Well, hopefully it is not as humid and ungoshly hot where ever you all are! It is just amazingly hot here this week and it is requiring me to stay away from the sheep so they will stay in a cool spot--not my favorite time of year I am afraid! The sheep (and everyone) are so fragile and over heat very easily--and since they are so nosey and interested in what we are up to outside, we try to limit our visits to early morning and late evening to do feeding, with several water/hose runs through out the rest of the day.
On Tuesday a good friend came to visit us and we spent the day visiting the critters and talking yarn and knitting--she is SO inspiring and we hope to start offering some patterns created by her soon--that are created with our yarns in mind! She does such beautiful work--almost always with out patterns! She is the knit 'whiz'!
While she was here she took lots of pictures and the two you see today she was kind enough to share with use! Bobbi Simone and Andrew Sipowicz are our Great Pyrenees dogs that guard half of our flock. We named them after our favorite characters in the TV show NYPD Blue--they are our 'beat cops' that keep the coyotes and pests out of our flock! They do a great job and while I never ever planned to have outside dogs, they enjoy their 'work' and I think with out a job they would be quite miserable. They do tricks and love attention like any pet, but their first concern is always 'their sheep'.
Bobbi is the 'tracker' of the pair (they are brother and sister) and she is always on the march to be sure she doesn't miss any activity. When she takes off in the pasture to see what is out there, Andy puts himself between the sheep and her and waits for her to 'say' things are all clear. Then he goes ripping down to see for himself! They are truly a marvel to watch and we learn from them all the time. Bobbi will climb fences to 'tell' me something is wrong or that she needs us to come check on something.
She is very very protective of her sheep with strangers and they will not allow strangers in the pasture with their sheep unless we are with the people visiting. When my friend was here, although Bobbi knows her, she still worked very hard to keep our sheep at a 'safe' distance (as seen in the picture of her with our Speedy sheep)--even though she knows things are ok. She does not take any chances--they are my kind of dogs! They have protected our sheep from the many coyote families that roam this area and we do not have to worry about roaming dogs either.... I would hate for anything awful to happen here ever and am always glad we purchased the GP's!
Off to spin some more yarn, hope everyone is enjoying their Saturday!
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