Easter Sunday

 I slept in until 10am but I had to get up at 6 to let everybody out and then back in and restart the pellet stove and then I went back to bed. The puppy was bored so he apparently chewed his bed to smithereens and I know he ate some of it too, but he seems to be able to process food ok so I guess he's fine.

Dually was sick last night so he ended up sleeping in a crate and then never threw up again of course.

I raked a few leaves today but didn't pick any up. I really hate picking them up. It was really nice out for a while and then the wind picked up and it got chilly.

I sorted off the little black ram lamb and gave him a shot of penn and a dose of cydectin. He's not looking all that well and maybe I can nip whatever it is in the bud.  I almost worked the puppy but there really is no dry ground yet except in the arena and that might be a little big yet.

I put an ad on CRaiglist to see if there were any beef calves out there that somebody might sell me. I am not holding out a lot of hope. They usually calve in the spring and it's really early  to try to get beef calves. I would have better luck getting milk calves but I don't want to have to feed them milk replacer this year.

I picked up the rest of the sheep and the goats and the ducks yesterday in an uneventful trip to Shelleys. I ended up with 7 more Indian Runners that I didnt' think I was getting back. Will try to sell them.

cross training class

Ok Today's class was much better. LeslieNelson was teaching it today so I was much happier.  I worked Edge only today.  We worked on getting into heel position by using the box.  Also worked on holding still and not offering behaviours.  Leslie helped me with Edge and we made some progress, but I took the info home and worked Dare on getting into heel position and I didn't have to keep repositioning  him .  He got it right away and kept jumping into correct heel position.  That is a huge leap for him because we have been working on that for a while.  I am thrilled.

I picked up another can of sample paint in a little lighter color and I stopped to get a rear light on the truck fixed. Turns out it's an LED light and cost $199 . Yay for me.  He didnt' have it in stock so I will be going back on Wed and will fix the engine check light too. Who knows what that will cost .

Lots of traffic today on 84 and the grocery store was crowded too. 

The Bedroom

I have settled on aqua paint. Light for the walls and then dark for the trim, but I looked on line for aqua room and they ALL have white trim.  Hmmm , somebody must know something I dont' know. So I guess I will do white trim and leave the dark aqua for some bureaus.

I spent some time with  a kitchen designer this week. I decided on the color of the cabinets. Sage green for the bottom and a lighter minty green for the top .   We changed the design around and now it looks basically like it is right now but bigger.  She thinks I can get a small island in and I will plan on painting it something wild maybe.  I want the copper kitchen sink to be the focus so I wont' want the island to take away from that.   The counter was going to be Corian but I now the color I wanted wont' match the cabinets.  It was going to cost around $3500 too so now I am looking at stained butcherblock.  If I can get one that is stained dark and it will ok in my kitchen then I would be ok with that.  Might got with quartz though.

I took Dare and Dually to a drop in Novice class. Dare did better than expected and Dually needs more time to acclimate before I can ask him to do anything. 

I had a guy stop by(by appt) and he decided to buy the ewe lamb that I was thinking about keeping. It's the best ewe lamb out there and he is paying well for it. Although , no money has yet changed hands.
while I was using Dare to sort the lambs , Edge ran up and down the fence line which is all mud and he was brown when I finally got done. He got hosed off and it;s only 45 out there. He could not have come in the house that way though.

Tomorrow is the cross training class and tonight I need to screw a box together to take with me.

The new Projects

  I went to Home Depot today  and ordered 19 boxes of Pergo for the bedroom. I bought a light color of aqua for paint yesterday and tried it on the wall and I really like it. So that is one more decision down.  I have an appt tomorrow with an HD kitchen Designer to see if she can help me make up my mind.  And I called my contractor to get him out here to look at the mudroom/porch and talk about the kitchen reno again.  Progress!

And ,  after going to the Dudley flea market with Gail yesterday and perusing thru their DVD's, I found the one I told I was interested in at Walmart.  It had National Velvet and International Velvet plus 2 other horsey movies. .. 

I have another guy coming to buy one or two lambs this week and that will mean I have no more lambs to sell, but still have some older sheep to get rid of ----soon.

I stopped at the Millyard Marketplace for lunch and noticed they have a place called Paint and Sip which is a mini art class including beer wine and a finished piece of art in one night.  Sounds like fun.

Why oh Why did I have to leave Fl?

Just Kidding.

I am SO happy to be home even if it is cold and there is 4 inches of snow and ice on every inch of my property including the driveway which always  gets enough sun and melts , but not this week. The dogs are starting to get antsy. They can go outside in the yard but I am not working anybody. Maybe I will take somebody to the cross training class at Tails U win This am.  Gotta get organized, but at least the puppy got me up early enough to make that decision. I didn't call and ask them if I could come but money is money right?

I went into Worcester yesterday to check out the Habitat for Humanity RE Store . It was very large and organized but they didnt have anything that I wanted. I stopped at Home Depot and got some paint to try on the bedroom wall and I found a laminated floor to use up there It's called Coastal PIne and it is a whitewashed pine floor that actually looks like boards. Some laminates look really fake but I like this one.

I painted a little bit of the wall to see if I liked the paint.  I guess I am just not that fussy and anything would look better than what it is now which is what was underneath the wallpaper in 97 when I had the fire. I never repainted or rewallpaperd.  It's about time.  It will be cute when it's done and I will paint all the bureau's too.  Probably a blue color or is it purple?   It's like the trim on the barn.  very pretty. Ok rechecked it in the daylight and it's not the color I thought it was. It is too blue, Back to the paint store. Better to know now though.  I'm looking for more of a periwinkle blue or morning glory blue(I think)

Just got back from our Cross training class at Tails. It was kinda lame, but I got to work Dare and then Edge in the building with other dogs there and Dare did fine until some dogs started to bark so I put him away. They were doing some kind of little agility obed  rally course and since he was the best trained dog in the building , he would have kicked ass on it  so I put him away and took Edge out.  Edge got to learn how to do a tunnel and get on a table  Then I worked him on the side doing some box work and sit stand down and the dumbell. It was good for him to have other dogs nearby although they didnt' have the best control on the other dogs. No incidents though.

So what have I been doing fof 2 days?

Laundry, cleaning a little, computer work, some cooking,more laundry.  Not sure why I have so much laundry, I did it regularly when I was in Fla.

I have been watching diligently my on line real estate auction.  Somebody bid it up on Thurs am , but not too high and no one has bid on it since then. It closes tomorrow am and I am ready.  I have called septic guys and well guys and demolition guys , a lawyer and I have researched the title and I have borrowed the money( I can't get at mine until next Dec when I can withdraw from my IRA's).  So tomorrow is the big day that I get to put a bid in and see what happens.  Hope I get to sleep tonight and wake up in time tomorrow. I will set 2 alarms just in case.  Yee haw

The ewes and lambs should be coming home tomorrow so I cleared out the  stall so the lambs can go in and there are 4 more sheep coming on Sun afternoon and the ducks should be here tomorrow too. Back in business , well sort of, the snow is too deep to do anything out there now anyway.

I ordered DISH service , but I don't think they are going to be able to get a clear connection to a satellite. They are going to test on Monday. I tried to get my tailgaiter to work here and it could not pick up a signal. I may be forced to go back to cable-drat.

I got windows office 7 downloaded on the new laptop so I would not lose all my files when I transferred them. They are transferred and ready to go and the old laptop is ready to send on it's merry way.  I rechecked the AHBA flyer for the info I set it up with last year and sent it to a bunch of people. It's only a one day trial so I would like it to fill so I can pay for the judge and the ribbons.

I made molasses cookies yesterday.  easy and good. I made minestrone soup too, but that came out of a bag. Still its not too bad.

Home again home again jiggety jig

Gosh I am tired.  I think 2 nights in Cracker Barrel parking lots is not conducive to a good nights sleep.  I slept better last night but It's 6:45 and I can't wait to get into bed tonight.

The driving was hard. The traffic the whole way was heavy and I think they made the roads smaller. I had a lot of wind yesterday and I was in the mountains so I was white knuckle driving almost all day.  Did I say how glad I am to be home and to have my lovely pellet stove pumping out the heat and to be able to take a nice long hot shower.  Youza it was good.

Lots of snow still here which I expected so no lessons for a while. That's ok because I have a lot of things I have to get done.  I am still researching buying the property in Fla. The auction has started and will end on Sat.  I don't have the title search info back yet and I need to find out how much to fix the well and septic(worse case scenario).

Finals points for last weekend
ducks--5
sheep--4
cattle--5

Not that it matters

ASCA trial day 3

DAy 3 was not that good.

Dare had a set of goats that had we just let run out of the take pen, we would have been fine, but I chose to have him control them which started one of them to turn and fight him. we got them as far as the handlers line and then they called time warning so I just fetched them the rest of the way.  Good for a score of 45.5  whoopee !

I only  had 3 runs over 100 and the duck runs were frustrating as hell because he was eating poop and oh  look  there goes a big fat bee, let me try and get stung.  Yikes I wanted to kill him.  We worked the ducks after the trial with Roger and much better.  He was phenomenal on driving a tough group of ducks over and over again up the middle of the arena.  I had such trouble with him pushing ducks last year that this is a major breakthru and then we worked on his non existent stop.  He had a good one when we were done.  Gosh he pushes my buttons.

I'm on my way home now  and we drove yesterday about 280 miles and I am in Greenville SC.  I stayed the night in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel.  I got up this morning and nearly fell out the door the first dog out because you can't see the bottom step and fell and twisted my foot and ankle with the 2nd dog.  Ok with the next dogs. 

Day 1 ASCA trial

Showing Dare only because Dually is still on the injured list but will come off of it this week. Yay, at least I'm sure that is what he is saying.

Dare q'd 6/6 and got 1st place in one duck trial which was HIT ducks.  All scores over 100 so 6 finals pts. 2 sheep, 2 cattle and 3 ducks.

Day 2 ASCA trial.

6/6 Q's but the runs were not as good .  At least they didn't feel as good. Still waiting for results.  Done earlu today though --Its 4:20  Nice Everybody pulled together and got into the arenas much quicker and  everybody jumped in to work stock.   Nice trial and the stock is not just running the course . We truly have to  put them there .  The ducks have been very challenging and when I  can get Dare's head off the ground from eating duck shit then he does very well.  He's doing really good on cows and  goats are goats.  But better than sheep.

Chuck is going from here to the Ga trial and if I can't get home I may join him but I have to be in a position to bid on that piece of land in Fla on Wed thru Sat. Can't wait should be fun.

ok only 4/6 scores over 100 and no HIT's and I'm bummed.  one 2nd, one third and one fouth. damn damn and double damn.  Gotta get  better at trialing.

Leaving Floida

I left yesterday after Norma and I went out to breakfast for the last time.  I didn't get to leave until after noon and then I went to dump the black water and pour ice in the tank to clean it while I drove to Al.  All of the ice didn't fit and it kinda got stuck.  Not sure why or how or what but I just left it and drove. It was still froz4 en in there  7 hrs later.  It was a cold drive but not that bad.  

I usually stop at one particular gas station on my way which  is half way here and so I had that in my mind and almost ran out of gas.  It was windy and the people at the KOA where I dumped tried to talk me out of driving but I decided to go anyway and that could have been why my gas mileage was not as good as usual. Anyway, when I pulled into the station, the low fuel light was on and when I filled it , I only had  .4 gal left.  Made it though.

Made it to Al around 7pm and set up the trailer and TURNED  the HEAT on.  It's nippy up here this week.  HOpefully will warm up later today.  It's  spring for goodness sake. I get to  work Dare and Edge today.

1 more day till lift off

Home home home.

I hope I don't regret leaving earlier than I had planned , but I am really looking forward to this coming weekend.  Wed, I am leaving for Al and Thurs we will have a training day and then Fri ,SAt and Sun we will trial and party. It's a small trial and I think we will get training time in each day too.  Too bad Dually can't take advantage of it.  Monday I will drive home and be there by Tues evening, I think.

So today , I met the realtor to tour the house down the street. The property and the mobile home are up for auction  on March  13th.  It's 5.1 acres and the house will be a demo.  I called the demo company and they quoted me a price of $7500 approx.  The roof has leaked severely and there is a lot of mold inside.  There is also a block built garage that I could turn into an apartment for a while before I built a real house. But the property is REAL nice.  NO  swamp and nice mature trees .  I would love to have this property.  The starting bid will be $15000 but who knows where it will go to.  The problem is  that it has to be paid in cash within 24 hrs of the auction ending. Anyway , it will be fun to try.  You will be able to see the other bids on line just like a regular auction.

Velvet had 8 puppies , 4 blue merles and 4 black or bi's.  There is one blue male with a lot of chrome.  pretty boy.  Might be mailed to me in a couple of months.  Be nice to have another Mikey.

BC TRIAL

 I went to observe and I observed their dogs doing the same dumb stuff as our dogs. I might have entered if the class was in the morning but it was cold and windy and I stayed for about 5 hrs and then I had had it.   I went back to the trailer and took a long nap.  The trial goes on again tomorrow and the novice class will be in the am so I might go back but it's going to be even colder tomorrow. But on the other hand, what else do I have to do.  I do have a bad wind burn on my face. 

The wind was very strong and as I lay on the couch area I could feel the breeze coming in under the bed platform.  Just wrapped in a blanket and I was fine.

There is an ASCA trial at Rogers next weekend that I was not going to go to but I am so friggin bored that I probably will go and there is the  strong possibility that I will go home from there. It is cold at home but I still have pellets for the stove left and I could get some work done if I was home.  The only thing I would miss is a training weekend at Rogers on the 23,24.  Leaning towards going home asap.   Need to be out of here.  I knew this would happen when March arrived. 

I met someone at the trial today who has aussies and BC's and she does aussie rescue down here. I am going to train with her on Wed at Sherry Lee's.  The charge was less for her than for me so I hoping to cash in on that.  Dually is still being walked so he wont' be working but I can work Dare. Not the puppy, the stock is not what I want to work him on yet.