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.

Dinner and a car show

I recently purchased a new cook book from the Fireworks store in U-Village. I love that store and find all kinds of cool stuff there. This cookbook is called Seriously Simple and it has a lot of great recipes in it. Over the weekend, I bought the ingredients for a chicken dish in the book and Jerill made the dish last night. It was super tasty!

The dish was Roast Lemon Garlic Chicken and Green Olives...


The finished product! Book on the left, dish on the right. Jerill used green and black olives (Greek style). Also had a side of homemade mashed potatoes and rustic bread. Jerill added in some fennel as well.

Last week Jerill attended the Seattle International Auto Show. I didn't go this year as I had to work. You may know I am a total car freak. I'm not so freaky that I know every single car out there, but I know what I like. I'm into cars that offer AWD, space for my dogs, and necessary ammenities like heated seats, interval wipers and parking-aids (I am a bad parker but good driver!). I asked Jerill to take some pictures for me while he was at the show, especially of a particular vehicle I secretly want really, super bad. He came back with the following photographs. I guess the true theme of this year's auto show is UGLY. I wasn't in love with many of the shapes and styles that came back to me from Jerill's photography assignment.


Here are some of the photos he took...

I think Jerill took this photo for himself. It's an Audi R8 - the top of the line super car from the German automaker. It has carbon fiber siding and accents. It's fast. It's also $156,000. I've actually seen a couple of these driving around Redmond at rush hour!

This is a butt ugly car, in my opinion. I like Porsches but this is grotesque. I mean, 4 doors?? What are they thinking? Give me a Cayenne please.

Another ugly car. But, it's an Italian car, so they can get away with it. The Alfa Romeo. I thought this was a Maserati at first because of the big stupid banner the car is sitting under. It seems the Maserati at least is making a comeback. I see tons of these marks on the road on my long commute. There is even one for sale in the used car lot at North Bend Chevrolet! I'm sure this Alfa Romeo is a little bit more special though; their flagship buttugly car. It does sort of resembe a Bugatti I guess. I'm just not seeing myself in this car... ever.

I know why Jerill took this one. He is really excited about this new Ford transport van. He thinks this will meet all my dog transport needs. It might, but it's ugly and it isn't AWD or 4WD - that' s a problem as I intend to go through snow and storm to get to a dog trial. This truck is pretty affordable though.

Ahhhh, yes. This is the car I want at the moment. I learned about the Porsche Transsyberia earlier this year. It's sort of like a rally car meets SUV. Based on the Porsche Cayenne, the Transsyberia only has two seats; the rest is cargo and off-road equipment I guess. It comes standard with these bright orange accents and wheels. Likely around $90,000 once all the goodies are loaded on. This is an off-roaders dream. I wonder if it's also a hydrofoil so I can get to dog trials overseas?

Elk Herding

So, my exotic dog breed of the month I just highlighted was a reindeer herder. Well, did you also know that Border Collies have history herding reindeer and elk too??

I discovered recently a website for a ranch in Alberta, Canada whose top dog was a border collie named Whip. Whip is actually an uncle of my Scott. Small world huh? Whip apparently worked all stock you can imagine up in Canada, from your standard sheep, cows and ducks to horses, ostriches, elk and reindeer! http://www.bergenranch.com/Dogs.htm

Whip and Scott do look similar; they have super thick long hair and similar builds. They appear to have the same "pushiness" as well, being able to work just about anything you ask them to. I seriously think this elk-herding thing runs in the family.

We have an elk herd that comes through our neighborhood all the time. While I know better than to "work them," I do utilize Scott to push them off my property every once in a while. They eat my bird seed, rip off branches from young trees, decimated my veggie garden last year, and create holes in our yard (they can weigh 800lbs or so!). There is one elk, in particular, I've named Gertie. She is collared and she is the least weary of people and dogs. I am certain it was Gertie who walked up onto our front porch this Spring and ate my potted plants!

So, here is Scott. This is the look I get when he knows there is something up that he wants to be a part of. It's his "poker face" if you will - I can totally see right through it. Alright Scotty, you wanna go out and see the elk?? I already know the answer to that question.

The elk. All cows and some calves. They're slightly ticked off that I'm out there with Scott. Two are nervous in this photo, one is not. Can you tell which one hasn't figured it out yet?

I will not let my dog herd the elk, especially in someone else's yard. So, Scott was told to "lie down" in the street while I took photos of him with the herd. Some of the cows are quite bothered with Scott's presence, so they headed back into the woods right away. Others, stuck around, including Gertie and her buddies who were on the other side of the neighbor's driveway.

"Scott, they're almost all gone now." The very first time Scott saw the elk last year he barked and growled at them. Then he realized, "hey, these things are like wild cows. I think I like that." Again, just want to state that I don't herd the elk with Scott. I will, if in my yard, have Scott walk up on the elk to move them back into the woods. You never know if the cows, or sometimes the young bulls we also have come around, will charge your dog or you!

And there's Gertie and her "clique." While her two girlfriends took off, Gertie stuck around until the end. She should be our neighborhood mascot I guess.

Here is Scott walking back to the house after his day of elk herding. A job well done Scotty!

Mattie thinks Scott is da bomb when it comes to herding. However, she isn't so thrilled about getting sniffed on camera...