Reba's Road Trip

As my alarm went off this morning at 6:30 I opened my eyes to the dark and wondered what on earth possessed me to wake up this early on my holiday. I was cozily pondering life when I recalled why I was getting up before the sun. Reba's road trip. I had made plans with Abe Marshall to go work sheep at his place. Suddenly motivated I got myself chored up, showered, fed and loaded up for the little over 2 hour drive to Abe's.

My car's heated seats made me particularly happy as the temperature of the car remained on the cool side to prevent Reba from getting too warm on the drive. After some slight navigational issues (he had told me West when I needed to go East) I found Abe's farm. The weather when I left home was a balmy -15 with absolutely no wind. The weather at Abe's was a not so balmy -15 with a frigid wind. Snugly in my wind resistant, water resistant lined jeans, toque and mittens on I began reminding Reba of the simple things like coming to her name and lying down on command.

Using one of Abe's older dogs to help keep the sheep centered we started our work. Reba of course did not do any of the things she so enjoys doing at home. Instead she was entranced with the brown sheep of the group. She would chase after this sheep, out of the flock and around the pen. You could then watch me run through the snow trying to cut her off. I'm sure Reba had more fun than I did.

While I didn't have a super good work with her the mission was to work some different sheep. Abe thought Reba was a dandy little dog. (Yea!) And it turned out he had raised her father so he was very interested in her papers. He also reassured me that taking it slow was okay and to not worry so much about seeing progress as she's still young.