Two new names around here: Gilligan and Lincoln.

This past weekend has led me to wonder what happened to spring.  Today, it was unbelieveably hot – I think I heard Environment Canada say it was a million degrees outside.  By Sunday, even the sinewy trails of snow were gone, being the last to melt due to being so well packed.  It’s kind of strange seeing a field of last year’s grass, laying flat and yellowy-brown, with a brilliant white path snaking it’s way through it.  Equally strange is driving alongside a lake, windows down in the +21 degree heat, and noticing how much ice there still is and how many geese can stand on a two foot by two foot patch.  Seriously, geese, there is a whole lake of ice to stand on.  They looked like penguins.  So now we have just the faintest bit of snow left in the shadiest, most northerly exposed places and if the week continues as it started, even that will be gone in the next few days.

My buddy, Hudson, is getting older; he is no longer the energetic dog he once was.  He’s lost a lot of his hearing – or become incredibly stubborn – lately and he is having a hard time keeping up with the other dogs when we go for walks.  Usually, he’ll come for a walk but while the rest of them rip and race around us like little whirl winds, Hudson ambles.  Once already, he’s been on a walk with Hunter and I and he decided to pack it in and meet us back at the house.  His days are spent close to the other dogs now, laying in his specially constructed hole beneath a spruce stump or wandering around the yard, checking out the chickens or designing and using another specially constructed hole in the driveway.  He digs a bit, changes angles and digs some more, then he walks around it a bit, excavates a bit more and then flops down in it with an expression that says: “Sorry.  You’ll have to drive around… I’m here for a bit.” 

Because we are in some ways losing our house dog and the travelling companion – truck rides don’t offer him the same excitement they used to – and because Jenn has always wanted one, she recently adopted a three-year old Border Collie.  I didn’t even know ‘we’ were looking for one, but I came in the house one day and Hunter told me that I’d better get ready for the dog man who was coming over.  I looked at Jenn for an explanation and it started with “Oh! I meant to tell you…” and ended with: Gilligan.

Everybody, this is Gilligan. Gilligan, this is everybody.

He’s a good dog so far although he does have some re-learning to do.  He’s not as aloof as I am used to with many of the Alaskan Huskies, so he’s always nearby, which usually means underfoot.  He also has a hard time welcoming strangers to the house.  He’s not a barky dog, nor does he growl or in other ways menace people, but it’s pretty evident that he’s watching you.  It would seem that unless Gilligan is an anomaly, Border Collies have a tremendous capacity for staring.  His staring is so focused and intense that if he were a person sitting a few tables away from you in a restaurant and staring at you, you’d get up and change tables.  Maybe even leave.  The ’stare’ occupies a lot of his time.  Inside, he’s normally occupied with his routine: stareatthecatstareatthecatstareatthecat and outside his routine seems to involve herding chickens, even though there is a fence between them.  It all works out, though, because the chickens seem to be dense enough to fall for the ‘everybody in the corner’ plan everytime.  Oh, he’s a persuasive guy alright.

It starts like this: the hens are out enjoying the sun and the new grass coming up…

>then comes Gilligan with the head-lowered stare to restore order to the unstructured activity going on.

It ends with a dense group of dense birds.

This is my newest addition to the tool chest.  I haven’t used it yet, and I’ve never welded before , but I’ve got enough little jobs around that by the time I’m done, I’ll be teaching welding, I think.  Then, it’s on to the big jobs.