Independent Herding

Sunday, a friend and I were working on one of my garden spots and noticed the chickens way out in the woods behind the garage. Well, Lassie spotted them too and started walking over to them. He knew exactly how close he had to get and at what angle to stand to get them to start walking toward the barn. He lost a bit of patience and trotted up to three of them and pushed them up toward the barn. Then he went back and carefully circled around behind the rest of them. He had to climb over stonewalls and downed trees and such. Jen and I just stood there with our mouths hanging open watching this awesome sight. He was slow, methodical and cunningly accurate in his assesment and work. In under three minutes he had the entire flock back up at the barn yard. He had to go back for one straggler and she ended up with the snout up the butt push. I wished so bad that I had the video camera going but alas, the battery was dead and by the time it was charged, the moment was gone. That would have been perfect to use for the NOFA conference.