I can never repay Dr. Karen Thompson for insisting that Red ought to be my dog, I don’t know how she did it, but I am ever grateful to her. I love this quite amazing creature another huge storm is bearing down on us, we are scrambling every day to maneuver through ice and snow, get water and hay out, clean out the growing piles of manure in the Pole Barn, where all the animals are trapped most of the day. Red faithfully keeps the sheep in place while we grain the animals, bring out the hay, clean out the pasture and the barn, feed the chickens, haul warm water out to the heated buckets, chip away at the frozen manure piles with shovels and hammers.

Red is ready for the storm, he gives the lie to the strange idea that working animals don’t want to work, or that work is cruel for them. When I posted this photo on Facebook one person said Red looks worried, and I smiled, this is how Red looks when he works, he is the picture of focus and intensity, although he may have been a bit concerned by the fact I was lying in front of him with a big camera in his face. Sometimes he does worry about me.

Thanks again, Karen.