October 13, 2010: Well Blow Me Over

From Bowl me over to Blow me over...a wee tornado f0 or f1 hit our patch last week taking down several beautiful (and big) oak trees, and decimating a small private forest. Our road was impassable for a day although the herculean efforts of two council employees soon saw the road open in time to get the milk trucks through. One could not call BT's efforts 'herculean' in fixing the phone line that was downed by the trees. For us, a week without phone or internet access is not the end of the world but for the older folks who live close by, a telephone is vital especially in emergencies. For the most part, our valley has no mobile phone service. We are amongst the lucky few as we can run a wee way up the hill for access. After Kelvin's call to BT, service was restored fairly quickly!

It's amazing how much time one spends with dogs when the internet and phone are not working! I even read a book The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Loved that book...except I had figured out the ending about half way through. Well worth the read, though.

What happened while we were disconnected?
- the Chilean miners started being hauled to safety. May all come out safely.
- The Commonwealth Games track and field meet has been and gone. Tesco was getting fed up with me standing in front of their TV.
- Mike Hemmings found an excellent excuse not to pay up his outstanding Baileys debt. A wee hospital visit isn't going to get him out of that!
- JR is back (welcome back! See you at the Three Counties Trial)

We're still getting caught up on current events and world news. You see, we use the Internet not only to surf but for news, weather reports, music, sports and the odd TV program (I am hooked on the Swedish crime program, Wallander, which is in Swedish with English subtitles). The things I missed the most were the news and weather reports! Dear Santa, I want a radio for Christmas! (a good one because I like world news).

We are in the middle of an 'Indian summer.' Ever wonder what this term means. Well, I wikipedia'd it and it says "An Indian summer is a meteorological phenomenon that occurs in autumn, in the Northern Hemisphere. It is characterized by a period of sunny, warm weather, after the leaves have turned following an onset of frost, but before the first snowfall." SNOW!!! Aw, shoot. Oh well, for now we will take these last gloriously sunny days while we have them...and they have been glorious. Hot even...and another one in the making for today.

We were out trialling on the weekend. Saturday I went to a nursery trial...we won't talk about that coz it wasn't pretty. Learnt a valuable lesson...don't school a young dog too much before a trial. (Oh, and don't lose your temper...). Enough said. Steffi gave me a second chance on Sunday at the Aberglasney nursery trial and we did better...still not super, but better. I was particularly pleased with her shed and pen. It wasn't perfect but Steffi was trying hard, while I was making a mess! Oh well, we finished. I am still undecided whether I will continue to run Steffi in the nurseries as I feel she is not quite ready. We'll see... I've lost the schedule for the trials so perhaps that is telling me something!

Sunday also saw the qualifying trial for the Three Counties trial. Kelvin had a very good run with Tina except for a miss at the cross drive gate. Meg had a goodish run hitting all obstacles but with line deviations here and there. She was running hot after a rest and hard to hold! I once again struggled to handle her properly. Still, I was thrilled with her shed and pen. I also ran Bee for the first time since early June and I could not have been more thrilled with her. Her shed was terrific as she came into a small gap and held the sheep decisively, and then penned well also. Bee has only just turned 2 and had she been nursery eligible, she would have won the nursery trial by 2 points (she is ineligible for the nurseries because she already has a string of placings in Open trials)! I am looking forward to training Bee on over the winter. Next year, Kelvin will probably run her in Open. In the meantime, Bee will take Meg's place in the Three Counties team (even though both Bee and Meg finished in the top 12, in Carmarthenshire we are not allowed to run two dogs in the Three Counties trial so Bee will replace Meg. BTW, I agree with this entirely as it gives 12 different people from our league the opportunity to run in the Three Counties trial).

Oh, and if you are wondering...I did have to cook dinner for Kelvin as he finished ahead of me on OLF (and is still laughing about that). Thankfully friends rescued me again as we were invited out for dinner on Sunday night. Pork spare ribs, chicken, veges, bread and butter pudding. I couldn't have done any better myself. Debt paid! Off the hook again.

Not much on the go this week other than a bit of training and fixing fences. We managed to get some fences mended on the weekend after we raced home from the trials. But with a dozen new lambs here, the fences will not doubt be put to the test again...until we teach these babes not to run as fast as their legs can carry them away from the dogs and into any perceived gap in the fence. Jamie has the task of slowly getting the lambs fit enough to train on. At the moment they can go about 5 minutes... this is because they go in 12 different directions, head down, full throttle! They'll learn. Our lovely two ram lambs have found themselves some girlfriends and they look pretty pleased about it too.

Off gathering...who's going to get the nod this morning? Jamie, of course!