Haley Harding

 Hello again! So this week I know I said I was going to start a new project, but I really wanted to perfect my belt so I spent the week doing that. I went and got some blue paint and repainted my name so now you can see it. I really liked how that turned out. I also finished conditioning the leather so it should be ready to wear in the near future. The last thing I did on it this week was I put the Chicago screws in in order to hold my buckle in place. I also put in some concejos for some decoration. I really liked the way it turned out and I am very exited to show you all my final product! This has been a great 8 weeks and I am very proud of all that I accomplished, even though I ran into some problems and did not follow my action plan. 

 Hello again! It has been a great week. I finally finished my belt and now can move on. I am definitely behind schedule on my action plan, but that's ok! I am very happy with my results of my belt, except for one small issue... The leather dye that I bought said it was supposed to be a light brown color, but it ended up being very dark and kind of ruined the color scheme I had in mind for the name and the belt itself. Minor details, but I am starting to like the color even though I have to repaint the name. I am thinking about getting a blue paint for the name and I think it will match really nicely with the dark dye of the belt. All I have left to do is to put all the pieces back on and then the belt is good to wear once it completely dries out. Very glad you all were with me on this crazy adventure and I am exited to get my next project started in this upcoming week! This is my finished belt, and as you can see the color turned out very dark but I think that it will eventually li...

Hello again! This week has been great! My hand is still cramping from all the work I did this week, but that's ok. So this week I really got to work. I punched all the holes that were needed for my belt and got it shaped to fit my belt buckle. I also got almost all of the tooling done, all I have left is to tool the border. I am wanting to finish this up next week so I can move on with my action plan. I am actually pretty proud with how my results turned out, aka, I am happy Mr. Rehbein made me practice because the basket weave pattern that I did lined up almost perfectly and I had little to no trouble at all. I also decided to tool my last name on the back, which I should have done more mathematically but I just but it up to my back and and had someone mark the belt loops to get a rough estimate of where to put the letters. I am actually pretty surprised at how centered I was able to get the name and how it almost perfectly lined up with where it sits on my back. Overall I am very...

 Hello again! I finally got my leather in! Thankfully it has been a very productive week, and I have moved along very nicely with my action plan. Once I got the leather in I was able to measure out the width of the belt and get everything cut out and shaped. After everything was finally shaped out, I was able to put on a border and start out lining the bend for my belt buckle and the spots for the holes. I was very exited to get started tooling the belt, but Rehbein advised me to practice a bit first. I am definitely glad I did because it was kind of a mess and my lines were very uneven. Although I am happy to say that I got much better by the time I started my second practice piece and my lines were all pretty even. The pattern I am using for my belt is a basket weave with a crescent moon type of border. I tried a couple of different weave punches and border punches but I finally decided on ones that I liked. Hopefully next week I should get started on tooling my belt and then I c...

 So guess who loves their life? Not me that's for sure. I am about to come unglued on Mr. Rehbein so I am just going to get started on my Hey Dude tops. I got started on my design a couple of day ago since I apparently have nothing better to do with my life since Mr. Rehbein won't order my stuff, but it's fine we'll just do it ourselves. I guess my new action plan is to flip flop my original plan and work on my Dude tops first, which I am okay with. I think this part of my genius hour is actually going pretty well, so I can actually be proud of myself for this one. The only issue is now that I need to order my own leather kit so that I know that I will have all the tools I need to get started. I really only need a few stamps and a few different sized carving tools, and some sewing things so I can sew them on. I really haven't decided if I want to do the exact same thing on each top or if I want to change it up a bit, because I have seen that done and it looks really...

 Hello again! Welcome back to the shit show. Apparently it is impossible for me to get anything done, so let's just get into it. So it turns out Mr. Rehbein didn't actually order my stuff, so there goes another week without following my action plan. So I just decided to start something else. So earlier this week I took a piece of scrap leather and started tooling it to get some practice. I think it turned out pretty well considering I had no help because Mr. Rehbien was always "busy" whenever I asked him if I could get some guidance.  This is the piece that I started to practice on and I was able to get this done all on Tuesday. I learned pretty quickly that you have to get the leather wet before you start or the tools won't make an impression in the leather.  So today in Ag I started making a few cozies to set coffee cups on. Cutting in a circle with a knife was definitely an interesting experience, but I was able to get it done. I honestly have no idea how to sm...

 Hello again! Guess who's already behind. I got some leather ordered for my belt because Mr. Rehbein informed me that the leather in the farm shop was too thick to start making my belt. I used the Montana Leather website to order just a small piece of hide, so once it gets here I can actually start on my belt. So, in order to be some what productive this week, Mr. Rehbein went over some of the tools with me in the farm shop so I could get a better understanding of what to do once my leather arrives. I am pretty eager to get started punching because I want to make some pretty cool designs and I also was taught how to paint and seal the paint in the leather, so I am pretty exited to get started on that. Also this week I found some designs for the belt and what I would do for my final product, and I am hoping to add some paint to it as well.  So the trusty YouTube was also a big help this week since I couldn't actually get started. I found a few more good videos on how to cut, sm...

 Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blogs. Hope you all are ready to go on another exiting journey with me. This genius hour topic is leather work. My week has already not been exiting. I was trying to get some help from Mr. Rehbein, but every time I asked he was busy so I took it upon myself to get help from the trusty YouTube. I found a few pretty good videos from Weaver Leather that did a pretty good job of getting me ready to get started.  The first video I watched went over all the tools that were commonly used and what to get that was cheap. One of the best tips that I heard from this video was to go to a leather shop and get a bundle of scraps just to practice on and get the feel for the tools. I think I am going to ask my uncle for help because he has done leather work for a very long time and some of the things he has made are very pretty.  The second video I watched was actually a demonstration of  how to make a belt. It went through the process of cutting ...

 For this round of genius hour I am going to be making some projects out of leather. Ever since I have started seeing the custom leather tops for the Dude shoes I have really wanted to make my own pair because they are very expensive. I think I am just going to wing it honestly and see where it takes me but I will be getting most of my help from Mr. Rehbein in the farm shop. I think for this genius hour I am going to try and manage my time better since I will be doing it in class rather than on my own time. I'm also going to try and reflect on my own self rather than compare to professional leather workers.  I think my project will be a success if I am proud with my out come for my shoe tops. 

 Hello again! This is my last blog for this term, so this is probably the last time you guys will hear from Coco. So I had a question on my last blog about the anxiety treats I was thinking about using. Yes, I do think that they will help her around the other animals, but I'm not 100% sure where to find them so I'll probably have to ask Natalie since I stole the idea from her blog:) This week went pretty well with Coco. It helped a lot that I was working this weekend so I could just have her with me before I left for the ranch. She did very well around the horses and even helped me catch them. They did not want to be caught at all, so Coco came with me and pinned my horse in the corner and just sat there so I could catch him. I thought this was awesome and had no idea she knew how to do that. She did get a bit nervous when I was saddling, but she just stayed right next to me and I helped her calm down so she did a great job standing right next to my horse's feet.   So her...

 Hello again! Since this is the second to last blog, I am going to start by answering some questions that I have seen in my comments. One of the main questions I have had from you guys is if the sheep are scared of my dog. They are not actually scared of Coco because of Tank, so I think that is definitely a bonus. Another frequently asked question is when I am going to get her around cows. I really don't know when that is going to happen because we have been making slow progress, but I think I will definitely be able to take her to the ranch soon since she's been getting more used to the horses. So Coco is actually a hanging tree Australian Shepard mix which should make her extremely easy to train and susceptible to herding animals, but she is also three so that's why it has been so hard to train her since the training was not started when she was a puppy and there is no muscle memory. I think that kind of covers it for questions at the moment so I'll go ahead and get s...

 Hello again! This blog is going to be kind of short and sweet for this week. I've been pretty busy all week working so I haven't had a ton of time to work with Coco, but I managed to get a little practice in. I think the best progress we made this week was her listening to me pretty well because there is scraps from my deer in the garage, which is tempting to her but when I told her no she listened and went right back into the mud room. I was proud of her to say the least. The weekend wasn't bad and I had some time to train with her a bit but these past few days have been hectic. I wish she didn't get so car sick and then I could've taken her to the ranch with me today, but that's ok. She did help me get the horses in last night which was a bonus, but unfortunately I forgot to get a picture. I did have her sitting right next to me when we fed the horses this morning however, and she was absolutely terrified. That's okay though, we just need some more practi...

 Hello again! It is week five and I am failing miserably. I have not stayed on track with my action plan at all and I am honestly pretty frustrated. Coco has decided now not to listen at all and that she is going to play with the sheep dog and not learn anymore. I finally cracked down on her last night though and she actually listened to me. I really hope that it is ok that I am not really following my action plan, and if not, oh well such is life. It did help that our sheep dog (Tank) was with us last night right next to the sheep so Coco was so much more calm.  This is a picture of Coco and our new kitten when we were in the barn. I guess it's not necessarily relevant to this blog but I thought it was cute and that I should share this picture.   This is me and Coco last night trying to get her close to the sheep. I couldn't really get a better picture because she was pretty scared and wouldn't leave my side, but progress is progress! I am trying really hard to get ...

 Hello again! I'm sure you are tired of hearing about my dog by now, but just a few more and then I will be done. These past week we did not have a blog so this blog is the first one in two weeks. I actually got a lot done with Coco in that time. I was about ready to give up because she wasn't making progress at all, but then she really surprised me. I took her along for a few rides in the pickup with me just to try and see if she still gets car sick, and she actually went on the whole ride without getting sick, which is pretty exiting. Now she thinks it's a great idea to run to the pickup whenever we drive anywhere with it. On Sunday though I was kind of disappointed that she did end up getting car sick when we were hauling bales, but on the bright side I was able to open the door fast enough so she didn't throw up in the pickup. I am glad that we made some good progress with that though.   This is me an Coco riding in the pickup together going to shut gates and run pa...

 This week was actually a lot better than last week. I started bringing Coco into the pig pen with me and now she is not afraid of the pig anymore. I still would like our progress to be a little better, but I'll take what I can get. She is also really timid around equipment, so I decided to take a break from the animals and try to get her used to loading up in the pickup. She has been in there before, but she always gets nervous and pukes so I wanted to slowly build up her confidence. This weekend I told her to load up in the the drivers seat expecting her to jump to the passenger side, but she just stayed on the floor so I had to drive with her at my feet. I actually think this helped a lot because she wasn't nearly as scared and was willing to get back in the next time I had her load up.  This is Coco sitting the the drivers seat with me just looking out the window as happy as can be.  I am really hoping to move forward this week and have her get used to herding the she...

      This week was a little more challenging with training Coco. I chose to start introducing her to smaller animals to ensure her confidence in herding. She did not respond well at all. She came with me to the barn where the animals were at, but she was so scared she wouldn't approach them. She did however stay by my side while we were inside the barn. I think I'll have to repeat this weeks plan so she can gain some confidence. I was happy that she stayed right next to the fence while the sheep were sniffing her, so that makes me feel a little better and lets me know she has potential to overcome her fear.      To start her training for next week, I'll start taking her down to the barn with me more in order to just get her used to all the animals. I also found an interesting product on Amazon that is supposed to help run off energy and help practice herding for dogs. It's called a herding ball which is technically meant for blue  healers, but I think...

 This week I started working with Coco by familiarizing her with a few basic commands. She already came to me decently well when I called her, but she definitely needed some practice. I also wanted to get her used to the sit, lie down, and roll over commands.  At first I had some trouble starting out because she is a ball full of energy and wouldn't sit still long enough for me to even say the command. So, as a result I had to change my tactics. I started snapping to get her attention, which proved to work extremely well. So by the time Saturday had rolled around, she has started coming to me when called (She only comes when I whistle) and standing still long enough to let me get the command out.  At the begging of this week I solidified her ability to come to me and started working on sitting. To make her sit, I would say "sit" while snapping my fingers twice. She needed some encouragement at first by me pushing her butt down while saying sit, but she ended up catching o...