Visiting

What do sheep ranchers do when they have a day or two off?
Well,
they visit other sheep ranches.

Eric had some work to do in Dawson Creek, BC,
So we made it an over-nighter and decided to visit two friends.

The first visit was with Ken and Erin.
We originally got to know them through the border collies.
Ken is a keen sheepdog handler.
They have a sheep farm just outside of Dawson Creek,
so we decided to go and look at their sheep and dogs,
and, of course visit a little.

Ken and Erin have about 8 border collies at various stages of training.
It was great to meet all the dogs.
For the sheep protection they have also about 7-8 Big White Dogs.
Most of them are Akbash.

Sometimes, while taking some pictures,

 I do not notice the little details.
Looking at them on the pc,
 I can see that Eric was doing weird things to Nuge's ear.
"Eric, could you please leave the dog's ear alone..
Akbash's have floppy ears"

"No, not that either..
Honey, just don't touch the dog please..."

Thank you Erin...

Ken likes to build things,
He built this hay feeder that the sheep can push in.
He has also built a shearing table,
where the sheep get airlifted onto the table,
the table has rollers to maneuver the sheep while you can stand up straight and shear the sheep while laying on its side.
I, am not yet convinced that this is the way to go...

After this great visit, we stayed the night in a hotel that
was creepy.. stuff horror movies are made about.

We survived.

We then went to visit Brent
  with his Brabant Draught horses.

We had Brabant's in the Netherlands
and Eric, would love to have a heavy horse again,
not any draught horse,
 it has to be a Brabant!
We have had email contact with Brent for a few years now about his horses,
 and this was the perfect opportunity to go and visit and meet his horses.

Gus, the stud.

A half Brabant

Some mares, some full Brabant,
others, crossed with Percheron.

A future team perhaps?
Half Brabant, half Percheron

We had a great visit and a nice little break from the routine here at home!