Thoughts of Jim Chaffin's passing

Picture by Michelle Prescott-Guederian.

The local sheepdog community lost a good man in Jim Chaffin on Tuesday, November 8, 2011. We attended his memorial service this past weekend. It was a celebration of Jim's life. The picture above is of a print of Jim and Lola at one of their trials. Jim's crook is on one side and his whistle is on hanging on the other side. The epitome of a shepherd in his retirement years.

The Jim that we knew was patient with his dogs and very protective of the livestock. He always thought that the livestock should be treated fairly.

Here is Jim at their last trial. He was so happy having all of us trialers as his guests. Little did we know that this would be our last time to see Jim. I am so glad that he was so happy at this time. Steve and I are so happy that we stopped at the house on our way out to say good by to Jim one last time. We will miss you so much, Jim.

Jim and Lola both worked so hard to present one of the premier trials in our area. Their sheep have always been some of the best sheep in the area to trial on. Every group of sheep were even and you knew that your draw was equal to anyone else's.
In attending Jim's memorial we learned so much more about Jim's life. We didn't realize that he served in the air force. I never knew that he used to ride horses and that he was a bowler. We knew that he was a retired teacher, what we didn't know is that he was key in setting up a program for problem children in their school district. I also didn't know that they had so many foster children over the years........17 to be exact. So many things that made Jim, and Lola too, such good people.
I am so glad to have been able to call Jim a friend, so privileged to know Jim.
Jim may you RIP and we will all miss you.

Working the cornfield.........

The neighbor who owns all of the fields around us has graciously allowed me to go out and work my dogs in his fields. I am internally grateful. Here is Sting patiently waiting for Corbie and I to bring the sheep up to the field. I chose to have Corbie bring the sheep up so that I wouldn't tire Sting out too much.

Corbie took some convincing to bring the sheep up......you know, I had to twist her little leg to get her to do it. LOL Not really.

I then worked Corbie on some of her driving out in the corn field. You can see the bales of corn silage that I used for obstacles while they were there.

Corbie working on some cross driving.

Here I had her drive the sheep thru some of the bales as an obstacle. As you can see by looking beyond the sheep this is a nice, big field. The whole area I would estimate at somewhere between 50-60 acres. This is a dream field for me to be working in. I kick myself for not asking him sooner if I could work my dogs out there.

I then worked Sting on some outruns. I was able to set up some long outruns for him. Probably some of the longest outruns that he has ever done. Each time that I have gone out on this field I can see his confidence growing and growing.

I then worked Sting on some driving.

And some cross driving. The pictures are deceiving as he is much further away from me than it looks. I did use the zoom lens on the camera for these shots.

And some more driving. These pictures were taken on November 1st. I did have him out on this field again on Friday, November 4th and had him driving at a much greater distance from me. It is so much fun working him out on a big field.

What I am noticing is that he is learning so much from being out on this field as there are no draws for the sheep and there doesn't seem to be any pressures on the field. So, it is teaching Sting more about holding lines and just going with the sheep. We are both learning so much from working out on the "big" field.

I then had him do some more outruns. Each time I take him out and do outruns, I see him figuring out things more and more. When I had him out on the 4th I watched him kick way out when he didn't know where the sheep were at.

He still wants to over-flank on the top, but I figure that has come from him wanting to come up short earlier in the year and how we worked on keeping him going around. I am thinking that eventually things will work out so that he lands more at balance. I am so looking forward to getting out and working some more on this field before the snows come.

And then Corbie went out to bring the sheep back in.

Look Ma, herding on only two legs.

Fall Sunset........

We had a beautiful sunset this evening. After a beautiful fall day and some clouds coming through our day ended with this sunset.

And it got more intense as the sun continued going down.

And the sunset reflected off of the trees in our back yard.
A beautiful sunset to end a good day. We got a lot of things done today and I got some good work in with the dogs.

Fall Harvest

This is our fall harvest. These are the six "volunteer" pumpkins that grew in our barn yard. The gourds were also a volunteer in our barnyard.

These are the squash that we got this fall and my one and only orange pepper. In the front are just a few of the sweet banana peppers and tomatoes that we got from the garden throughout the year. We also had a lot of green beans that are already in our freezer. Oh and lots and lots of zucchini which has either already been eaten or is in the freezer.
We have both been enjoying all of the veggies from our garden along with our own home raised chicken in our freezer. Everything tastes so much better when we raise it ourselves.

Happy Fall!!

Happy Fall!!!
It's my favorite time of the year. I love the harvest time, the colors of the season and the weather and temperatures.