I worked in the backyard until 8:00 this morning, doing all sorts of things to get ready for irrigation.  One of them was to collect several buckets-ful of dirt from the Back 40 to smooth out the roots around one of the mulberry trees in order to make mowing easier.  

Although I did take Brownie with me each time, I've been having him stay at first when I open the gate - and he did very well, waiting for my OK.  That will be a very handy command when we're out and about traveling this summer!

  

After I trimmed grass from the impossible-to-mow areas I took the piles over to the horse pasture.  This time I left the gate open after the stay command, and each time without fail he did stay put until I came back.

I also trimmed various plants, collected downed fruit, worked on manicuring a few more of the paving stones, and generally did a bunch of other sprucing up back there.