Good Help

They say it's hard to find. I must be lucky. I have lots of good help. Miss Stella and I planted 40 tree seedlings this morning. She's always good help. Tim helped me wrangle sheep for spring shots and feet trimming over the weekend. When he's not making me laugh so hard coffee comes out my nose, he's good help. (Tim and Cheviot sheep - not a good combination. Cheviot sheep and anyone - probably not a good combination, but that's another story.)

My parents help me with garden projects, my friend Heather helps with our native plants, John and Reg and Susan help with our bees. Nancy will answer the phone day or night to help with a lambing or spinning/weaving problem, Deb is up for anything (and can still take Tim "out" at the end of the day) and Charlie is coming by tonight to get Gus Truck started. Charlotte called this morning to tell me about a spinning wheel listed in the classifieds of her paper (so this makes her maybe not such a good friend ;-). Our vets take good care of all our creatures great and small and Pat will drop everything to come all the way out here to look for a foot problem when one of the horses goes lame.

I also have countless other folks that help in ways they probably don't even know - people that let me watch and learn from them, answer my questions, forward me funny emails, give me encouragement or send me ideas, listen to me vent and then bring me back to reality. Sometimes their help comes in the form of teaching me how NOT to do something. My best help, however, tends to have four legs and fur.

Now, while this doesn't look like much help (unless I guess he laid there long enough to kill the weeds underneath), Brushy is my number one employee. He'll garden, check bees, feed sheep, horses and chickens, oversee sheep shots and even pose for pictures. He initially stretched out in the sun there while I was pulling some weeds. I thought, hmm, that would be a cute photo and went in to retrieve the camera. It was dead. I charged the battery for just a few minutes, but when I came back out, Brushy was gone. I called him, he came running, I asked him to go back and pose in the flowers and he was happy to oblige. How many cats can you ask them to do something and actually have them do it. Good help indeed.

For those of you wondering why the siding has been eaten off the garage and assuming that was perpetrated by one of the dogs, I'll have you know that was the work of Popcorn PP Pants. There is a reason real farmers don't want bottle lambs.