January 15th, 2010: The BIG Snowfall
What an exciting week we've had. Snow! Well, more correctly, more snow on top of an already healthy snowfall from last week. This time Wales was brought to a standstill. Even Kelvin's school, which had been open most of last week when most were not, was closed for the day on Wednesday. Just as well, it might have taken all day to shovel the driveway to get the truck out. Thankfully we, including most of the dogs, went tobogganing on our big hill. Ah, the joys of having a ski slope and tobogganing hill right in our 'backyard.' Luckily Bridget and Scott gave us a snow sledge to use because tobogganing without a toboggan is not a heck of a lot of fun.

Bailey quite liked hitching a ride with Kelvin, which Steffi thought was pretty exciting, and trusty Blade was always there for Kelvin at the bottom of this hill to check he was OK.

Bailey wasn't letting her best pal whizz down the hill without her.
Tobogganing Team 2010: Left to right Roy, Bee, Sioux Bailey, Jamie, Cian, Steffi and Blade.

Of course Kelvin managed to injure himself when he slipped on the snow and fell smack bang onto his camera. Cracked rib! Taking photos is such a dangerous pasttime! Only Kelvin... No damage to the camera, miraculously. Phew!

Yes, of course we snapped some pics, as you have probably noticed on our news page. Here's two of my favourite poses - or is that posers? Bailey and Jamie.

Poor Zoe struggled to keep her head above the snowline but she sure enjoyed her short stints outside. This is our main training field.

This morning we are on major meltdown. I was walking the girls about 6.30 this morning in the dark and it was like walking in a giant slurpee (Canadian readers will know what I am talking about). And just as I was thinking how civilized the girls were being...walking beside me instead of racing each other to see who is supreme champion of the 60 metre sprint race, showing their manners by waiting at the gate quietly instead of dancing from foot to foot to see who can get through the gate first and fastest, my thoughts were broken by the the first race of the day. Down-right uncouth behaviour! Oh well, at least the boys were civilized this morning. Perhaps they weren't so thrilled to see the return of the rain. Of course Meg did her "oh, I don't like having cold, wet feet" routine...yes, normality is returning to Wales.

We have gone almost the entire week without water running through our taps. Luckily we are on spring water here so we only had to bring the water down the hill in buckets. HARD LABOUR! We have managed to restore the water inside now - well that was until this morning. Amazingly we called a local pumber who was recommended by a friend. The guy arrived a day earlier than he said! Can you believe that? He must have read my blog from last week. Turns out the guy has a border collie... There are nice people in this world - still. He got everything fixed quite quickly. Unfortunately our outside taps have not made it through the big freeze. Both taps have sprung leaks. The first I managed to do a patch up job involving some heavy duty bolt cutters and some duct tape. Where would we be without duct tape? This is a temporary fix! The second tap sprung a leak this morning giving an instant water fountain....right into where our pool equipment is stored. Eeekkkk!!! No luck getting this one fixed so the shut off valve was the only option. No water again... oh well, there's plenty falling from the sky. I wonder what my chances are if I call the plumber again today?

No training :-( Between the snow and the ice, the dogs have only been out one day in the last couple of weeks. Sunday provided a nice day to give the older dogs a chance to dust off some cobwebs. The snow wasn't too deep then and as long as we kept sheep and dogs off the thick ice in the bottom of the valley, all was well. Just as I had finished giving the dogs a few minutes exercise each, 11-year-old Carwyn turned up with his Dad. Carwyn has a young bitch he is going to start training. Sunday wasn't a day for the young dogs so Carwyn grabbed Roy from his kennel and sent him up the hill to get some ewes. Now Carwyn has only worked with Roy once before but the kid is a natural and he is dead keen! Roy and he worked so well together; it was pretty to watch. When asked to bring the ewes down to where the hay and blocks had been put out for the sheep, Carwyn did so and put those sheep in exactly the right place. How thrilling it is to see such young talent. Visits from Carwyn and his Dad are always entertaining and always punctuated by a good 'Welsh' cup of tea.

As I look out my window here, I see green...for the first time in I don't know how long. I shall grab some dogs and reaquaint ourselves with the greenery...and do some manners reminders at the same time - dog manners, that is!

Oh, by the way, the 'hate' email we mentioned in our last blog was all 'tongue-in-cheek' stuff, said in jest. People don't want us to stop writing a blog, so continue we shall.