Tidbit From Beyond the Rat Race
A little slice of life beyond the rat race. It just makes your breath slow, does it not?
It is early morning and there is a fine mist in the air from a recent rainfall. The landscape has just begun to flush with the brilliant green of spring. The grass is full of moisture each morning. Half a dozen steps and your boots will be sufficiently washed by their leaves.
The ewes have just been turned out for the day. They were penned overnight to allow for a move to new pasture because the day before they went a walk about off of the farm property. Even though it is early for you and I, they would normally be half way to full with grazing by this time of the morning. Being held in an overnight paddock means that on this morning they are subject to my schedule rather than theirs. I fed guardian dogs before releasing the ewes and the ewes watched in the manner that sheep do, which is to look like you’re not watching at all. But when I moved toward the gate, many heads came up and it took only two calls of “come girls, come girls,” before the ewes were streaming toward the open gate.
From there all I did was watch them go.
We accept each other in a way that makes for a very solid relationship. It’s not like this with every dog. With other dogs there is a subtle, mutual annoyance about our faults always casting shadows over our relationship. He’s the only Kelpie that was born here so we’ve known each other since that day. I don’t have enough experiences rearing and keeping puppies on to know if those first eight weeks of being with a pup make that difference or if we’ve just hit it off. Lucky for me either way.