September 9, 2010:
According to my email INBOX it seems that my 'CRUMMY' descriptor of my international shedding prowess did not adequately express how pathetic I was. Will Watkins was one of the kinder people to me...he just giggled.

Now for this week...it's Friday and I have no idea where the week has gone. I can't say I have done anything useful or noticeable around the farm. We did get our silage cut and wrapped....and with 50+ bales of silage on the field, we did get to have a bit of a play on them!

We trialled at Brechfa last Saturday. That's only a few miles from where we live. Sioux managed to squeak into a 3rd placing there but the rest of the dogs drew wickedly awful sheep. We never finished all our scheduled runs as rain threatened and hay needed to be put in the shed before the heavens descended upon us. We raced home to do this and then got busy doing a million other things and never made it back to the field.

The dogs have been out a fair bit this week...just tinkering around really as the trial season ends tomorrow for our dogs. With the silage and hay off the field, a 'regulation' size shedding ring has magically appeared in the middle of the field. When you actually measure out a 'real' shedding ring, one appreciates just how small most shedding rings are at our local trials. Hopefully a pen will magically appear as well...

Today we went to the Hafod Bridge trial to run some South Wales style trials. We've decided to run a few more of these trials as they seem to be good penning practice. Needless to say, I am not very good at these. The rain pelted down all day long and seemed to get worse by the hour. The drive home was slow with flooding all over the roads. This gave me time to reflect on how the heck I am going to convince Steffi to stop EACH and EVERY time I ask her to. Boy can she be a handful at times. She ran well but just when I needed a stop it wasn't there. She will not see a trial field again for a while so I have all winter long to let her know that stop means NOW! Oh, she did manage a wee win which I thought was quite cool since she can only see out of one eye at the moment. She ran into a branch this morning while training and it wasn't until after her first run at the trial that I realized her eye was very sore and almost completely closed in the day light. She looked OK in the truck! Perhaps a vet visit is in the offing tomorrow morning. Meg drew diabolical sheep but her work with the most difficult of sheep still stuns me. If only I could improve my handling of her...Kelvin's Blade ran well and with two 2nd placings, this sees me back on cooking duties. Does Fish 'n chips on the way home count? Day two at the Hafod Bridge trial tomorrow. Perhaps I can turn the tables on Kelvin and, if the sheep gods are reading my blog, please, please cut Meg some slack and let her have some nice sheep for a change.