Dakota Journal

[Donald McCaig]

Dakota Journal: Little Falls, Wisconsin: Danny and the Weathermen

 

Danny is my project. I’d like to get him good enough to give away. History: He’s Luke and June’s son sold to a lifelong friend in Glochester Mass who developed cancer, then stage four cancer so I took Danny back. He is a wonderful pet. Last year I was traveling with two teenagers and three dogs to visit my dying friend so told his wife we’d base in a nearby motel. No, no - we must stay in the house. My friend lay in his living room in a hospital bed festooned with tubes, wires and monitors but he wanted to see Danny again and called him. Danny jumped onto the foot of the bed and tip-pawed through the apparatus to delicately lick his once owner’s cheeks before tip-pawing backwards to the foot and down.

 

He’d make somebody a grand pet but . . .Danny is built like a Greyhound and loves to run. He always comes home but he’s always the last, maybe ten minutes after the others. I shudder to think what might happen if a careless civilian unclipped his leash and was inattentive. “Danny gone bye-bye”.

 

And if I gave him to a small farmer, one or two bit sheep later, Danny’d get the bullet.

 

More history: Danny started on sheep in a hundred acre field where he separated a ewe and took her down. I didn’t have a round pen and couldn’t catch him - or stop him enroute - so I sent him to Rich Seaman to start. Rich did but Danny still nailed sheep. Subsequently he went to Derek Scrimageour twice, Kevin Evans once, back to Rich Seaman while I was book touring, then to Barbara Ray for a couple weeks. He’s been corrected, thumped, muzzled (three months) and even worn a shock collar (very carefully and lightly applied).Something would click in Danny’s walnut sized brain and he’d go into attack mode and nothing could stop him because he -literally - couldn’t hear a thing until the sheep was rolling around and he came back to his senses.

 

He’s won PN trials but most of the time he DQ’s.

 

I knew he couldn’t hear after that click and thought it was weird prey drive. He’s four now with a problem.

 

But last month when we were shearing my 18 aged ewes I noticed that Danny’s scars were in the derriere end of the sheep. And two weeks ago, at the Bluegrass, the sheep turned and faced him at the drive panel (where most of his problems occur) and after they started to drift: BANZAI!

 

oh. Danny is afraid of sheep.

 

Well, there’s this Tommy Wilson tactic which is not unlike what a smart pet dog trainer does first time they get with a wildandcrazy dog.

 

You take the timid sheepdog into a pen crammed weith sheep, wall-to-wall. You bring in a chair and a book and, while the sheepdog takes the pressure you sit down and read for an hour.

 

Nothing to lose. Right?

 

As it happened I was reading Mark Rudd’s memoir “Weatherman”. I never met Mr. Rudd but in the day I belonged to SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) the most innovative anti-racism, antiwar movement which hatched the Weathermen, some of whom I counted as friends. Radicalized by the hundreds of thousands of dead Vietnamese and tens of thousands of dead American soldiers - and their own young passions,(sex, drugs and rocknroll) they went underground, set off a couple symbolic bombs (and one accidental bomb that blew three of them apart) and they outwitted the FBI for years. (Granted, not so very difficult). Anyway the FBI screwed up their investigation so badly that when the Weathermen resurfaced all charges were dropped and their legacy was the death of the radical left and some election foolishness when Mrs. Palin et all tried to link Obama with Bill Ayers, then a Weatherman, now an education professor.

 

As the Weathermen, Timothy McVey and Henry Kissenger proved, the logic of tit for tat has severe limitations and truly dreadful consequences.

 

In that sheep crammed pen Danny was unmoved by these reflections and reminiscences. He glowered at the ewes who stamped their feet at him.

 

Mr Rudd’s memoir was honest and didn’t spare himself but I wouldn’t particularly like to meet theman. Like those friends of mine years ago Mr. Rudd remains convinced that everything is political. Danny and I believe some things - interesting things - have to do with sheep.

 

Anyway, Danny ran at RIver Falls: good outrun, lift and fetch but he scattered them at the drive panel. He didn’t grip off and I liked his puzzlement but didn’t tempt fate and retired him.

 

After four years of confusion, a couple hours with the Weathermen wasn’t enough to change Danny’s habits but it may be a start.

 

When we get home, Danny’s next book will be “The Girl who Kciked the Hornet’s Nest.” Danny doesn’t read to think, he reads to relax.

 

Donald McCaig

[Sue R]

Danny and I share one major thing in common - I also read to relax, not think.

[martySQ]

Doesn't seem fair that Anne doesn't get to come... and you make the dogs stay in the way back??? Isn't that a bit lonely?

Sounds like you are having a nice trip so far, and quite the trip down memory lane! Thanks for sharing yourself and your adventures with us.

[Donald McCaig]

Little Falls, Wisconsin (2) Judging

 

Judging is distilling a complex realtime activity into a single numerical value. Having done so, there’s nothing more needs said. I expect the scores will be posted on the WWSDA website.

 

Like I said, Luke and June are nine: near the end of their trialing career. I have an accute aprreciation for promising young dogs and several who ran at River Falls would have fit in the Cruiser. Unfortunately they were content where they were and already spoken for.

 

I de-flopped the driver’s mirror and this morning am away to Aberdeen South Dakota which should be an easy six hours.

 

Donald McCaig

[ejano]

Doesn't seem fair that Anne doesn't get to come... and you make the dogs stay in the way back??? Isn't that a bit lonely?

Sounds like you are having a nice trip so far, and quite the trip down memory lane! Thanks for sharing yourself and your adventures with us.

 

My parents-in-law were fond of Sunday drives -- something that is a thing of the past in these days of $3 a gallon gas and short trips to the mall. At any rate, my father-in-law had a Beagle of which he was especially fond. The Beagle got to ride in the front seat between the two of them. One day, my mother-in-law put her foot down. "If you take that dog, I'm staying home," she said. "Have a nice afternoon," he said and off he and the dog went.

[Alchemist]

Love your stories of Danny! So many facets to consider in answering a simple question like "is he a good dog?" Your description of his kiss to his dying former owner brought tears to my eyes.

 

Also enjoying your reminisces of all the people you've encountered on your travels. I'll never be able to read Tom Wolfe again without a mental image of those socks!

 

Please keep the Dakota Journal coming!

[PennyT]

I didn't realize "Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" was out yet. Thanks. I've been anticipating that one long enough that I stopped checking for it.

 

Penny

[Donald McCaig]

Little Eagle South Dakota The Trick Pony

 

There are no statues of Ulysses S Grant in Virginia and Stonewall Jackson doesn’t overlook any Vermont town squares. There is no Patton Strasse in Berlin nor a Rue de Adolph Hitler in Paris. One would Google fruitlessly for the Ho Chi Minh Museum and Memorial here in the U.S. of A.

 

Do you find that odd?

 

I’ve sometimes suspected the AKC learned How to recognize a Breed from the indian treaty strategy. First you find one dope. Then you anoint him Chief Mighty Water, Chief of Chiefs and Guardian of his people. Then he signs over everything to you for a srting of beads. Hey, why not?

 

Until the treaty negotiators met Red Cloud The negotiators readioy conceded the Powder River County to the Lakota until the sun should no longer rise in the east, the rivers cease to flow etc. But wily Red Cloud added a detail, “and until a majority of Lakota males shall change this treaty.

 

Now one little afterthought meant it wouldn’t do to find one dope willing to sign. They’d need to persuade 51 percent of Lakota males they should give up territory which stretched more or less from Bismarck North Dakota to Bozeman Montana and Fort Laramie to the Canadian line.

 

It’s still giving everybody heartburn today and is still in the courts.

 

Maybe in revenge, the white conquerers named (General nelson) Miles City Montana, Sheridan Wyoming, Sturgis South Dakota and (sigh) Custer, Montana. perhaps the most egregious is McLaughlin, South Dakota named after the worst indian agent the Lakota ever had. There were some good agents (mostly preachers) and some awful ones (mostly traders), McLaughlin was a prig, an authoritarian and dangerous.

 

After Sitting Bulol returned from Canada and surrendered McLaughlinmade him his personal project.Sitting Bull was insufficiently repentant. When asked if he regretted killing Custer, the wicked indian replied, “He would have killed me.”

 

McLaughlin did his level best to undermine Sitting Bull’s authority with the Lakota and the government. Buffalo Bill Cody got government permission for Sitting Bull to accompany his Wild West show. (Bill paid good and treated his indians fairly). Soon as he could, McLaughlin got permission rescinded. As a parting gift, Bill gave Sitting Bull a trick pony.

 

Some time later, the Ghost dance swept the tribes. Dancers would bring the Buffalo back. Bullets could not penetrate their special shirts. Without any evidence McLaughlin decided to have indian police arrest Sitting Bull.whose cabin was on the banks of the Grand River four miles west of what is now Little Eagle South Dakota .

 

Aberdeen, South Dakota’s charms were lost on me. It was hot and my Motel 6 room was too small for me and the Gang of Four and backed onto a busy, gravel semi parking lot which Peg investigated soon as she jumped out of the car. I keep forgetting PEG IS NOT TRAINED.

 

I’d emailed South Dakota state historians to locate where Sitting Bull died but they said it was in North Dakota. When I emailed ND, they said, no it was in South Dakota, south of McLaughlin and directed me to an able South Dakotan who mailed me a topo map. The Standing Rock Lakota Reservation straddles both states.

 

I got out of Aberdeen at five am and crossed the Missouri into Mountain Time a couple hours later. Bigger towns had gas stations, under pop 100 just the repair shop and saloon. I left the pavement onto a BIA road, a well maintained wide gravel road with unnecessary curve and speed signs and stop signs made incomprehensible by shotgun blasts.

 

In thirty miles I saw no cars, no humans or cars, an abandoned trailer behind an windowless stripped car and one lonely Budweiser can dead center in the road. When I was much younger I went drinking with some Blackfeet kids. We had one hell of a time.

 

The wagon tkept on ticking and I gave thanks to my mechanic.

 

On the topo map there was no road directly to the site so I got as close as I could on the south side of the Grand River. No other cars so I let the Gang out until a cow on the hillock started bellowing for her calf and her fellow cows took up her concern: “Four black and white wolves! Danger!” Their calves were very young and once they located Baby they’d come to investigate so I loaded up and drove back through Little Eagle. Its Sitting Bull School was a semicircle of modular trailers.

 

McLaughlin's indian police were picked from tribes who hatedt the Lakota. They arrived just at dawn and when they imade their arrest Sitting Bull reminded them he was a Chief of the Brule Lakota and must be properly dressed. While he prepared himself and sang his death song more Lakota gathered and when Sitting Bull emerged from his cabin, there were gunshots. Gunfire was the trick horse’s cue and as Sitting Bull and his son were gunned down, the horse pranced and danced and bowed to his audience.

 

Sometime in the sixties some white men dug him up and took him to Mobridge where they hoped to have a tourist attraction but nothing came of it. The Lakota said they dug up the wrong body.

 

Donald McCaig

[ItsADogsLyfe]

this is some of the most interesting stuff I've read on here in a long time. Thanks Donald.

[geonni banner]

The Sitting Bull story is one of the most shameful pages of American history.

 

Gary Farmer has a phrase for it. He says it in every film I've seen that he is in (3? 4? - that I've seen, not that he's been in.)

 

He says, "Stupid f**king white man."

[ejano]

Little Eagle South Dakota The Trick Pony

 

 

Some time later, the Ghost dance swept the tribes. Dancers would bring the Buffalo back. Bullets could not penetrate their special shirts.

 

When I read about the Ghost dance years ago, I was reminded of the biological imperative that makes young men of a certain age feel themselves invincible, which is why, of course, for the most part, they willingly go off to war.

[Donald McCaig]

Dakota Journal Bowman North Dakota “it’s Ugly Out There.”

 

I always go to the trial ground before I check into my motel. It’s a dog safe place to let the dogs stretch their legs and I can pick up a running order and learn when next morning the trial will start. Joanie Swanke and Lyle Lad were putting up SHEEPDOG TRIAL signs where the dirt road leaves US 12. They directed me into an empty pasture - miles of Great Plains behind a four wire cattle fence. Nobody else had arrived so the dogs ran and chased and carried on and rolled, . Danny in some ripe cowshit with which he had annointed himself. I shampooed him at a cold water spigot behind the Frontier Truck stop and left him in the car until he dried.

 

There was a barrel racing clinic in Bowman; no vacancies and horse trailers everywhere. It has a fairgrounds, a half dozen motels, a laundromat, Chevvie dealer, bank, farm equipment dealer and 1500 residents. Like many plains towns, it’s losing residents but it isn’t dead yet and the R&B Family restaurant isn’t a bad place to eat.

 

Next morning at six the first dog ran.Five hundred fifty yard outrun slightly downhill across the narrowest part of a patchily grazed pasture. A steading on the hill - barns/silos/tanks, maybe a house a couple miles behind the trial field. The world wasn’t quite flat and distant hills like much worn teeth circled us.

 

Three young range sheep Rambouilette with maybe a little Columbia in them. I’d guess yearlings to three year old. Never been worked by dogs in a small group before and not cooperating. A light haze at the top made it very difficult to see the sheep - they were a discoloration up there; the dogs were easier to spot.

 

Sixty five open dogs. Handlers from Connecticut to oregon, Texas to Saskatewan. We’d come because it would be hard but even and we were not disappointed.

 

Some dogs didn’t find their sheep, some didn’t bring them, some lost them. I haven’t seen the final scoresheet but by mid afternoon I’d guess half, maybe 2/3rds of the dogs were letter scores. There were some good runs: Allison Holmes with Chip timed out at the pen and Chris Noll finished nicely with Jill. But mostly we retired or walked. A suggestion was made that since the women were whupping the men so badly perhaps we should design a less demanding class for men only. Hence, there’s be “Open”and “Boys Open” with a shorter outrun, more sheep and a bigger pen.

 

First time I saw Luke, he was for sale but he wouldn’t leave his handler’s feet. Apparently, he ran in a 600 yard Outrun open trial at 18 months and when he failed to find his sheep his handler got on him. Next time I saw Luke I liked him: sensible and strong and bought him. As it turned out he also had lyme disease which, years later, has (probably) caused a bad heart valve. It took two years of work before Luke would go out but he after his confidence returned he became a strong natural outrunner.

 

When we walked to the post Judge Lad said, “Good Luck. It’s ugly out there.”

It was. Perhaps I had him out watching too long because Luke decided that farmstead to the left of and miles behind the sheep WAS the sheep. Luke refused my redirects “Boss I know where they are!” and disappeared. After a few minutes Lyle said, “Call your dog” and told me he’d circled back from the farmstead annd got behind them but hadn’t held them.

 

June hasn’t Luke’s talent but she’s smarter and more biddable and over the years has won more trials. I guess Luke had been advising her because she did exactly the same thing Luke had done. I asked Lyle, “These are Virginia dogs. Is there a statue of Robert E Lee out there somewhere?”

 

Herbert Holmes (longtime HA President) was on his cellphone explaining, “Yeah, I just got done chasing my new expensive imported dog who was hanging onto a sheep. She didn’t bite hard enough. If she’d killed it I wouldn’t have had to run so far.”

 

Sometimes humor helps.

 

Donald McCaig

[Sue R]

Wow, thanks, Donald! And Herbert's humor was just what I needed to start the day!

[Donald McCaig]

Dakota Journal Slash J Stories

 

If you were to take the dirt road across the plains, the first indication of the trial would be the camper village - motor homes, trailers, SUV’s. Some folks sleep in their trucks. Pull in there. If you’ve brought dogs let them out to dog it for a while. It couldn’t be safer.

 

There’s a path through the lush roadside alfalfa to the concession operation: trailer, generator, picnic table and serving tables on the other side. The cook is a neighbor. Breakfast burritos, true western sticky buns, meat loaf andmashed potatoes for lunch. And coffee - black of course.

 

Pull up your chair with the handlers below the judges stock trailer. And listen. Sheepdog trials are almost always in beautiful places and this is one of those places where you’ve always meant to spend the day meditating: perhaps while doing the Upward Dogs. Dog after dog flash by, doing their best. Not infrequently a sheep runs into the crowd. Apparently some influential sheep has spread the word: “Over that hill girls! It’s the Sheep Messiah!”

 

And all day you’ll listen to stories and maybe tell one or two. Yes, you’ll talk about dogs - every dog that runs is accompanied by an informed commentrary. You’ll talk about great dogs, wicked dogs and dogs long dead. Since Tommy Wilson has AI pups off his long dead great dog Roy, I am asked about Roy.

 

Kelly Bradley says, “Yes these sloughs dry up and a big part of our summer work is dragging sheep out of them. They cross the mud to the shrinking water and get stuck. Last year my dog brought four ewes out then he got stuck. I had to rope him and drag him out. I didn’t want to pull the head off my dog!”

 

One of the handlers was a fine horse vet, beloved by wealthy clients. One day a client said, “Put out some kibble and when that damned cat comes around use this hammer on it.” He quit the client and rehomed the cat.

 

A handler had been married four times and said he would nevermarry again. “If I get the urge I’ll just buy another house for some gal who don’t like me.”

 

Beverly Lambert said, “The first time I saw Fly (her new dog) bringing sheep down the hill, I got tears in my eyes.”

 

A friend of Stormy Winters doesn’t drink anymore, “I used to be a black belt drinker,” he told Stormy. “Until the morning I woke up with my arm under a bus.”

 

Amanda had been watching a package of figs ripen as she drove across Canada and they were ripe when she hit the Border Station. They brought her into this little room containing a bench and the armed, uniformed and offiious where a lady uniform took her figs, “They came from an unsprayed location,” she announced. “No telling what diseases are on them.”

 

Amanda said, “Well why don’t I just eat them right now?”

The uniform sniffed, “You’re in the US now!” and confiscated her figs.

 

Donald McCaig

[ShoresDog]

Thanks, Donald. I love the stories people tell alongside.

[njnovice]

I love the stories. The fig confiscation reminds me of when (after an ill-fated Canadian road trip), a US Border Guard told my very disheveled, very hungover friend that he needed a car to get to America in not very polite terms.

[Mark Billadeau]

Donald,

 

Amanda embellishes her story a bit more than you did; it is a good story.

 

Mark

[juliepoudrier]

Thanks for the reports Donald. I am quite enjoying them!

 

J.

[ejano]

Dakota Journal Slash J Stories

 

Amanda had been watching a package of figs ripen as she drove across Canada and they were ripe when she hit the Border Station. They brought her into this little room containing a bench and the armed, uniformed and offiious where a lady uniform took her figs, “They came from an unsprayed location,” she announced. “No telling what diseases are on them.”

 

Amanda said, “Well why don’t I just eat them right now?”

The uniform sniffed, “You’re in the US now!” and confiscated her figs.

 

Donald McCaig

 

Friends of ours had their stay in Europe unexpectedly extended following the events of September 11. Several days later they were able to secure seats on one of those huge wide body planes. Somewhere over the Atlantic they were served a meal that included an apple. My friend, being a thrifty farmer's wife, tucked it away in her purse "for later". Hours later, standing in Newark airport, waiting for her luggage to come off that wide body plane, a friendly little Beagle employed by the USDA/ Customs by came over to sit beside her because she had that apple in her purse. It too was confiscated.

[ThunderHill]

All of this is great reading. Thanks.

 

Liz S in S Central PA

Dakota Journal follower

[njnovice]

Friends of ours had their stay in Europe unexpectedly extended following the events of September 11. Several days later they were able to secure seats on one of those huge wide body planes. Somewhere over the Atlantic they were served a meal that included an apple. My friend, being a thrifty farmer's wife, tucked it away in her purse "for later". Hours later, standing in Newark airport, waiting for her luggage to come off that wide body plane, a friendly little Beagle employed by the USDA/ Customs by came over to sit beside her because she had that apple in her purse. It too was confiscated.

 

Meanwhile, I accidentally had Mace in my carryon going through Newark and didn't get stopped. I checked it on the way back. Coming back, though, I was flagged for a jar of kelp pickles at SeaTac. The TSA people completely didn't notice the Ulu knife I had also picked up in Alaska that I stupidly stuck in the mesh pocket of the same camera bag that I stored the pickles in.

[Donald McCaig]

Dakota Journal Kirk Ranch Tipi Rings

 

After the Ranch/Nursery dogs ran, everyone decamped for the other side of Bowman and the Big One - at 900 yards the longest outrun in North America. I got there early because Bud Boudreau had offered to show me some tipi rings. Retired vet Jack Galt, Bud and I made our way to the saddle between the buttes where tomorrow the sheep will be set, Jack and Bud climbing more slowly than they might because I have bad lungs and am easily winded. Atop the saddle, sheltered from the prevailing winds Bud showed us several neat stone circles whose entranceways faced the rising sun. These stones were used to hold down the edges of the tipi covers and left in place for when the band returned. High above the plains, hunters could see for perhaps fifty miles - certainly we could. Jack Galt said this had been short grass prarrie - knee high grass. When the wind moved the grass, it must have rippled and patterned like an ocean. Bud said the water table was much higher in those days and darker lusher vegetation just below the campsite was where a spring might have been - dig a few feet today and you’d strike water.

 

We didn’t know which indians built or used this site. The lakota moved into this land in a torrent after the failed Santee uprising in 1864? but they’d been a presence here earlier - they were in the Black Hills in 1834. Had this site been built by their predecessors? Mandans? Ariskas? Crow?

 

On the back slope was a much larger solitary ring - a medicine lodge perhaps.

 

We amateur enthnologists mused above a land that has served human beings for thousands of years. From here, where the sheep would be spotted tomorrow, the handler’s post seemed very far away.

 

Donald McCaig

[Tea]

It was the Blackfeet.

 

My friend used to make old time lodges out of bull bison hide. It was very heavy. But wind proof, and lined.

 

I lived in a lodge for a while.

 

The smoke flaps can be moved to allow the fire to have a draft. Or closed in a rainsorm.

 

The lodge is lined. And is very warm made out of brain tanned buffalo.

 

Regular tanning is not as good.

 

We camped by Chief Mountain in a lodge, on the rez.

 

Near Browning.

 

Thats how far the Blackfeet got pushed.

 

The wind never stops blowing there.

 

----------------------------

 

A grizzily killed a cow near our lodge.

 

My kids always asked me.

 

"If a bear comes...you will wake up?"

 

I always answered, "Yes."

[Donald McCaig]

Dakota Journal Kerr Ranch The Pleasures of Sheepdog Trialing

 

Handler’s meeting at 6 so I pulled in at 5:30 to let the dogs run. Count the poops! Who has and hasn’t? The post is at the foot of a flattop butte attached to a cone shaped butte and the saddle I’d visited yesterday where they’d spot the sheep.

 

Which, since the entire flock was atop the flat butte staring down at us HAhaHA! was not going to be any time soon. 74 year old Barb Ross was astride her minibike and cooking and although she had to climb the last five hundred yards or so, we knew sheep would soon be organized. Sure enough, they came streaming down and disappeared, but it was 7am before the first three sheep were spotted.

 

Rank ewes on their own turf. They ran for safety, they climbed for safety, give them a quarter inch and they’d beat the dog and given a fifty yard lead coming down hill, no dog could outrun them.

 

It was a spectacular cool morning, big sky, flat planet. The backdrop panels and pens was roughly bowlshaped anchored by said flat butte to the south and a conical rocky butte on the north. Twelve minutes, June would run sixth. Sometimes it took ten minutes to exhaust the sheep off the course.

 

The second day at Slash J, June found her sheep but bogged down on the fetch and Luke had a nice run going until handler error let them escape at the drive panel and an aggravated Luke gripped off at the crossdrive. Danny didn’t see/find/have the slightest notion there were sheep out there for which I was not ungrateful. Recently shorn Rambouilettes are thin skinned. Their skin was used for 19th century condoms.

 

It was a trek from the car so I brought June out early and fastened her to my chair. Never a good idea: June gets to thinking and they never are what I want her to think. As we waited our turn, exhaust sheep shot past us and June was unduly interested.

 

Like me, June is old and fat. I didn’t know if she’d be up for this.

 

As we walked to the post she assured me she knew exactly where the sheep were, hadn’t she seen hundreds in that saddle earlier?

 

June lied.She was thinking about those exhaust sheep. Disregarding prompt redirects and entreaties she crossed over at my feet When she finally gave up on those exhaust sheep she was climbing the south butte. After many a “Look back” and redirect, something clicked and she arced out nicely behind her sheep. I whistled her down, then “walk on” and the race was on! The ewes determined to traverse the conical north butte and if June made one small mistake they’d pop over it and BYEBYE.

 

She raced parallel with their leader maybe fifty feet uphill full-tilt on rocky ground the sheep knew well and June had never seen before.

 

As they neared the west slope and sheep victory, June turned them. They were

four hundred yards from me, halfway up a butte, directly behind the crossdrive panel.

 

From thence, I handled strategy, June tactics. Sometimes the leader would split off and June would balance one andtwo.

 

Once they got over the top or around the corner, they’d win. June balanced them, worked them, walked them on and never gave them a chance. For six minutes they struggled down that hill. When they reached the post - where many other handlers would lose their sheep to the exhaust - they did as June bid. She got them almost to the pen before time was called.

 

I walked over to the cookstand for breakfast (yes, June got some sausage too) and Bud Boudreau said, “Boy, I’ll bet you’re happy.”

 

Happy? We probably had less than ten points of a possible hundred.

 

Yes, I was happy. June was too.

 

As we walked back to the car a friend was getting ready to run.

 

I said, “Good luck. It’s pretty tough out there.”

 

She said: “Is there anywhere else you’d rather be?”

 

 

 

Donald McCaig

 

ΩΩ

[Tea]

Just got home from the sat farmers market.

I made $36 bucks.

 

Sat down with a cool drink and read this.

 

Thanks