After messing with pictures for the last couple of hours, and thinking this just "might" take over my life, I"m going to try something different. Below is a link to a web album which has puppy pictures in it. I just put them into an album for now of some pictures of moving cows and working dogs etc. If this works and everyone can access it ok, then I"ll create separate albums for the pups. I hope this works! If you can't access the pup pictures and would prefer them individually on my blog, just let me know :)

Just so you all know, the last 2 pictures are of the male. Everyone else has either 2 or 3 pictures each.

http://picasaweb.google.com/LBarJcowdogs/LBarJAussies?authkey=Gv1sRgCLmk-qfN8JauXw#

Blue Female #2

Blue Female #1

All of these pictures will be just "bad" until they stop rolling and tumbling a bit....wow, these are active pups!

One More Group Pic

Here's one more group picture. The male is the darker smokey blue, and the rest are girls. There is altogether:

1 Blue Merle Male

2 Red Tri Females

1 Red Merle Female

1 Black Tri Female

3 Blue Merle Females

The Puppies Have Arrived!!

After a busy night, Kya has a beautiful litter of 8 pups! 7 girls and 1 boy! I'll post individual pictures in a day or so, but for right now here's a family shot or two.

Weaning Day at the neighbors ranch

I am waiting (impatiently I might add) for Kya to whelp......not long now tho, and she is becoming a bit restless making trips into the puppy room to check out the whelping box. She seems to remember exactly what that room and box are for :o)

Life goes on tho, and yesterday and today was weaning time at our neighbor's the Boulding's Lazy B Bar Ranch. I love it any time I can ride and work cattle so it was a great day for me today! It should have been only about 1/2 a day to finish up, however the calves that were weaned yesterday were an industrious lot and they managed to create a new gate in their corral, making their way back to their mom's in record time :( So, they had to be gathered and sorted all over again. I've included some pictures from today, and hopefully next week I'll be posting pictures of puppies!! :o))

Here are the cows heading home for the winter......down the road past our place.

Vaccination day at Holmestead Ranch

Last Monday was vaccination day at home. Our neighbors Doug and Rita (best neighbors in the world!) brought their horses over after dinner and the three of us rode down to our south quarter to bring in the cows and calves. Our cows are getting pretty used to being gathered by horse and dog so they gathered easy and off we went to the corrals. Once we had them all pushed up into the small corral we started sorting cows to Doug who was "gate man" on his horse Beamer. Rita and I would cut and push cows to Doug who would let the cows out the gate and turn the calves back into the herd. The cows are getting better at being sorted while we're on horseback, and so with only a minor bobble or two we quickly had the cows sorted out, and the calves run down the alley to the crowding tub.

So....cows out - check.

Calves in the alley - check.

One quick ride through the cows to make sure we hadn't missed any calves and we could start running the calves through the alley and chute to vaccinate. Didn't I say "calves in the alley" ?? oh noooo.........the gate to the crowding tub didn't get closed and half the calves came up the alley and through the chute and were back out with their bawling mammas! :(

Oh well........whats a good cowhorse for but to cut and sort cows :o))

Round Two........gather the escapees and their mommas and head back into the sorting corral. Hey......they're starting to figure this out :o) The cows were eager to cooperate, and this time we had all the gates closed, and all the calves in the alley!

Many hands make light work and 1,2,3 shots per calf and they were soon all done and back out with their moms. A month from now we'll do it all over again, only then it will be time for weaning and a few sleepless nights until the calves quiet down.

After we were done we headed into the house for some hot coffee (the temps were hovering right around freezing with a couple of little snow squalls thrown in) and cake. Just as we were pulling off winter coveralls, we looked out the window to see another rancher in the area moving a herd home past our place. I've attached a picture of Matt and Shauna Elines cattle heading home in my next entry because I can't see to figure out how to get those particular pictures to upload into 'this' blog.............some days this learning curve is almost too steep for me :o)

A short note about Kya

Kya is really starting to show! She seems bigger to me this time and I can't imagine what she's going to look like by the time she whelps! She seems to feel really good, and is still quite active playing with Chili and Jaime and still looks forward to doing chores.

Last week I received her ASCA Award of Merit in the mail, Kya ended up at #2 Advanced Sheep for the 08/09 season!

Vaccination time

This morning about 8:30 I loaded Mouse into the trialer with 5 other horses for the short ride over to the lake pastures to help my neighbors gather their cow herd and sort off the calves for vaccinating. The herd of about 250 cow calf pairs gathered easily...they know this routine well.......and off we went to the corrals. There was a very cool wind blowing from the north, and they were a little difficult to get into the corrals (remember I said they know this routine?) but we did manage to move them all in. With all of them in the corral it was very full, and so while Doug sat on Putz in the middle of the gateway, Donna, Gail and I rode into the herd and started pushing cows to Doug. Doug and Putz would let the cows pass him and turned the calves back into the herd. It didn't take us too long before we had all the cows sorted out and a corral full of calves left behind. A really good test for a solid cowhorse! ;o) Soon we were moving small groups of calves into the holding pen for the boys to push them into the alley. They were vaccinated and turned out to go find their waiting mommas.

Once all the calves were done we rode out and gathered the herd again and pushed them back north (remember that cool...nope make that COLD wind??) to the pasture we brought them from, and headed back to the trailers for some hot coffee!! Loaded the horses and headed for home......I was back at my barn by 1:30, a good mornings work! I had fully intended on taking some pictures but it seems I need to buy some new rechargeable batteries for my camera :( So I've added a picture of the herd at the corrals at branding time.