Our small cherry tree ( I’m pretty sure the variety is called Romeo) has given us a wonderful harvest this year. There was a lot more fruit on the tree but the birds love to take a small bite out of lots of cherries rather than eat a whole one. I don’t mind sharing our harvest with the wild life in our garden, I just wish they would share nicely and not waste so many lovely berries
Filed under Garden
Big thank you to Barb Burgess and her volunteers for welcoming us into Calgary’s C-WAGS Scent League. We enjoyed a very Covid safe trial and Judge Kelly Ladouceur rocked it running ahead of schedule. The dogs went 6/6 and we got to try Ranger level 2 for the first time. Pretty proud of them considering it was 30 degrees and they were still able to sniff despite their heavy panting.
It looks like we are still on track to meet our updated goal of 2020km in 2020. We’ve moved up to the top 2%, not bad considering there are 270k participants.
Filed under Fitness, You VS 2020
Big thank you to Samantha Freschette of Canine Coaching and all of her amazing volunteers for putting on a socially distanced SDDA trial. Thanks also to Judges Richard Hatchman, Lou-Anne Lambert and shadow judge Shanna Chynoweth. No Elite dogs titled on Saturday but 2 were successful on Sunday (#4 for Tracy Woroschuk and Max and yahoo Darla your 1st elite title). Although we struggled all weekend, I was so pleased with our final search today. Not because we were successful but because it felt like we were in unison functioning as a connected team. A positive end to our weekend. Thanks to Kerri for the pix.
Another fun day playing C-WAGS nose work. Not a stellar day for either dog but it was nice to be out with fellow dog sports people having fun. Big thanks to Anneli Hilton of See Spot Run Doggy Daycare & Training Inc, our great Judges Deb, Robbi and Christina, the wonderful volunteers and fellow competitors.
Filed under Brodie, CWAGS, Nosework, Spirit, Uncategorized
We are now overrun with beautiful ripe tomatoes and we have our first strawberry starting to turn red.
Filed under Tower Garden
We did it!!!! My wonderful four-legged partners and I completed the UnderArmour You vs 2020 Challenge 6 months early. 1020km in 182 days. Since I need goals to keep me focused I am going to try and complete 2020km by December 31st , that would average out to 5.5km/day 🤞🤞🤞
Filed under Fitness, You VS 2020
We spent this morning at See Spot Run having some fun sniffing. The dogs both did great passing 7 of 7 runs. Spirit earned her Level 1 Scent Ranger title (CW-ScR1) and her scent Detective Ace title (CW-SDA) and Brodie also earned his Level 1 Scent Ranger title.
Big thanks to Anneli, the Judges and volunteers.
My boy sound asleep with a rubber chicken still in his mouth 🤣🤪❤️🐶
I’m so excited. It looks like I have my first strawberry growing in my tower and a bunch of flowers. Fingers crossed 🤞
Filed under Tower Garden
We did our first ever blind track today and I am still flying high hours later. It was 283M and had 2 articles. It felt so weird not knowing where the track went and trying to trust and read Spirit’s body language. There was a cross wind that confused her in a couple of places but she was able to work out the puzzle. So darn proud of her ❤️🐶❤️.
I finally got the last of my big planters planted. Now Mother Nature has decided that we are going to have 3 days of rain and high winds. This may be the first and last time that they look pretty so I decided to take a few quick pictures.
I can’t believe I hit the 800 km mark and I moved up into the top 4%. Baring any injuries (knock on wood), I looks like I should have no problem reaching the 1020KM mark by the end of the year.
Filed under Fitness, You VS 2020
We have a beautiful 16 week old Shepherd cross puppy in our neighbourhood. Brodie and Nala play together so nicely I could just watch them all day.
Filed under Brodie
We went to our first nose work trial since March. It was a C-WAGS trial hosted by See Spot Run Doggy Daycare. It was so nice to be around our “dog people” again. It was a small trial and everyone was very careful to practice social distancing. The host had everything setup so that you didn’t have to touch any surface or door and you could get in, search and leave the building without coming into close contact with anyone. Really well organized. We haven’t done any CWAGS practices and only one SDDA in two months so I was very surprised to see how well they just jumped back into the Sport. The dogs qualified in 6 out of 6 searches. Spirit did a Level 1 Ranger, two Level 2 and one Level 3 search. Brodie did a Level 1 Ranger and a Level 3 search. Big thanks to our Judges, volunteers and fellow search teams for a great day.
Look at all the dogs focused on Don’s cheezie with puddles of drool falling from their jowls.
I love throwing goodies for Spirit to catch. She is such a piggy that she overreacts and misses all the time. Brodie on the other hand rarely misses no matter how bad the throw is. This is a great slow motion video of one of Spirit’s epic fails.
Basil the size of my hand. I’m just amazed at what wonderful crops my tower garden has produced in such a short time. It made for some delicious bruschetta for dinner tonight
Filed under Tower Garden
Well this week we took the 272 half square triangles we made last week and added a bunch of 2-1/2 inch squares to build 34 8-1/2 pinwheel blocks to add to our quilt. It now measures 80.5 x 72.5
Filed under QAL, Quilt-A-Long, Unity QAL
This week Bonnie Hunter took pity on us, sort of. When I started reading the instructions, I gasped out load when I read that we had to make 272 half square triangles. The good news is that we aren’t making any blocks with these HSTs until next week.
Filed under QAL, Quilt-A-Long, Unity QAL
I was so shocked today to discover my first tumbler tomato. It has only been 7.5 weeks from seeding. So far I am really pleased with my tower. I guess the real proof will come when I can taste it.
If nothing else, it is amazing for producing all kinds of greens and herbs. We have an abundance of delicious goodies to choose from each day.
I just noticed that I’ve also got a couple of tiny yellow beans. I guess my attempts at acting like a pollinating 🐝 have been successful.
Filed under Tower Garden
This week’s instructions were so much quicker to complete. The quilt is now changing from square to more rectangular. I should have worked more slowly because now I have to help sand and paint the deck until the next clue is released on Monday. 😉😂😫
Filed under Finish-A-Long, QAL, Quilt-A-Long, Unity QAL
This very, very bad dog went for a dip in the stinky, dirty pond/run off this morning. He is lucky he came home still alive. After his 3rd bath in less than a week, I couldn’t find his drying suit so he had to wear Spirit’s. Do you think he looks appropriately embarrassed?
Filed under Brodie
Bonnie Hunter took pity on this week and gave us a bigger block but we had to make 32 of them. Each block was made up of 8 half square triangles (HST) and one plain square. That meant we had to make 256 HST….yikes! Being the lazy quilter that I am, I chose a technique that allowed me to make 8 at a time.
I had lots of trimming to do to square each one to 2-1/2 inches. It took me 5 days to complete this week’s blocks and attach them.
Filed under QAL, Quilt-A-Long, Unity QAL
I thought last week’s instructions were time consuming (not a bad thing during C-19) but this week’s pieces were even smaller and more tricky to manage. It took me until Saturday morning to complete it. I changed some of the colour placement to bring out more of the soft pink.
Filed under QAL, Quilt-A-Long, Unity QAL
He is lucky that he is loved. I now have a stinky, wet dog and no where I can take him for a bath. He on the other hand is pretty pleased with himself.
Filed under Brodie
3 years ago today I flew to Victoria to pick up a very sweet 8 week old ball of fluff.
Filed under Brodie
Comments Off on Week 1 in the Tower
Filed under Tower Garden
Wow there sure was a lot of cutting and piecing this week. I can’t believe how many hours I worked on the 3 new rows but it certainly kept my mind occupied and my hands busy. I’m so grateful to Bonnie Hunter for all her time and effort creating this Quilt-along to help keep us connected and creative during these crazy times.
Filed under QAL, Quilt-A-Long, Unity QAL
This weekend I added all my home grown seedlings into my Tower Garden. I can’t wait to see how well things grow, I also seeded in dirt some of the same varieties so that I can compare the taste of my Tower grown food with plants grown outside in the garden.
I also experimented with seeding Boston butter lettuce directly into the tower rather than starting them first and adding them to the tower once they have well established roots. I want to compare the germination success to see which method I will use going forward.
Filed under Tower Garden
