Have you met Toby?

I don't think I have introduced you ladies to Toby. He is just one of the 10 collies we have. We have both the rough and smooth varieties and occasionally we breed a litter of puppies. Toby lives in the house with us. I guess the main reason for that is that he is white and if he lived out in the kennel he probably would not remain white for long.

Now living in the kennel is not too bad, we built a 24' x 30' building just for the dogs. It is heated in the winter and they have outside runs. We also let them out of the runs (for major exercise) where they have about 3 acres of fenced-in backyard to run in. When I said "we" built the kennel, I'm talking about my husband and myself doing the whole thing including floating the concrete. Here is shot while we were still under construction.

Now that we are in our mid to late 50's, we will be recruiting help in doing the garage/studio. Oh, I'll still be out there working, in fact, I will probably do 75% of the studio with my own bare hands, but I'm done floating concrete and won't be 20 feet in the air putting on roofing. I originally got into construction helping my Dad build a house when I was 16 and now I'm known as a "grandma with a toolbelt". What I haven't told you yet is the reason we need to add a garage. You see we already have a 2 car garage but there hasn't been a car in it for years since I took it over as my woodworking shop. This past summer, I added built-in cabinets and workbenches. If you are interested in checking out my shop or some of my projects, here is the link to my set on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/indiana-shutterbug/sets/72157607221978695/