A Day Hike with The Hubby

Headed to Point Lobos on the California Coast. Caught some seagulls flying by.  They seemed much closer in person than in the photo.  We also saw many pelicans, finches, a hawk, seals, sea otters, and tons of kelp.  Unbelievable, be we also saw divers.  I can not understand how anyone could get into the water during the winter, but there they were.

Kel has long arms and was able to get a shot of both of us.

In the morning I had agility practice in my yard for some friends and I.  After agility, we headed to the coast for exploring.  Unfortunately about a zillion other people had the same idea and the same time table.  When we got to point lobos, there was a line of cars all the way out to the highway.  I got out of the car and jogged up to the ranger station to find out what the hold up was.  The parking lots were full and they were only letting a car in when a car drove out.  Yikes.  We were at least 30 cars back in line. 

We U-turned out of the line and found parking on the highway and walked into the park.  We headed on the trail rather than walking directly to the water.  Found that most people were mingling on the southern parts of the park and we had the entire north part to ourselves.  It was wonderful.

There was some really cool mushrooms!

The tide was high and it was fun watching the seal lions trying to stay warm on the rocks.  This group was over run by the waves about 10 minutes after this photo was taken.

After climbing to the top of one area, I hung out looking down the cliff.

Most of the trails are well used and despite all the rain last week, it was dry and wonderful.

Missed walking with the dogs, but no dogs allowed :(

Merry Christmas!

Getting Ready

 It takes a mess to get ready for Christmas.  Here you can see the inner workings of the workshop.  Presents piled everywhere, dogs in the middle of it all.

 Maddie is giving me hell.  Why am I not petting, feeding, cuddling?  Why do I have scotch tape on my hands?

 Watching Cuz.  Making sure nobody plays with the Cuz.

Too tired to play.  It is hard to make sure that the dog hair gets on every piece of tape.

The result.  Could one of these be for you?  Maybe perhaps....probably.

The Winter has Arrived...California Style

"Hey, let me in.  Too wet outside!"

"But mama, I don't like the wind.  Please don't make me be outside.  Don't like, don't like, don't like."

Dead umbrella.

Woke up to a huge storm.  Very windy here.  Pool was below the fill point yesterday and I knew it was going to rain so left it alone.  We'll have to drain it today.  While standing on the deck watching the trees in the back rip back and forth, I said to Kel, "Maybe we should close the umbrel......oh no."  The wind picked up the umbrella, it was airborn for a wisp of a second, then SMASH and crack.  We also heard trees cracking (probably our neighbors eucalyptus), we'll walk to the back later and see if there is any damage.

"Bring it on!  I love me a good storm.."

Well I should be putting stuff in boxes, instead I'm running them...

Monday night was Laura Derrett night.  It is from 6:30-9:30pm.  For me, that is dedication.  My friend Laurie drove so that I wouldn't be tempted to leave early. Evidently my purse was open and money fell out.  I'm sure she'll be offering to drive more often :).

This is a great group of people.  I love my little group that all work on the boxes together.

We did have one thing in common last night.  We were not feeling the rear cross.  OMG.  is all I can say.  Fin and I, usually a rear cross lov'n team...could not do it for anything. 

Serps, oh yeah baby.  But rear cross. Nope, not, nadda.  I'll be working the boxes over christmas.  No question.

So much to catch up on....

Been busy with work.  Lots of work.  This is good.  Brings in the cash allowing me to go to dog shows. 

Bayteam had their annual December show in Santa Rosa.  I only went Saturday as I had a family thang on Sunday.  There was good and bad, but mostly a ton of fun.  It is hard not to smile when your dog is super speedy and happy to be running.

A few highlights:

• weaves.  just amazing.  only one missed entry and no pop-outs
• jumping.  lovely.  not problem on the spreads. 
• tunnels.  Ahhh the tunnel love.
• dog walk.  fast and nice contacts
• startlines.  brilliant.
• table.  pretty darn good.
• spreads. what?  did we have a problem with spreads? no way.  spreads were "perfect".

A few training opportunities

• aframe.  What is with the running off the board and lying down.  5 aframes, only one 2o2o.  training opportunity
• teeter.  both dogs did not feel the teeter love this weekend. training opportunity
• tight turns.  combination of go go go and handler late or not in the right place. training opportunity
• going wide. flanking. training opportunity (interesting there was no going around spreads, but a couple singles and the teeter - perhaps a little avoidance, but mostly flanking). training opportunity

Tazzman was also feeling groovy and after 5 years of trialing gave his mom his second ever master gamble Q.  Always a jester, he kept us guessing till the end on whether he'd get it...but he did.  Super job my psychotic love bug!

All in all a very fun day.  Usually this venue is frigidly cold.  It was a balmy 60 something and truly beautiful sunset as we waited for our jumpers course.

I'm back to boxes

Last night found me in Fremont with my agility toolbox.  No matter how many times I work the boxes, I am amazed at how much I have to learn.    Digging in my toolbox, I was grasping to find the correct tools.

• Confidence is necessary to get to where I need to be.  Unfortunately, confidence was under the dogs blanket and I couldn't find it until the last run.
• Speed is important, but not the single most important thing.  I  pulled out speed, but without confidence, speed just didn't work.
• Intelligence in knowing what signals to give your dog is of high importance.  I had my intelligence handy, but unfortunately, it requires the confidence handle and I kept dropping it.
• Consistency is absolutely necessary.  It is interesting how all these tools fit together.  Consistency is an option for the Intelligence tool, it fit in nicely once I got Intelligence working with Confidence.
• Fun.  Fortunately for me, Fun doesn't need any of the other tools to work. 

I had brought plenty of fun in my toolbox...sometimes I fill the toolbox with Fun and forget the other stuff, but I'm learning to pack my toolbox more carefully to bring an assortment of the tools I need...rather than just the Fun.