't figure out how to get Scott to come into focus, you can see how satisfied he is with himself in this picture. He loves working the sheep.

Thanksgiving and then some

Well, this 2008 Thanksgiving came and went. Jerill was in Michigan visiting his family (2 brothers, 1 sister and 1 mom) for the week so I had the place to myself with exception of the 5 animals of course.

Thanksgiving Eve I went to the Winstanley's home for cocktails (Jack and Coke is THE drink of the season). Then on Thursday I picked up my parents in Jerill's new car and headed to my sister's house in Redmond for a traditional turkey feast. I have to say, our food was really great this year. My sis makes an excellent turkey, mom does great pies and roasts and I bring the veggies. I have a great recipe for Butternut Squash with Maple Syrup which replaced our traditional sweet potatoes with toasted marshmallows. 4lbs of butternut squash, cubed. Assorted cinnamon, nutmeg and paprika. Pour on the syrup. Bake in a big pile on a baking sheet (with parchment paper) and viola, a tasty alternative to sweet potatoes.

Friday was the only day I really got to "sleep in." For those of you who really know me, this means I slept till about 8:00 a.m. I tinkered around the house and then headed off to the farm to pick up Scott the dog and do some practice runs with him. Practicing REALLY helped me as my trial on Saturday went great - I got 2nd place in my Ranch course (out of 10 competitors). And while I was running a non-compete round in Pro-Novice (me being the novice and Scott being the Pro) I ended up scoring in the middle of the pack of participants. I'm really starting to get it and I like to trial. The people have been great so far. You'd never guess, really, who out there are herding sheep with dogs anymore. People of all walks of life do it!

I picked Jerill up from the airport on Saturday night. I was driving my mom's giant pickup truck that she lets me borrow for trials (I had four dogs with me). It was a little freaky as I'm not used to driving anything that large in traffic, but I managed to pull through. I guess I'll need to get used to a truck anyway since I'm getting one in the Spring. And, it's not like Jerill's new car is a "compact" vehicle by any means - it weighs as much as a truck and drives like a tank.

So, now parked next to my beautiful 45mpg Civic Hybrid sits a 2005 Audi Allroad. It's black, it's comfortable and it's got heated seats in the front and the back. The car actually has a lot of cool features to it - far more than the Hybrid does. However, Jerill is only getting 16/22mpg. Of course, while Jerill was in Michigan, I drove it everyday and thoroughly enjoyed the heated seats, moonroof and, although I'm pretty good with a map, the navigation system. I haven't come up with a good name for it yet, but it JUST pulled into the driveway! Time to address those meatball subs I promised to make for dinner!