Fall is already here in the far North. It's not too cold yet, but the winds are trying to change direction from their summer flow out of the south, to their winter flow out of the north. You can smell it in the air. I'm not the only who's noticed it. Friends feel the need also to stock up their pantries and get the outdoors around them in order... canning from the garden and making preserves from the wild berries. Even the sheep have had enough of summer, and dogs. The last 2 weekends of herding trials will begin this weekend, along with several herding clinics. They will once again work for a living, earning their hay for the winter and getting a well-deserved rest. Breeding pens will be set up afterwards too. Since several of the ewes decided to lamb in late February last year, our earliest lambing ever, it's time to get them sorted since a good cold front could send them into esterus now. And that, of course, brings us to the ever-exciting part of being a Shepherd... who will we put in with whom! Yes, it's that time already, fall is in the air...
