What happened was...

You always know people are manipulating the story when they start a sentence with "So what happened was..."

But I'll start at the beginning.  First off, JML is addicted to border collies, if there's a BC anonymous somewhere please let me know. Anyway, last week JML needed us to go to Belle Fourche for some parts. Conveniently at a "near by" ranch there were some pups JML had been researching online, and guess what, they were expecting us to stop by and check them out..."just a little peek" he says. So we looked and we left, "yes dear, nice dogs, we don't need another" I say. 

But yesterday he needed to go back to Belle to deposit a check at the bank...hmmm, I wonder why one needs an empty kennel in the back of the pickup to go to the bank?

"So what happened was," he says " I was in town just to deposit that check but I thought I'd just swing in and take another look... it was just to good a pup to pass up... you should have seen her parents work..."

So here she is, the newest member of our working team, Wick.

We got her name from the Yorkshire word "wick" meaning "lively".

At this point she was a bit too wiggly to get a good photo.

I can't say I'm disappointed she is a great pup.  She's 5 months old and her parents are incredible working dogs from very good lines. I think she will be a great asset to our operation and hopefully she'll be providing some good pups of her own down the road. Maybe you'll even see JML taking her to trial :)

On the Thirty Ninth Day of Winter

It was cold...again.

Before the storm we had over this past weekend it was a beautiful week of 30 degrees and up to almost 50! That got me spoiled and when winter set in again, so did the spring fever. I can't wait to go outside with out having to put on a billion layers of clothes. I want to walk on the ground without having to skate on ice. In the pastures we have that snow that is just hard enough to hold you up, for a second, then you break through, ugh. Ok, so enough of my whining, I got it out of my system. To look on the positive side all this snow is great, we need it for the grass and to fill up the reservoirs. It's all part of what we need to survive out here so I'm thankful for it.

This was taken on a walk I took on the 50 degree day.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Flaky and perfect for biscuits n' gravy, with beans, or buttermilk fried chicken.

2 1/2 Cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
1 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
5 Tbsp Cold Butter, cut in pieces
1 Cup Cold Buttermilk*

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
Add butter and work together quickly with fingers until coarse "crumbs" form with no pieces bigger than a  marble.
Add milk in one pour and stir with wooden spoon until it just comes together. (add an extra 1-2 Tbsp milk if needed).
Turn onto a floured surface and knead 8-10 times just to make it form a ball.
Gently flatten with the palm of hand then roll to 1/2 to 3/4 in thick.
Pierce dough with a fork completely through at 1/2 inch intervals.
Cut into squares with a pizza cutter or use a 3 inch biscuit cutter.
Place on parchment lined baking sheet 1/2 inch apart.
Bake on upper 1/3 rack of oven for 8-12 minutes.
Makes approx. 9 biscuits.

*I don't always have buttermilk around but I do keep Buttermilk powder in the fridge and these will work well with buttermilk powder (like Saco found at Wal-mart). Just add 4 Tbsp of powder with the dry ingredients and use 1 Cup of cold water or milk instead of buttermilk.

Border Collie Fun

This evening Dott and Scrappy learned a fun new game...playing on top of the round bales. Dott is our 7 month old pup.  Scrappy is her litter-mate that we are dog-sitting until the end of the month.

Dott earned her playtime earlier in the day. It was her first day working sheep. It started off a little wild but she quickly slowed down and started thinking. We were very pleased how it went and are very excited to see how she progresses.

On the 17th Day of Winter

We had a Sundog and a storm.

We got another storm blowing in yesterday much like the one we had on Christmas. Luckily it didn't drift quite as high. The road we had plowed drifted back in and the tractor wouldn't start. So what did we do... we hiked through the drifts, cut a fence, and trailed the sheep to an area where we could get the truck to for feeding. This was no short hike, busting through snow drifts up over my knees, it was a good workout! It's not always easy but the animals get taken care of come hell or high snowdrift, it's a good feeling when you get the job done.

A Sundog, The calm before the storm.

What is a Sundog?

Sundogs, also called mock suns or parhelia, are colored, luminous spots caused by the refraction of light by six-sided ice crystals in the atmosphere. These bright spots form in the solar halo at points that are 22 degrees on either side of the sun and at the same elevation as the sun.