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Montana morado corn in the ground yesterday, mostly showing the hint of root tips. I've grown it once before and it ripened well, though wanted a bit more water than it got at the far end of the top field.

Pigs also got out; electric installed in that corner.

Bruises on my torso starting to show where Robs pulled his "running really fast to pull the leash out" trick. It's been awhile since I had rope bruises, and they were definitely more fun to get before. He's doing that trick much less, which is good because I have to keep the lead wrapped once around my torso to catch it since my hand strength kinda sucks.

Morden mixed corn and sweet corn grex should go in the ground today. Part of the issue is I can't think about where they should go or decide where they should go, because that requires all the brain stuff: knowing what order they'll pollinate in, which parts of the yard are too distant to pollinate between, microclimates for different parts of the yard which will influence both pollination and ripening time, and size of different fields. Integrating that information so I could plant everything so it wouldn't cross pollinate, due either to timing or location, and would all ripen depending on the ripening needs of each type, used to be easy for me. Now it's impossible. I'll do something and it'll work or not anyhow.

I'm beginning to see what fully died in the frost and what didn't. The runner beans did surprisingly well. More on that later.

Journaling 1000000% improves my mental health. Too much writing 100000000000% destroys it. Please be impressed by my discipline in not trying to spreadsheet my way through the corn think but just doing something, which helps it not harm me.
Solly has her x-ray appointment in 3 weeks and 2 days to get her ok to run free off-leash. She's getting increasingly unhappy with the current situation, though her innate good temper shows through always.

I think a skunk (skunk family?) is living under the back chicken house, and I think it's had some run-ins with the foxes.

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I think when writing about Robs and the dogs I keep veering off a bit into laundry lists rather than capturing the ideas I'm trying for. It's hard to retain things until I have ability to write, after thinking of them.

But very generally, although obedience is nice, what I really want is us both trusting each other, and that means that if a situation demands it nothing is really off-limits. That's where learning appropriate barking is a great example: young dogs tend to fear-bark, but the goal isn't no barking but instead several different kinds of barking. There's a scare-away-specific-animals bark, a general my-territory deterrance bark used at appropriate times, a neighbourhood communication bark that assists with neighbourhood deterrance and specifically chains along the road (I love listening to this, though it's rare outside of fall season), a please-help bark, all that sort of thing.

It gets more complicated for something like a "sit" or "go home" when the dog senses a real threat. This isn't the same as not listening because they're overstimulated; it's assessing the situation and making an appropriate choice where I may not have full information, but also trusting my own information.

And to teach this kind of behaviour I need to do a lot of "hey, I see you doing something, are you sure?" and then check it out and weigh in either "yeah, great decision" or "that's silly" so the dog knows it. And then there's the occasional "absolutely not, that thing is nor an acceptable method" which I want eventually to be things like teeth on skin.

And doing that, paying that kind of attention, then clearly communicating "I see this, I've checked it out and taken you seriously and I'm not dismissing it, and this is my verdict" is fully exhausting over the course of a couple hours a day. This is where Thea or Solly should be stepping in and doing a bunch, but I need to get the muscovies into their own enclosure for it to work. He's really really really good with ignoring the birds now, much better than with the cats, but I don't want any accidents.

We have done several sedate "oh, there's Hazard, let's go say hi and touch noses and sniff butts" now, though and even had some success in "that's done, he doesn't want to play, let's go do something else now". I'm very proud and relieved. Little Bear is a different story, as is Siri-who-swiped-his-nose-on-his-bed-that-one-time.

I'm very interested to see how Solly and Robs interact once they're allowed to. She obviously defends her "lair" (under my pottery table that she's pretending is her create, and I'm agreeing as long as she keeps pretending appropriately) and has a nice tight radius on its defense and a very appropriate growl-first communication, it's over there from the path to the bedroom. And he accepts her going past his run on the way in and out, and they both watch each other interestedly but obediently go through in those situations. They don't appear to be building up animus to the other as intruders, but the proof will be in the pudding on July 2nd when Sol gets her x-rays.

Brain mush. Rest then plant corn.