It’s that time of the year when all Jai and I want to do is lay on the couch underneath heavy blankets, with a fire in the background, and wish she knew how to cook dinner.

When I say ‘cook’, I mean open packaging. I’m letting my stove biodegrade into mouse habitat, as nature intended.  Cooking is for people with families who have expectations beyond kibble.  My family is on all fours these days.  Their expectations are more When, not What. They will eat anything. Really. It’s disheartening to buy expensive treats only to watch the gusto with which Biz consumes coyote shit.

I WISH I had raised my children on a kibble, by the way.  I mean a high quality crunchy pellet – not Old Roy or anything.  They should make a kibble for kids. Kiddle. Taste of the Wild, maybe, featuring a feral looking toddler, crashing through the brush to get at a bowl of brown nougats that claim to include bison, carrots and …peanut butter? Or Duck, Sweet Potato and Ice Cream.
A complete meal. In a bag. As I like.

That’s the stuff I think about on the couch with Jai.

Biz and Duke want to be worked.  I need to run. It’s snowing,

I can hardly wait until June.

Yesterday I worked Duke and Biz at DDs. She has better sheep for us. She has advice. My sheep are better suited for baiting coyotes. Or practicing your publicly decreed “GODDAMNIT”s. My own advice tends toward, “Let’s save our Goddamnits for the spring…”

Biz out of the box came with a nice wide outrun. It took very little from me to make her outrun longer and prettier. She likes to stay wide, often too wide; or she flies in and busts through the sheep. I’ve been lulled into a false sense of security because of her beautiful big outruns and that she is a fast learner…but now that I’m starting to try and put a drive on her, it is obvious that like me, she has no flanks. That’s our challenge now – putting flanks on her and helping her learn that she can work at the proper distance and be comfortable. I should say that, in my office at work, I am exactly the same way. I send email. I approach a meeting like Biz approaches her sheep. I don’t like subtle adjustments. I wish Biz and I shared an office. I’d make her go to all the meetings…

Duke – you can’t hurt his feelings, which is nice, BUT he also DOES CARE about what you think of him. So, he takes corrections, but he doesn’t lose heart. I love this. I have never had this (in a sane dog). Every time I work him he is better. He is so young, I figure it’s only a matter of some confidence and additional time before he is harder for me to train. I started out deeply afraid of him. I like sensitive dogs because I don’t tend to have much of a bubble and would prefer not to spend my training time ramping up corrections, or crying, or both, usually. Duke, not being an especially sensitive dog, worried me. Initially, though Lavon was able to get him to flank both sides, because of his timing and bubble – he was naturally mostly just a sheep chasing machine. It required timing to even insert oneself into his very rapid sphere of influence. As I’ve said, timing for me is more geologic.

Duke is not sensitive, but he does like approval. There is a moment at the end of his training, when you have to break his eye contact with the sheep and say, “DUKE! That’ll do!” …he doesn’t want to let go, but he does. And he is a good boy. He knows it. I love that moment.

“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”
― Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution

I’m sure the punchline is in this dude’s last name.

I am not a farmer and my cultivation of perfection is limited to things I can do without getting John Deere involved.  The only reason I was posessed by rural seed-mongering demons to even consider owning 11 acres was the random delusional thought of, “That’s where I’ll put my sheep! How happy and productive we’ll be!” alternated with, “That’s 11 acres between my “GODDAMN IT, LIE THE FUCK DOWN” and the next neighbor…which isn’t precisely true, since I have a tiny neighbor dwelling across the canal.  He has 100 ferel cats and some chickens. He seems, so far, immune to my screaming. I have the cats to thank for that.  And Inez, my Great Pyr, who barks incessantly at them.

The reality is: I have 11 acres that promises itself to weeds and burrs tall enough to eat my 6 bitter sheep if I don’t find someone to farm it by next spring.  This is not as easy, this quest for Perfection and maybe a few ton of Alfalfa,  as ole M. Fukuoka makes it sound. No one wants to farm my shitty 11 acres.  11 acres is just enough to fit a tractor on, but not worth the trouble of doing so, apparently. 11 acres is more suited to the sort of cultivation of perfection that might include abandoned automobiles and goats.

Because I seek all my wisdom from The Google, I typed in “Eleven Acres” to see what wisdom would spring forth.  Results: U-Pick Fruits and Vegetable Farm (Spokane, WA).
Fukuoka, Google.  Aside from the limitations this puts on my ever using the field for anything other than encouraging PICKING by OTHERS at the EXPENSE OF MY AND MY DOG’S PERFECTION (except Scout, who might thrive under this scenario), the thought of all that actual FARMING makes my inner food groups turn on eachother and scream ONLY MEAT!!
I planted a garden this year and with the happy exception of a bounty of tomatoes, rising above the sea of weeds, the rest is a huge rotting FUKUOKA, PLANTSTRESS, YOU AND YOUR 20 pound Cucumber!

I take my perfection in 2-3 hour doses.  Then I like repose.  I’m an immediate gratification person.  If I have to wait for something, It will lose value until it’s only real redemption is compost or an illustrative example of something I’ll never try again.
Usually.
I’ll probably have a garden again next year.  I’m looking into which weeds you can eat.
And which are suitable for U-Pick.

This weekend I, with DDs help, started Duke.  He’s only nearly 8 months, but he seems ready.  He has been breaking out of the yard and joining me in my big pasture when I work the other dogs.  He isn’t insane about it, like a puppy; he usually goes around and, with some fierce reluctance, will call off.

I’ve been afraid of opening this door formally for Duke. Like approaching that suspicious unattended, yet attractive package at the airport. Sure, it could be full of cash or cool clothes in my size— or it could be motherfucking snakes. One thing I am NOT: A puppy trainer. Biz is easy, and she is training us both. Duke has more….velocity.

Long story short, he was very good. The second day even better.

DD thinks I should be working him regularly, so that is the plan.  He doesn’t really have a stand, or lie down – he prefers to sit, if anything – a nice compromise, sort of dashing even – but, style points aside,  he takes correction and he really really really wants to work.  He had been on sheep a few times in the last couple of months, and was always very interested, but fast and focused on the moving wool to the exclusion of much else. He required precision timing…instead of the sort that comes with a sun dial, which is what I have.  Now Duke seems to be actually working and letting someone help him figure it out.  On or off the field, I couldn’t like Duke more.  I’m sure within the next few months he will scare the living shit out of me and be the source of much crying and cussing, but so was my new industrial strength weed whacker, and that turned out okay. I’m also certain in the end Duke will be completely different from my other dogs in a really fun way.

I’m teaching (ha) Biz to drive by taking my current 6 crazed sheep across the lane into a big mint field. I’m hoping the combination of large unfamiliar ground, coupled with mint being a popular ingredient to serve with lamb, will keep their pace more moderate and unsure, this giving Biz a chance to feel them and appreciate driving the way she really values an outrun and endless fetch. So far, so good. If not, I’ll add garlic and some wine.  I may anyway.

Jai and I are building confidence.  We watch movies together and snuggle.  We run longer distances in prettier places.  We do happy work in the pasture where everything is Ok and corrections are for lenses, not dogs.   Jai takes on my emotions and the last year there have been too many for a sensitive border collie to absorb without gripping something.  I envy her that outlet, sarcasm and wine don’t cut it like a good pair of canines.  I also envy her ceaseless optimism and ability to eat an entire plate of cookies in the time it takes me to shut a cupboard not 15 feet away and still keep her girlish figure.

Scout continues to wish she had her dead mother stuffed in the attic.  Or that I’d let her work the chickens more.  We compromise by me never looking under the bed in her room.