Ram delivery went well yesterday morning. The guy was already there when I arrived (only a couple minutes late after getting stuck in Lexington traffic).
Then we went and played with sheep. Actually, it was a lot of sitting and watching and a little playing with sheep.
I did discover that Twist has gone more than the one time I knew about. My sister has “borrowed” him a few times while I’ve been working.
Twist loves Miss T!
As predicted, I was the problem with training. Twist has instinct and previous instruction. I’m used to making things up as I go and hoping the dog is smart enough to figure out what I want. It’s worked ok up close in the barn, but not so great in a round pen.
Now that I have a general idea of what the goal is, I think I can practice at home. I’ve got 2 rams and 2 wethers that I should be able to dog break fairly easily. I also have my yearling ewes. Once Twist and I work out our kinks, I’ll work on breaking the rest of the ewes, except for Freyja and Minnie, It’s too much running for them at their age. Maybe eventually they can be worked as a group in the big field without someone taking down a fence or running each other over.
All my lack of sleeping finally caught up to me last night. We got home around 1830. I fed the sheep, puttered around for a little while and then laid down in bed “just for a minute”. Twist was tired too and was laying plastered against me. I was warm and tired. I was passed out by 2030. I woke up at 2130 and took my meds and then crawled back into bed and passed out again. I slept for 12hrs.
———
I have new work hours starting tomorrow. I originally worked 1230-2300. I had no overlap with 1st shift and too much of an overlap with 3rd. There’s some serious attitude on 3rd that is hard for me to deal with. Last fall my hours were cut back to 1230-2200 to help with the 3rd shift issues. I wanted to keep my 10hr shift and just start earlier, but management was not being very helpful/flexible. I have a new manager now and she’s much better. I’m now going to be working 1100-2130. I’ll overlap with 1st shift which will help with shift change issues since I won’t be walking in the door as they are wanting to leave and on the other end, I’ll only overlap with 3rd by 30 minutes. They’ll have time to get clocked in and get ready to work and I won’t have to deal with them not wanting to do anything for an hour because “I’m still there”. I’ll have my full 10hrs again too.
