It's Hot!

My thermometer in the shade of the milk room door says 86F but it feels hotter. School is nicely air conditioned, but I had to come home. The doggies are in the trailer during the day (seven of them) with the windows open and the fan going. I worried about them all day but they seemed fine when I got home. Maybe the heat made them sleep better? The sheep are mostly outside, a surprise since the barn is open and quite cool - until it heats up with the onset of summer. I am getting ready to graze them outside the pen, something I haven't done alone. Our fencing is not up but the grass is, and I want them to eat it. I went to Homestead and bought some cracked corn. My plan is to let them out, stand between them and the road, let them graze and keep them from going too far up the hill. I will have Izzy on a leash just in case. The sheep hate him because he runs faster than they can focus on him, very scary for sheep. He also bites their legs to get them to move, something a good Border Collie would never be permitted to do in trials. I hope Izzy remembers that the pen is where I want him to move them. Izzy sometimes gets excited and runs them all around. If the Izzy plan doesn't work, I will run in the barn, get the 50 lb. bag of corn and the food bell, and spread the corn out in a line across the pen area, then ring the bell. The trick is to get a few of them coming in, and the rest usually follow. Corn is like chocolate to them. After all that, I am planning on cutting out a bag or two tonight. Matt went back to NJ to work on the "Enchanted Forest" horse farm roof. The roof is rolling in waves, with cedar shakes soaked in water and attached like thatch to the tar paper. Very interesting. Matt says his feet don't hurt too badly, standing on ripples all day bending over. I'm glad I'm working in an air conditioned school all day. Only a month left of school. Liberating but scary. I will have to work like crazy to make product for fall shows. Thank Goodness for the shows.