Kitchen Progress yes

So yesterday the kitchen started to look like a real kitchen.  Earlier this week they installed the floor which looks great and yesterday they wired the stove and microwave and put them in place and put a plug in for the fridge so it no longer is in the living room.  They plumbed the fridge for water so I have ice and water in my fridge now.. I am so excited about that.  They also wired and hung the under counter lights and moved the overhead light to the middle of the room so I actually can turn lights on when I come into the kitchen. 

Next thing to do is to put the knobs and pulls on but I am waiting for them to be delivered.  I am still vacillating on what countertop to put in. I sent away for a wood sample so I am waiting for that to be delivered too.  They can't put my sink (the piece de resistance)in until I have a countertop which will probably take a minimum of 6 more weeks and then I have to decide on a backsplash and a paint color. We are getting down to the nitty gritty now.

Of course there are still 3 built ins that they are going to make for me. One will be a broom closet next to the fridge where I have an empty space.  One will be a wonderful shallow pantry(yay) and the last one will be a window seat/dog crate area .  Can't wait for that one too. Hopefully it will allow me to remove my dog crates from my living room. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

  I think I generally have a negative glass 1/2 full personality and trying to think of positive things to be thankful for is sometimes hard for me, but I am going to try.

I am thankful for my dogs who keep me sane.  I am thankful they like me.

I am thankful for my family who also likes me most of the time.  My sisters are the greatest and I can depend on them when I need them.  I have 2 brother in laws that are pretty damn good too. 

I am thankful for my students who give me a reason to get up in the morning.  You have no idea how important you are to me.

I am thankful I am cancer free right this moment. Tomorrow may be another story.

Kitchen progress

The boys came today and installed the floor.  It looks great.  One of the installers liked it so much he decided to put it in his house. It took them about 5.5 hrs.

I put Dare out in the locked dog area and put the cover on the doggie door so he could not get out. HA,  next time I looked he was outside lying on the ground. The door was closed so I guess he pushed it up and went thru  the flap and it slammed back down.  silly dog  I then put a coat on him and put him in a crate in the car.

Went out tonight and picked out some colors to match the cabinets.  Got some good colors but might need to decide on backsplash before I decide on color.

Update

 I had the thyroid exploratory surgery on Wed am. Joan came and stayed overnight so she could take care of the dogs for me and take me to the hospital.  (a huge relief).    We went in at 7:30 and I was scheduled for 8:30 and it happened pretty close to that time.  I was in recover at 2pm and they asked me if I wanted to go home or stay  and I said let me outta here.  Joan picked me up at 5 and I was able to go home and sleep in my own bed.  I felt pretty good too.  No pain killers , just 2 tylenols.  I felt really good when I got up too.  Thursday night was a little uncomfortable  but not much.  I hear thru the grapevine, that he took out a good sized tumor from the left side of my neck.Let's hope that is the last damn surgery. 

Now I am home and itchy to go south again.  I hate hate hate this cold.  It's 18 out there right now and that is too cold for this time of year even here.

Yesterday, I went in to Auburn to look at granite in case I decide on granite for my countertop. I'm still leaning towards a wood counter.  I think I might have found the backsplash though at the granite place.  sandstone.

Today I went to the Cluster in Springfield to visit with Greg and Laura.  Good visit and I shopped too. I bought myself a Christmas present. I nice pair of gold earrings shaped like a pawprint with a diamond in the middle.  Cute.

Tonight after a dinner of leftover fish stew and a salad for which I made croutons which again came out badly, I made 2 cupcakes for dessert.  I had one with some frozen razzberries and some razzberry jam and some cream.  It was pretty good.

Trailer is back

All those electrical problems were a loose wire on the thingamajig. Anyway they fixed it and I spent  a  couple of hours looking at new trailers.  They are nice and with a good size bumpout they are quite roomy. 

I settled in on a 26 and a 29 footer.   The 29 footer had a rear lounge with 2 swivel chairs which I really like since there really is no place comfortable to sit in a trailer usually.   The other type of trailer that I liked had an island which Dually would love  because he could hide behind it..  I think that one was considerably more expensive.

I did nothing else today besides thaw out the hoses and water the livestock.  I fell asleep in front of the tv around dinner time so who knows how late I will be up tonight but frankly I would love to go right back to sleep now.  Finally got the house warm today and I am enjoying it. I am on my last bag of pellets so I have to buy some tomorrow. My pellet company called and they aren't going to deliver until Wed . Busy week next week.

First Day Home

 Awake and up at 6am but still very tired.  Fought with the damn pellet stove all day.  The electric controller was acting up and I had to turn it off cool it down and start it up a number of times.  It's too darn cold out the be doing that.

Did I mention how huge the kitchen has become since they moved the counter and sink to where it's going to be?  It looks fabulous!!

The dogs are glad to be home. Dually and Edge ran and ran and ran out in the arena this am.  I like being able to put them outside in a fenced in area. 

I took the trailer to the RV place this am on gas fumes.  I coasted part of the way to the gas station just in case it decided to die.  It didn't and I made it to Rutland.  I had to winterize the trailer while I was there in case they had to leave it outside.  They were going to charge me $80 to do it so I bought to bottles of antifreeze and did it myself for $11.   They called a while ago to say it was ready but I didn't talk to them so I don't yet know what was wrong with it.  I am going to get it tomorrow and maybe look at some new trailers.  New is better right?

So from there I called the car repair place and made an appt for 1:30 to get the car inspection sticker which had expired and an oil change and a tail light fixed.  They were quick too and I was done in less than an hr. While I was there I asked them to look for a van for me because I think it might be better than the Suburban in terms of carrying dogs with me..

Now dinner at my sister and Bil's cottage and home to bed early.  I needed a nap this afternoon but didnt' get one.

Russian Roulette

I got on the road at 6 am because I wasn't sleeping so might as well be driving.  I left from Va and made it home by 4:30.  I can barely keep my eyes open right now.

So those of you that have traveled on rt 81 and rt 84 in Pa NY and Ct know what I am talking about. Every few miles you see I sign about Deer jumping across the road and it says they might jump anytime between now and 9 miles or now and 13 miles or now and 2 miles. You are constantly looking for deer to commit hari kari and it's a game of Russian Roulette because if they dont' run in front of your car they will run in front of somebody's.  I got lucky again and hit nothing.  I never even saw a deer which is also good because that would have freaked me out too.  I saw plenty of dead deer so somebody lost, but hopefully only the deer ended up all over the road.

I could not get the trailer all the way into it's parking spot because it got dark too quickly so it's at the bottom of the driveway and it's colder than hell out tonight so I had to pull the electric cord out and hook up the power so I could leave the heater on in there. Of course the new exterior outlet would not work so I had to go get another extension cord and plug it into the outlet off the porch.  I am so tired I can barely see and this stuff is not helping.

I see they did a lot of work in the kitchen and moved the sink temporarily so that I would have use of it until my new stuff came in. I promptly turned on the water and nothing. Now why would they do all that work and leave me unplumbed?  Turns out , they just didn't turn the water on under the sink.  I am too tired to have to think about these things. And then the pup came in and marked.  What's up with that. Everybody is trying to aggravate me.  And who the hell turned the heat on in my house and left it on?  I made sure everything was off when I left . Bed now, enough bitching.

Training Post

  After all those trials , I have a few things I will need to fix and a few things I need to train.  It's so important when you trial in ASCA to have a dog that will take a square flank and go to the fence .  I so needed it at the 2nd panel on course   A and B but not so much on F.  But it would have stood me well on F too now that I think about it.

The other thing that I need to work on desperately is the dog must learn to control the run away sheep from behind and not flank to the front to stop them and turn them.  This will take a lot of finesse and I'm  sure I will have to convince them that it will work if they do it right.

I wonder how I am going to work on this in the snow this winter?

I need a better GPS

I left the campground at 8am and made good time today. The  speed limit is 70 and there was no wind so it was easy with the camper.   I'm sorry to be leaving all my trialing friends, Chuck, Joe,Kim, Mary,Art and Carol and all my new friends too.  It was a good time and I am looking forward to the next time.  

 I am in Va and I drove 500 miles today.  It took about 40 min longer than it needed to because when I got off the exit for the KOA, the gps put me back on the highway and took me to another supposed KOA that was not open for the season.  So I drove back south which is against my nature when I am going north , but I had to have a campground for tonight.  No heat would mean no sleep which would not be good for all the other drivers on the road tomorrow. 

I finally got back to the KOA that I am staying at and it has a nice big fenced in dog park but It's dark and cold out there so they didn't get to use if very much.

The Problem

The fridge appears to be working although it's freaking me out. The indicator light keeps going on and off and the heat isn't working and neither is the hot water. I had a portable heater I used last night so I am cozy for now.

Major Problem

Just got back from dinner out and my fridge isnt' working nor my heat nor some lights and the breaker is not tripped.  NOt good.  I have no idea what's wrong and it's late and I am tired and I have no hot water. Don't know if I want to run out and find a bath house or not.  Probably should.

Dually had a smokin day. He won the Farm trial cattle , Dare got 2nd .  He won HIT for the Farm trial on that run.   He won HIT cattle AM and PM and HIT sheep AM.  We got our first belt buckle for HIT Farm trial.   The dogs were doing stupid things this afternoon. I think everybody is exhausted and I am going to be happy to start home.

Dare worked his little heart out today

OMG  You should have seen him work the cows on the farm trial.  He was a rock star.  They wanted to break back and he turned them and kept them moving forward. Not once did he go to the heads and turn them back (well maybe once).  The cows again did not want to go to the same pen at the ranch trial and we worked and worked and inched our way up the fenceline. He kept them moving forward and I tried to hold the side but he had to help me with that too.  He was phenomenal. He took every flank and I am so proud of him .  It was a 20 min course and the last exercise was to drive  a new set of cows back to the pasture through an alley.  I knew time was getting tight so in the alley I egged him on a bit and he blew by them and turned them back.   One started to run in the wrong direction and I sent him.  He bit and held and bit and held and then he yelped  but it was so dark I could barely see him and he went back in andbit and held but that cow was going back to the pens no matter what he did so I called him off.  The other 4 went where they were supposed to.  The judge said it was a good score. Awards in the am  after Dually gets to try it.  Only 4 dogs entered and Dare is the only one that made the course and the other 2 dogs didn't get to the pen.

Ranch Trial

It's not a good thing when  only 1 dog and handler team complete the course. It was not me.  Dually lost the cattle into the woods but got them out beautifully and then we got them to the first pen and we  could not get them in the pen and we gave up .  Dare lost them behind the duck arena but that was better than the woods and we got them to the first pen and with a lot of manipulation we got them in.  We were the only other team today that got the cows in the pen. Then we had to sort them and I am not used to sorting cows in a small pen and we got 2 of them sorted and then decided to move on with only 5 min left. We got down to the last arena and they called time on us. Yesterday I was ready to give Dare away and today he redeemed himself.  He kept those cows together and he turned one that was running with a bite on the nose and then held ground. He also bit hocks to make them move in the pen and I was very proud of him.  He showed he can be a real cow dog. 

Dare made it all the way around the sheep course  but we didn't get a qualifying score.  I was not allowing him to work because they are sheep and I am always afraid of what he is going to do so we lost control points all over the place. Too bad because he was probably the best dog at the trial for controlling livestock. Sorry Dare.

Dually had a nice sheep run but we (as well as everybody else)had trouble with the sort and  we ran out of time . 

THe course  was nice but the gates were horrible and the sort on those gates was virtually impossible to complete in time.  The first place dog didn't get the sort so no one got it.

Train the stock day

  We went out to breakfast this am and then we went to Cheryls to work stock.  We started on the cows but it turns out there were 3 rank cows in there and they wanted them separated out before we touched them. Ok, Then on to the sheep.  We could get them up the arena ok but they did not want to go in the Ychute.  I stood out there on one side with a dog while somebody else worked their dog from the other side. It worked a little. We were able to pull some lambs out that were not going to hold up thru any runs. 

Then we went and worked the ducks .  We did it with people first.  They had not been in a chute in the middle and it was not easy getting them thru there in little groups. It was also not easy getting the ducks to work away from their buddies.  Hopefully there will be a tarp up to hide them on trial day.  I went back later and worked Dare on the whole group and then some smaller groups. Dare was being and ass today.  Gosh he can make me mad.

But he did some nice things on the cows .  They went up to sniff him and I asked him to bite and he did and he stood there. He did that a number of times but when I asked him to flank and help me in the arena he was useless.

Dually was a good boy on the cows and the sheep.  He did not stand up and bite them like Dare but he did do what I asked him to most of the time.

Tomorrow is the ranch trial on sheep and cows. Both dogs are entered.

On to the next KOA

We packed up this morning and emptied the grey and black water and moved south to another KOA only 26 miles or so.   There is not a  fenced in area for the dogs but there is a really big field.  Peaches got to play for a long time with her purple egg and then I took Dually and Edge out to play with a toy and I have to take DAre out soon. 

Kim and I are going to run over to a Western store and see what they have as well as driving to Cheryls house to see where it is .

I stopped at Cheryls and met David and he said come on over anytime and work anything.  I think we will wait and go tomorrow. Just feel like chilling right now.  I have not had time to just sit and watch tv or read at all.

I have found out that Edge is not leash broke and he is going to pull me down and drag me one of these days.  I am trying but he is not getting it. He is also a bit of a scaredy cat.  He seems to want to hide under things or go back to his crate or just be alone.   He loves people but he doesn't like just standing and talking or waiting.

I leveled my trailer for this KOA  stay . I will be here for 6 days so I think level is better.  I got the water hooked up and it's not leaking(yay). The cable is working perfectly, but I could not get on their wifi.  It's 55 and sunny and it feels pretty good.

HIT sheep on course F

Dually laid down a really nice run on F course today. I didn't enter Dare.  I was the last one in the class because I entered this morning.  I did have the benefit of watching everybody else and I had also talked to the judge about penning the sheep on Sat when I couldn't pen them. He said fetch them in so I laid Dually down way out and walked in with the sheep and he gave me full control points.  We had a beautiful 1st panel and bobbled a little on the 2nd and missed a sheep on the 3rd and stuck the 4th > It was a nice run and good enough for 117 and  HIT .  I won another wonderful collar and a metal sculpture aussie head.  really  nice.

I entered cows too and I got 3rd place with a 62.  I guess 1st  and 2nd  place Q'd, but we sure didn't.  But we weren't alone.  It took quite a while to get Dually to stop overflanking and turning the cows back and then when we did we got to the 2nd panel and they called the 3 min warning and we lost them again to the back fence so I just repenned them.

We went out to lunch as a group after awards and said good bye  to Tony and Donna and the rest of the club members.  Great club and lovely people!!

Then we came back to the KOA and dropped off dogs and Kim and I went to the near by antique store. I found a lovely quilt I liked . Big and perfect condition and it looks handsewn. No price on it but I asked anyway and they called the booth owner and she said $42 , so I said sold and now I have it here.  It really is nice.  Off to Walmart for some stuff and back home to watch tv  and get ready to move to another KOA tomorrow. Also the next trial host called me and asked me to come over on Wed and work the ducks and the cows for them.  Okey dokey. Trial is Thurs so it will be really good to be able to work there with the ability to do some corrections. 

Dually HIt ducks and HIGH COMBINED WTCH

 They both had good cattle runs this am and then ok sheep runs and then Dare got excused right away on his duck run but Dually had  a run good enough to beat Roger's run and gave him HIT ducks and HIGH COMBINED WTCH  for the weekend.  The prize is phenomenal. It is a hand made firepit with HIGH COMBINED WTCH  carved out of the metal and a cow,sheep and duck and and and aussie all carved out.  It's really nice and really big but it fits in the car between the 2 sets of crates just perfectly.

I passed on the jackpot trial they had this afternoon on F course because I am tired and the dogs are tired.  I fet them and they are all sound asleep and it's early for them.

Picking up poop today, i see that somebody has  tapeworm and I have no med with me. But at any rate it means somebody has fleas to I will have to treat for that first.

Steak dinner out tonight at 7 --Who needs money anyway?

Dually HIT ducks again today but only in one trial

They were pathetic on the first trial cattle this am and then better on the 2nd trial, but I dropped the ball on the Y chute as usual. Sorry guys.  My competitive nature did not kick in.  I was in lala land.

Dare had a very hard set of ducks and could not get them up to the first panel. Dually had 2 good sets  and  2 scores over 100 ..  Sheep were as good as yesterday , but Dare could not listen to me the first go round and the 2nd go involved some sheep chasing .  Dually got some better scores.

Lunch was delicious , thanks to the club and after the trial, I chose to eat here and  do laundry and go to bed early-I"m still up though.

Steve  Shope and Jimmy Hartnagle were the judges and they were fair and dare I say it, Steve was sorta easy and Jimmy a little bit harder.  I never know what I am going to get for a score. Sometimes my runs seem all over the place and I get a high score and sometimes I have tiny bobbles and get low scores.  You'd think after all this time , I would have a clue.

Day 1 Trial Calhoun GA

76deg today. It rained last night and I thought it was going to rain all day but it got sunny breezy and just perfect.  Very very nice trial site and the people are wonderfully welcoming.

Dare and Dually had really nice cattle runs in the am trial although we were unable to pen anything all day.  Apparently I am not as good at it as  I thought I was.  The Pm cattle runs never got off the back fence. Hmmm need some ranker cattle to work I think.

The am duck runs were pretty good and the PM runs were 1/2good . Dually had a good run and Dare could not get them off the back fence.

The sheep runs went waayyyyy better than I had anticipated. The dogs were both being very very obedient.  Dare tried everytime to go away when I sent him for the gather, so that  was 4 runs that way. Not sure why. Dually had not trouble doing a go bye.

A couple of times I had the sheep in the free standing pen (in it) and could not get the gate closed before either the dog blew them out or I guess there is no or.

The trial site is really close so I am writing this while they finish trial 2 and then I am going back for awards(of which I have my doubts) and dinner.

Dually got HIT ducks with 116  --Don't remember that run being that good but ok.   We won a really nice decorated collar for HIT and for being High in ducks another cute collar.

I was very  pleased that both dogs worked at this location as if they had been here before. There was no 1 day adjustment period.  Dare normally works tentatively at a new loc with sometimes a deer in the headlights look but he was good.

Dinner was hot dogs cole slaw and chips.  We were hungry and it tasted good.

Also  really good to reconnect with one of my Blog readers Donna. Good to see you again and great job on the trial!