As I mentioned in previous posts, Fall is a tough time for me. This year has been exceptionally hard with October 6th marking one year since losing Cian to epilepsy. The days leading up to the 6th found me at the edge of tears more times than not. (It doesn’t help that I see the back of WVRC twice a day from the parking lot at work. WVRC being where Cian spent his last days.) The waves would surge up with little warning and crash down on me. Turns out that wound is still as raw and jagged now as it was then. Which, yes, frustrates and annoys me. Social Media hasn’t been a great help either, with its steady stream of Cian memories. Another recent solo road trip gave me time to analyze the lingering Sad and I came to the conclusion I’m still pissed. Pissed at epilepsy for being the insidious monster it is, and pissed at myself for not being able to protect Cian. Even though I know we did all we could, our best wasn’t enough and I’m having a hard time accepting that. And, because I lean toward the belief most things happen for a reason, I’m still left wondering what that reason was while all the time realizing it is one of those questions I’ll never find the answer to. And, you guessed it, that pisses me off as well.

Okay, enough about what pisses me off and onto things that make me happy. I took another road trip to MI with the boys. This also tends to make Jig happy because she gets to be the only dog for a few days AND she doesn’t have to travel anywhere. If she knew Finn got the opportunity to work cattle again, however, she’d have something else to hold against him. And Jig would have loved this crew.

They were a challenge for a young dog as they didn’t want to move off the fence very easily and, left to their own devices, would rather have spent the day grazing. Finn got himself clocked in the shoulder first thing. Actually, I think he cut it too close around the back end and ran into a leg. In either case, after a chance to rest up and make sure he was okay, he went right back at it — though with much more caution. It was exposure, and right now that’s all it was. He also got a chance to work with his dad providing some assistance. That was kind of cool. We’ve got a lot of work to do. Finn’s a pushy boy but not in a mean way, just in the oh-my-god-I-love-this-so-much-get-out-of-my-way-and-let-me-do-it kind of way.

Dillon could use a little of that push. We’re still working through some issues. Most of which are my fault for not fixing them when he was younger. In my defense, we had other challenges to overcome and I was picking my battles. It’s all good. I’ve no doubt we’ll work it out. Dillon tends to take corrections to heart, especially if he doesn’t understand what the correction is for. Then he starts questioning everything and we need to back up, find the broken thing, and fix that before jumping ahead again. So, at the moment, we’re back to working on correct flanks as opposed to the slicing flank he thinks is how it’s done. Good thing there aren’t any trials for a while!

And in other news… the next several months appear as though they are going to bring some big changes that I’ve been hoping for, but didn’t really envision happening this soon. Oh yeah, there will be a major adjustment and perhaps some scrambling and, hence, the quote in the feature image. The winds of change, they are a-blowin’. There will be more updates to come.