Our baby Reid (Int/Ntl Ch. Maiwae's Allstar Singular Sensation, RN) earned his first HT leg with co-owner/co-breeder Sahra Jola/Allstar Collies. He is just 11 months old and it's hard to believe he has done so much this first year of life. If he holds coat he'll be out showing in June in the breed ring.
On the home front spring had sprung and then winter butted back in, followed by a preview blast of summer, and now we are sort of back into spring. The garden is almost in. I put the beans, squash and cucumbers in today. The onions, peas and beets are peeking thru, although I think I lost some of my onions to possibly a mole or two. Pesky buggers. Oh well at least it's not a groundhog. The tomatoes and peppers have to wait a couple of days. We had a frost warning on Monday night for heaven's sake. I have some plants that I started from seed that are doing well, except now I can't remember what I planted. I know there are some shasta daisys and purple coneflower, but I'm not sure what is what and there are some shade perennials in there too. Yep, that was a new project this spring. The dogs have pretty well destroyed what grass was under the big tree in the front. So I put up fence and a gate and have decided it is a shade garden. There are a few new plants and I divided hostas again. Some of it is doing well, some of it hasn't come up yet. They are probably afraid to wake up and face the chilly mornings and evenings. Of course now that the dogs aren't in the area now I have grass coming in too. Not sure what the heck to do about that. I believe I will table it to the "later" pile in my mind.
I am pretty proud of one accomplishment so far this spring. I changed the oil, the sparkplug and the handle-tightening thingys on the mower. And it actually started! I feel for this mower. This is year 3 of mowing around an acre of land and this isn't a riding mower folks, it's a pusher. Tonight I finished about 1/3 of the big field. Speaking of the big field, I finally got kennel panels moved down there 2 weekends ago. I had enough to go within 20 feet of covering the entire back side! Yippee!! Dave has fence for me that I will put out there and then I'll have to see what I actually have to buy to finish the yard. I spent a good deal of time planning out the area and now it appears to be one really huge yard and a 25 x 50 run near the building under a big tree. I'd still like to be able to split the big yard in 2 or 3 sections, but I also don't want alot of fence running and right now I don't want to loose my giamongus agility area. Speaking of which, still need to complete that project.
As usual we are in training mode, or my version of training mode. This mostly consists of brief bits and pieces here and there, some during the daily walk to the mail, Mondays at herding, and the odd visits here and there. I am awful. I should have a schedule, but I can't get into that. Our next adventures in training will consist of walks in downtown Manchester and along the trails. Seems Spice needs practice doing her obedience thing in different places. With gas at $3.85 a gallon those trips to Waterloo, Dubuque and Cedar Rapids for Petco visits are shelved.
Hmm..sheep...I digress. See above mower comments to catch up. I am tired of push mowing the acreage. The lawnmower is tired of push mowing the acreage. This is another reason to get the fence up around the field. It will be dog and SHEEP friendly. I'm not talking a herd, just 3 sheep to keep the grass here and across the road at the empty farmstead thru the fall. Of course this means I also have to find the resources to put up a round pen to work them in.
So much to do! I'm excited about this year, I think that's a recurring theme in my posts. The furry kids and I are hoping to get out to a couple of June shows, I'm hoping to get Spice back out, Declan is on hiatus until he stops his current growth phase, there are various dogs that need one leg of something or another, Sahra will have Reid out showing too.
So until next time...
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