trailer time for flyball

At last we will be using Truck Norris to his full potential - we are picking up our new RV travel trailer on Friday! We have purchased a 2009 Montana Mountaineer 32PRD from TacomaRV, and we can't wait to go to the UFLI tournament this weekend for its maiden voyage. The trailer is quite spacious and is the best floorplan we've seen for our needs, with a separate bedroom, reasonable-sized bathroom, nice living area, and a separate bunkroom with couch and door that will be the dog room. It's a nicer trailer than we originally were planning on purchasing, with a larger hot-water heater and tanks as well as nicer finishings, but due to it being on closeout we were well within our budget and we're thrilled to pieces. Pictures will be posted next week!

This weekend also marks the beginning of our spring flyball tournament season, which in no small part influenced our decision to buy the RV last week. We have five tournaments in the next seven weeks, with most of them being up in Canada with just one down in Oregon. This schedule should provide a great break-in period for the new rig, and we can't wait!

Onwards!

three months! where did winter go?

My last post was on November 30th, and it is now February 24th. It's amazing how time flies when I'm not looking, especially with so many activities filling up our lives. So, a quick sum-up of the past few months, which will hopefully be embellished with photo posts this weekend.

Christmas was lovely, if quiet with just the two of us and Chris working the holiday. We had a great Christmas Eve with friends filled with Rock Band and a tasty dinner from PSC, followed by a morning of video skype with family while opening presents. Just three days later I took Ezri, Jadzia, and Phoebe to go on the JCJ trip to Phoenix AZ for the Wags to Wishes tournament on January 1, 2, 3. The trip was great, if very long on both sides, and it was glorious to leave the cold and rainy Pacific Northwest for a few days in the sunny 70-degree desert. Ezri got to try herding sheep again and earned her HIC, and Phoebe got to try out barn dog several times and ended up tied for first over the weekend with 8 rat finds in just 5 minutes. All three girls ran very well in the tournament, and we set a new club record of 17.82 seconds with a lineup of Ezri / Indigo / Riker / Epic.

My bike has kicked over 18,000 miles, and just two weeks ago we found that the back wheel bearings had gone bad, causing wobble in the wheel and deactivating the ABS and auto-off on the turn signals, which is what led me to take it in to the shop. The degeneration was likely very slow, hence why I didn't realize it was a problem as I kept compensating for the limitations of the bike, but once it was fixed the difference was definitely huge. I'm definitely lucky as it's entirely possible the back wheel could have come off, with obviously bad consequences. All is well now, and I'm now paying much more attention to any change in the bike's handling, no matter how small - I definitely don't want to repeat this experience!!

I've continued to work on my quilting, finishing the third of the three matching butterfly quilts in December before I left for Phoenix, and starting my next project the same week. I've definitely outgrown our original sewing machine (a Janome New Home that Chris received as a gift for Christmas 1997 or 1998), and after several weeks of searching, tryouts, and reading reviews, I purchased a brand new Janome MemoryCraft 6600 from a quilt shop in Duvall. In order to learn all I can about using my new machine as well as improve my quilting techniques, I'm now working through a quilt instruction book including basic techniques, building a sampler quilt top, and doing projects that use each technique as it is taught. Right now I'm learning strip piecing, and will be making Chris a brown-and-blue coffee-themed lap quilt with the first project pattern. Amusingly enough, I've also picked up a third sewing machine - this one given away for free on Freecycle, that turned out to be a 1951 Pfaff 130 still with the original added electrical motor, plenty of extras, and housed inside the original wired cherry cabinet with knee control. Amazingly, it still works just fine after all this time (including at least 10 years in a garage), and had no issues sewing a test piece with all of its different stitches, although there was a slight smell of burning from the aged wiring. I'm planning to take the machine in to have it looked over, have the wiring upgraded to modern standards, and have it updated to have its own power cord and foot control so that it can be used outside of its cabinet. I'm also going to use the cabinet as a project to learn how to refinish wood, as it's pretty nice and just needs a good sanding and new finish to look even more lovely. My research has indicated that this type of machine will go just about forever, and is quite good at doing heavier projects such as light leather, sailcloth, and nylon webbing, so I plan to see if I can make dog collars with it once it's in full working order.

This weekend is the sewing expo in Puyallup, and I'll be going on Friday with Christy, Lindsey, and Julie - I'm definitely looking forward to it!

you don't drive Truck Norris, he drives you!

Just over a week ago, we brought a new vehicle into our lives, making us a two-car family again for the first time in two years. Meet Truck Norris:


Truck Norris is a 2009 Dodge Ram 2500 with a 6.7L Cummins turbodiesel engine, an extended cab, the long bed, and the tow package. We've already had a Rhino Lining bedliner put in, and a canopy top for the bed is on order and should be here in about two weeks. The dogs ride in the backseat, which we've arranged nicely with a flat sheet ziptied to the folded seats to protect them, dog beds on the cargo shelf that folds out from the floor, and soon a net barrier to keep them from warming up the drivers' seat when we leave them in the truck. Phoebe is especially fond of sitting on the top of the seatback and vulturing at us with her beady little eyes.

We're pleased with our purchase, and looking forward to a long lifetime of use for both flyball and home needs. I already took a big load of tree branches to the dump over the weekend, and we've been using it to go to flyball practice and will be taking it to Canada this weekend for the tournament. That will be a bit interesting, as we don't have the canopy yet, so we will be putting our silver travel pod in the truck bed along with the cooler and bin wrapped in tarps to protect them! The new truck will give us a second snow-capable vehicle for the winter, as well as take the burden of long-range travel off of the Subaru (which is just about to turn 80,000 miles) which will help extend the life of that vehicle.

And of course, Truck Norris will achieve his calling next spring, when if all goes as planned we will be purchasing a travel trailer RV. Until then, however, he will have to be content with taking loads of stuff to the dump, bringing home our Christmas tree, and hauling around 110 lbs of dog in the backseat.

All hail Truck Norris!!

Halloween celebrations!

I finally got the pictures off the camera, so here are some shots of our Halloween celebration this year!

First off, we have Phoebe dressed as a ladybug as part of the JCJ "Ladybug Flock" for the Cascade Comets costume parade during the tournament the weekend before Halloween. She was not as amused about it as I was, but she was a good sport nonetheless. It's hard to see in the picture, but she is also wearing a headband with antennae. I had tried to make costumes for all three girls, but my efforts were foiled when the tape didn't stick to their coats as planned, and only a teammate having an unneeded small costume meant I got to participate with one of the dogs after all. Lucky (or not) Phoebe!

We hosted our Halloween party on Halloween night this year, which is always nice and which involved lots of food and copious amounts of Rock Band. Surprisingly, everyone was happy to stay upstairs all evening, and we never even went down to play pool, pingpong, or darts. I was pretty happy with the food we had, even if it was too much - chili with cornbread; edamame dip, hummus, and salsa with corn chips, pita chips, carrots, and celery; sugar cookies; sprinkle cupcakes; crack bars; gluten-free cappucino chip brownies; hot spiced cider. I got a dessert tower to use this year, which turned out great, and friends brought a hysterical "dead cheese man" complete with raspberry sauce blood. Yay!

And of course, what would Halloween be without carved pumpkins? This year I picked out and bought some patterns online, and I carved a dragon and Chris carved a dingbat. I also picked up a ghost pumpkin (white-flesh pumpkin) and used a sharpie to put a witches' face on it, which looked nice under my sparkly spiderweb witch hat under the blacklight.


A good time was had by all, and I look forward to hosting again next year. Halloween is probably my favorite holiday, and it just keeps getting better each year with more friends and more fun games to play!

sixteen thousand miles and counting

Last Friday I turned over 16,000 miles on my bike while going over 520 on my way to work. That makes a little over 13,000 miles I've put on the bike myself in about 19 months, or a little over 8000 miles per year. I'm pretty sure I put well over 7000 miles on the Vulcan before I got the BMW, so that means I've now ridden over 20,000 miles over the past two and a half years.

And sadly, probably at least 19,500 of those miles have been commuting to work and back. We haven't done much fun riding, unfortunately.

As far as I know, I'm the only woman who is still motorcycle-commuting full time now at my work, as the only bikes I'm seeing now all belong to men. Even those are starting to die down, with only 4-6 others showing up on a regular basis as opposed to the 20 or more that are around in the summertime. It's an interesting cohort to be in, the year-round motorcycle rider, and one that is probably comprised of stubbornness and partial insanity. There's probably a large component of testosterone in there as well, which is probably why I'm the only woman I know of who does it. Whether that makes me more or less crazy than the guys has yet to be seen, however.

I still love riding my bike every time I get on it, although I'm really starting to want bar risers more as time goes on, especially when I get stuck in traffic. Wearing the winter liner in my armored pants is quite annoying as well, as it reduces my movement ability and makes me feel quite stiff. My gloves, helmet, and boots are holding up beautifully, however, and my winter jacket is holding its own even though I'm getting the itch to get something different and more streamlined. Not anytime soon, however!
~~~~~
I have officially decided that I will be going with other members of our flyball club to Phoenix, AZ for a flyball tournament on January 1, 2, and 3. Chris can't take that much time off from work, as most of us are driving down and back, so he will stay home with Curzon and I will take the three girls. The tournament is part of Wags for Wishes, an enormous annual fundraiser for the Make a Wish Foundation, and the overall event includes agility, dock dogs, frisbee, herding, obedience, rally, barn-dog, flyball, CGC testing, and more. We'll be quite busy with just the tournament, unfortunately, although I am planning to take Phoebe for a session of barn-dog and am hoping to maybe enter a wave or two of dock dogs competition.

Of course, we'll have to get there first - and that will involve two and a half days of driving to do it! I'll be riding with my friends Ben & Deb in their truck, and we'll be caravaning with four other people in two other trucks in order to handle transporting all of our equipment in addition to ourselves and the dogs. It should be a fun trip, but it's going to be a LOT of sitting in the car!

another weekend, another flyball tournament, another batch of injuries

Last weekend was our first tournament of the 2010 NAFA season, which runs from October 1 of the previous year through September 30. This one was the annual "South of the Boo!der" Halloween-themed tourney hosted by the Cascade Comets at Argus Ranch in Auburn, which is southeast of Seattle. This year turned out to be a little difficult for me, as Chris had to work all weekend due to staffing issues at his company, which meant I was on my own with the three girls. Luckily our friends Jeff and Julie were willing to let me stay with them on-site in their RV, so I didn't have to do an hour+ of driving twice each day.

Ezri did very well this weekend, and I am very proud of her. She handled her first dirt-surface tournament without blinking twice, and ran happily in both start and second position. On Saturday I started her in one race, where she ran 4.14 - 4.10 - 4.10 - 4.11 - 4.14 across the five heats, setting a new personal best of 4.10 and being VERY consistent with her run times. She also earned her Flyball Dog Champion Silver (1000 points) title on Saturday morning, and is well on her way to her Gold (2500 points) title. Sunday I started her in two of the three races she ran, and she pulled out a 4.06 second run in her first heat of the day! This makes her the third fastest dog in the club by personal best, with Indigo in first with a 3.76 and Curzon in second with a 3.92. Unfortunately, she strained her shoulder trying to avoid our anchor dog for a rerun in her third race, which ended her racing day - the silly little girl completed her race despite the pain, apparently crying with every step down and back until she returned to me. Our onsite vet checked her out and found the strain, and with some aspirin and icing she's already healed past the injury. Ah, to be so young and heal up so quickly!

Jadzia was on our Veterans team, which we ran with four older girls running savage since a veterans team only get 16 heats in a day. The girls did great, with only one missed pass on Saturday (my fault!) and no errors on Sunday, for a total of 780 points over the weekend. We've had "normal" racing teams not earn that many points in a weekend, so we were pretty thrilled to pull this off! Jadzia's racing was very smooth and she was very animated and happy to run, and broke 5.0 seconds three times during the weekend, with most of her runs in the 5.2-5.3 second range. I think now that I have Ezri to "stage-manage" and soak up my ambition, I'm no longer putting pressure on Jadzia that she cannot meet, and this is making flyball way more fun for her.

Phoebe also ran well all weekend, being our little height-dog tank and consistently pulling in 5.8-6.1 second times even with 40+ heats each day. She handled multiple sudden "grab and go" incidents where she was needed to replace our other height dog, and ran for me, Jeff, and Lindsey throughout the weekend without a single dropped ball or snarky comment. Unfortunately, it looks like she broke one of her back molars on Sunday, which I just discovered last night when I noticed she'd made another ball bloody while playing in the living room. Hopefully I can get her into the vet this week for a dental and a removal of the remainder of the tooth, as I don't want her to be in pain - or to bleed all over the toys!

Our next tournament will be the first of December, going up to Abbotsford for the annual Christmas-themed tourney put on by the Dogwood Pacesetters. I can't wait!

herding lesson one: sheep are toys!

On Sunday, I took Ezri and went along with Ben and Deb to join them for sheep herding lessons with Diane in Carnation. She's the one who bred Epic, and they've been taking Indigo there for quite a while now both before and after Deb's stint in Boston. I've done HIC tests with Jadzia and Curzon before, and they have both had a chunk of herding instruction with someone else, but this was to be Ezri's first time seeing sheep.

The first thing that happened when we got there is that Indigo and Ezri were tied up while Ben and Epic worked sheep in a big field, and Diane introduced me to herding in a small pen using her oldest bitch Tessa (who is Epic's dam). Ezri was not so pleased about this, especially with the size of the chain as compared to her! After all, princesses do not get chained to a fence in cold weather with frost on the ground, the very idea is abhorrent!

Shortly after she was tied up, however, she was provided with a new distraction as the large male turkey living in the pen behind the fence was very interested in her. Ezri was really unsure what to make of this particular creature, especially with his strange noises and being about three times her size!! She soon decided that he wasn't a threat, and commenced ignoring him and whining at Deb and I for not playing with her or otherwise paying attention to her. My time in the pen with Tessa was instructive and quite helpful, as the concept of a space bubble as well as the positioning needed for "come bye" and "away" are much better experienced than simply explained. And as with flyball, it seems that having an inexperienced handler work with an experienced dog to start can be quite helpful!

Ezri's first session in the pen started off quietly, as she was more interested in the sheep droppings than in the sheep themselves. The sheep, however, knew that she was a Sheep Dog even if she didn't realize it yet, and were avoiding her with the same alacrity that they had evaded Tessa earlier. Diane encouraged me to grab a sheep's back leg and play tug with it to get Ezri to realize that she could interact with them - and I saw the light bulb go off in her head when she realized that sheep were toys! Ezri then got to spend another few moments getting excited, barking at the sheep, and chasing them a bit before her first session was over, and she was back to being tied up while Indigo and Epic took turns again. As this photos shows, she was not happy to be pulled out of the pen and away from her newly-discovered interactive toys!

Our second session was spent with Ezri on a long line, learning to walk quietly near the sheep and go into a down when she got close to them. As she was still very excited - and still quite young, at not quite fifteen months - Ezri tried to lunge for the sheep almost every time. Diane had me be more forceful in my commands, and use a flag as a correction, which Ezri responded to very well, and by the end of this session we had one walk-down sequence that did not involve a lunge and quick correction. The first photo, however, is definitely from one of her lunges!

Second photo: learning to listen, and respecting the flag.

And final photo: a hint of the sheepdog that Ezri may become one day!


I really enjoyed our lesson time, and Diane is exactly the sort of knowledgeable, no-nonsense instructor that I prefer to learn from. With a lot of training and practice, Ezri will probably be a good sheep herding dog, should I wish to take her that far. I definitely enjoyed exploring a different aspect of border collie handling, and I want to continue that to some extent with Ezri, as well as Jadzia and Curzon. However, while I might trial in Novice once or twice for fun, I'm pretty sure I'm not interested in going to high levels of competition, and at least for now I'm definitely not interested in herding in the cold, wet, and messy Northwest winter months. Assuming there is space available, I'd like to take Ezri (and possibly the other two) herding once or twice more this fall, then pick it up again for fun next spring.

But for now, Ezri passed her herding instinct test with flying colors, and has justifiably earned her new title of HIC. Congratulations, Ignited's Ezri Dax FDCh HIC.