July 2, 2009: A Quiet Week
No adventures - or is that misadventures - to report this week. Our sheep have stayed at home and not wandered the neighbourhood, although the 10 cows that graze our property went walk-abouts and 8 have returned. Goodness only knows where the other two are but we suspect they are in the field where our wayward sheep went last week.

It has been a quiet week. We went off trialling on Saturday to Islwyn. A super field it was, and the weather was spectacular, making for a very enjoyable day. The trial was won by Kevin Evans and Spot. OMG, what a spectacular run it was too. Only 6 points off in total and that might have been a bit heavy handed. We dream of having a run like that! None of our dogs were spectacular, although Meg had a good-ish run finishing tied on points for 6th but officially finishing 7th using the OLF rule (outrun, lift and fetch). This was quite good since we timed out at the pen. However, once again Meg did not outrun well but took a redirect on the fly, so that is progress. Now to get the outrun back to its best as Meg is normally a very good outrunner. Training however has been halted for her at the moment as she has a suspected hairline fracture of her toe. Darn!

Jamie had a good run too if not for the absolute incompetence of his handler (Angie!) at missing gates (again this week) and being silly in the shedding ring... He had a very good pen, which is the first time Angie has penned since September last year! It's true! Yes, we got plenty of chutes when we competed up in Scotland and nurseries don't count, so it was nice to finally get a run completed. The pen felt good...now to do that again. Of course Kelvin took absolutely no photos of Jamie's run :-(

Kelvin ran Tina and she surprised the heck out of Kelvin when she almost did an entire loop of the field on her outrun. She was sent out left-handed and went right around the top and was coming down the right hand side of the course when Kelvin spied her and stopped her (it was blind at the top of the outrun). Just as Kelvin was about to get annoyed by all of this, the set out crew radioed down to say there were no sheep set out for Tina! The previous bunch had run back to the pens when the dog that was sent for them did not outrun well and was retired. Because no-one could see the top of the outrun, the judge asked Kelvin if he would take this set of sheep. No-one could see that the sheep had exited the course. These things happen! Tina was called off and did not return. This lead to Kelvin sprinting the length of the course to get Tina who was excitedly looking at all the sheep in the pens and desperate to do as Kelvin asked, bring some back to him. The spectators cheered Kelvin and took 6 points off his outrun for running tight. Once retrieved, Kelvin sent Tina again for a new packet of sheep. They were having a pretty good run until the pen when the heat got to Tina and Kelvin retired her.

Kelvin returning to the post with a naughty Tina

The week has been spent gardening. After strimming the lawn three times, if we ever win the lottery a lawnmower will be on our list of purchases...nothing fancy, just a wee pushmower would be a heck of a lot easier than strimming!

It's been stinking hot here so the swimming pool has been well-used. It was so hot one day we had to resort to going inside to watch Wimbledon tennis. No hardship there.

We are planning a wee house warming party. We will invite all of our friends around for a BBQ - all three of them. :-)