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Paul has spent a lot of time outside working hard to get a new fence in place.  As of this evening, it’s about 99% complete.  Paul has some finishing “Orzo proofing” touches to put on it first. And by “Orzo proof”, I mean, “cross your fingers”. We think we’ve got it worked out, but we don’t want to be overly cocky.

It’s a fairly small pen, given what our needs are, but we are going to do it one section at a time, as we can afford it.

It did make me very happy to bring the flock up and put them out on fresh grass this evening while Lucy ran around and played without being tethered.

A very impatient Orzo surveys the progress.

Caramel

Oona likes how the new gate is looking.

Lyra and Willoughby

Alabama and Carina

The flock and dogs will spend the winter in this pen while we work on the remaining fencing and property.  For now, I am going to enjoy sitting on the front porch and watching my lovely flock graze.

I think many of you on the East Coast know what I’m talking about.

We have had days and days of heavy rain and it has been AWFUL.  Between the mud and the sloshing, and the wet sheep……..I’ve had enough. Sadly, we are looking at getting the remnants of Tropical Storm Joaquin this weekend, as well.

The worst part of all of it is how damp and gross it makes the house – and cars – feel. And that’s even worse when you have several large, furry animals pooping everywhere.

Yes, pooping.

First, Cini and Lucy still hate the leash, and though they’ve agreed that they’ll pee when we walk them, pooping is still “optional”.

Anyone want to hazard a guess where they end up pooping instead?

The living room. The kitchen. The hallway.

So, picture going out to feed the sheep and sinking to nearly your knees in mud and poop, and then coming back in all wet and gross to find a pile of more poop in the house!

And it’s not just the house!!!

I took Orzo for his pre-neuter well-check this week. Paul suggested I take his car to save on gas instead of the truck.

“Just put a blanket down in the back”, he said.

I did, and off we went.

It’s about a 40 minute drive to Dr. Grover’s office, down a lot of winding country roads.

We got about 10 minutes into our trip, past the parts of the route where there are plenty of turn offs and stopping spots, when the smell hit.

I quickly realized we had poop, and frantically began searching for a safe place to stop.

There weren’t any.

To make matters worse, Orzo was moving around an awful lot in the back – squishing and spreading it – and THEN. Then he jumped over the seats and onto Oona in the backseat.

I managed to find a place finally to pull over and assess the damage. He had, in fact, spread it all over. You know how a lot of cars have cargo mats in the back? Those grooved things that are IMPOSSIBLE to clean?

Yeah. All ground in.

While I was trying to clean it as best as I could, cursing and yelling, a lovely gentleman wandered down from the road I had pulled off onto. As it turns out, he’s from Yorkshire, England, and used to train Border Collies for sheepdog trials.  He seemed to know everyone in the county, and when I told him about our recent drama, he really wanted to know who this person was threatening to shoot our dogs. I wish I knew with certainty so I could have told him. Just like many others, he reminded me having the dogs running about is a good thing, considering all the recent coyote sightings and attacks.

Small world, eh?

He helped me out a bit and sent me off on a very smelly ride to the vet.

Orzo is perfectly healthy and got his boosters, etc, so he can be ready for his neutering on the 12th.

Then it was another smelly ride home, with me desperately trying to keep his 75 lb self from jumping into my lap all the way home.

Oona and I emerged from the Prius into the rain, grumpy, covered in fur, with poop smears all over.

Paul spent the next 3 hours cleaning his car. He stripped it down to the bare metal to clean it.

Not even kidding here!

It is for times like this I’d really like to have a mudroom with a dog shower and floor drain.

For now we are doing our best to keep the dogs walked and happy, and I’ve been moving Sabine and Orzo’s tethers as much as I can so they don’t sit in one spot too long.

But I really, really need this rain to let up. It’s getting waterlogged out there, and I can’t get any real yarn dyeing accomplished when nothing wants to dry out.

I HAVE seen some lovely beginnings of fall color, though, and that’s a good thing.

A few days ago, a nice county police officer came to my door to warn me about one of our neighbors.  Apparently, a gentleman down the road has been seeing our dogs on their chases and is very unhappy about the situation.

I’ve discussed here before, I think, how smart and stubborn the Maremmas are.  They have a job to do, and they are damn well determined to do it. The problem is, when they are chasing off predators or patrolling their domain, they’ve begun to cut a wider swath.  We’ve spent thousands on efforts to improve the fencing, keep them with the flock. They’ve busted under, through, and over welded wire and chain link. We’ve even resorted to putting them on long chains when we’ve been desperate in the past.  This does nothing but make them a bit crazy; and then they broke the chains.

So when the nice officer came to the door I was already at my wit’s end with the situation myself. The thing is, our county is almost entirely zoned for agriculture. As such, there are no leash laws or noise ordinances, and we are, in fact, required by the state to have protections (such as guardians) in place for our livestock. He reiterated that I had done nothing wrong, and that he realized that my dogs were absolutely not a threat.

However, this one man down the street has stated he will shoot my dogs if he sees them again.

Unfortunately, he is within his rights to do so if he claims he feels threatened by them.

We have had a GPS tracker on Orzo’s collar for a little over a month now, and I can tell you, that although they have been known to chase deer, coyotes, and foxes down towards that man’s house, they are never there for more than a few moments and they come right back. In addition, Orzo’s GPS movements show him in that area maybe 3 times last month.

We are not talking about an every day nuisance.

Either way, we are at a crossroads. We either need much, much better fencing in place or we need to decide we can no longer keep animals here. I can’t imagine losing them or giving them up.  Working dogs or not, they have become part of our family.

We can’t pack up and move.  Our house is still “under water” as it were, in terms of value. We are here for the foreseeable future, come what may.

We need as much help as we can get. We have decided to start a gofundme page in the hopes that we can raise enough money to put up a good, solid fence. This will not be cheap; we have just under 5 acres to enclose and we can’t simply do horse fence and welded wire anymore. We need high, solid panels.

I am hoping to have a professional estimate soon; in the meantime I am setting a goal that, although it looks super high, is probably a low ball estimate.

I will be posting a link shortly. If you can give, even a little bit, we will forever be grateful. But please, share, and share widely. Share with your animal – loving friends. Share with small farm supporters. Share with anyone and everyone.

And thank you for coming by here and sharing a bit in our lives. If we can get this accomplished, you’re all invited to the celebration.