Peace, Perfect Peace!

Totty the Icelandic Sheepdog mother in the weaning box is giving the old fish eye to her pups in the whelping box. The lip is not a barrier to the pups; they just really seem to like hanging out with their paws over the side like neighbors in a high rise?

 

Totty, Lulu, Betty, Kippa, Bangsi and Edgar in the rear.

Betty and Kippa.

Betty and Edgar

 

Edgar - he prefers Eddie

 

From twelve o'clock: - Betty, Lulu, Kippa, Bangsi, Kitty, Eddie

My "Star" puppies eating.

Note the tail curls already.

 

Tails: up and curled for several days now.

 

People who see several Icelandic Sheepdogs for the first time sometimes wonder, "They all look different. How can you tell they are Icelandic Sheepdogs? Goldens all look the same; so do Dalmatians, and Dobermans, and Labs, and German Shepards."

 

Their tails are up over their backs and curled, they have prick (pointed) upright ears, they have double dew claws on at least the two rear feet (sometimes all four feet), they seem to smile, they are uncompromisingly happy.

 

Betty and Bangsi

Eddie - falling asleep in the hubcap!

 

  I couldn't resist - why try -

the sunrise today with a floating crescent moon.

 

I tried spelling Betty, Bette. She told me it was a tad pretentious for her tastes; she's a simple dog and preferred it simple. Eddie chimed in; he agreed. What could I say? They outnumber me.

Look at Bangsi's shoulders in the "Star" photo above. I think they are lightening up a bit. What do you think? Could he end up being a cream colored adult? One never knows for sure what the colors will eventually be. That's actually another one of the fascinating things about Icelandic Sheepdogs in my opinion. Look at how much Kippa has changed since she was born. She used to be solid black with one white spot between her shoulder blades. I successfully resisted the urge to call Kippa "Spot". Betty also has a spot between her shoulder blades. Might they be reverse pieds? I don't think so.

My north forest is mixed birch bark trees and what I call big toothed aspens but people around here call simply poplars. In storms, the branches and sometimes the tops break because they are soft or brittle wood. I lost the tops of two trees last fall; one fell on the house - no damage. There are a couple of leaning trees that Ron, a neighbor down the road a ways, is going to top tomorrow so I don't have another tree blow over on the house. There's a large and dead ash tree in that forest but it's far enough from the house that for now, I'll leave it. I have several kinds of woodpeckers (downy, hairy, red-bellied), nuthatches, chickadees, as permanent residents and yellow shafted flickers as migratory visitors. I want the dead trees topped and left for the birds to provide housing and food in the form of wood eating insects. I just don't want the trees falling on my home.