Although I haven’t actually made a loaf of sourdough bread yet, I’m still having fun using up the discard rather than just throwing it out. Today we got to enjoy organic whole wheat/spelt sourdough raisin nut banana 🍌 bread. Mmmmm
What a Difference a Week Makes
Last Thursday (Sep 10th) I moved my seedlings to my Tower Garden. It is now 7 days later and there has been some growing going on.
Filed under Tower Garden
Wildrose Urban Tracking Tests
For the second year in a row I was privileged to be a track layer for the Wild Rose Tracking Club’s urban tracking tests. Donna Brinkworth graciously made last minute plans to substitute for an out of province judge who had to cancel. It is so rewarding to work for a Judge like a Donna who’s love and dedication to Tracking is so obvious. I learn so much from her by studying her tracks, why she chose them and then getting to see a team run the track. On Saturday, 3 of the 4 UTD teams were successful but sadly all 3 UTDX teams struggled from the start flag and were quickly disqualified. Sunday was a day of success for almost everyone. 2/2 UTD and 2/3 UTDX with one team earning their Tracking Championship.
Filed under Tracking, Wild Rose Tracking Club, WRTC
Covid Sourdough Craze
I have to admit I am a late comer to the Sourdough bread phenomenon that has developed out of COVID-19 quarantine. I’m a big lover of sourdough bread but I only indulge a few times a year because carbs are not my friend. Cathie generously shared some of her starter with me. I spent a couple of days feeding “George” making sure that he was happy and bubbly in his new home. Each time I fed him I had to discard part of the starter. I collected the discards and used them to make a delicious organic sourdough chocolate cake. The recipe that inspired this cake called for 1 cup of maple syrup. I was worried it was going to be too sweet but it turned out perfect for me.
Filed under Uncategorized
Ready for the Tower
Just two weeks after seeding, my cute little seedlings have roots poking through the grow cubes so that means they are ready to move into the tower.
I just love the vibrant colours of the rainbow chard stems and how the tiny Merlot lettuce leaves are already turning red.
All the seedlings are now in the tower and hopefully they will produce delicious greens throughout the fall and winter
Filed under Tower Garden
Toppl Day
Spirit had a great morning tracking and Brodie got to play disc dog. Now they get to enjoy a frozen Toppl with a sardine stuck in the middle. Mmmmmm
You VS 2020 August Update
August 31, 2020 · 20:02
We got C-WAGS Mail
Both Brodie and Spirit got some bling in the mail. They both earned their Scent Ranger Level 1 titles. For the first time Spirit actually beat her brother by earning her title with 4 straight Q’s whereas it took Brodie 5 trials to earn his. Spirit also earned her Scent Detective Ace title which required 14 Q’s. Both dogs just love to play scent games.
First mission finished
In order to keep motivated to continue my daily workouts, a bunch of us joined My Virtual Mission to walk the 773km Camino de Santiago. I finished it today, two months early.
I still have my 2020km in 2020 challenge to keep me going for the rest of the year. I’m at 1500+km now with 4 months left
Filed under Fitness
Tower Harvest
Just getting ready to take the tower apart and clean it before replanting it with new seedlings for the fall. We have a jungle of mammoth basil leaves just itching to be made into pesto.
After procrastinating for weeks I finally got the food processor out and made a batch. After harvesting 9 cups of leaves I’ve got enough basil left for several more batches 😫
I’ve started my seedlings. Look at how cute and colourful the rainbow chard is.
Filed under Tower Garden
Hot Snuggle
It is 32 degrees on our deck yet my sweet Golden boy still wants to snuggle on top of me. As hot as I am, I can’t bring myself to ask him to get off.
Filed under Brodie
It’s garlic time
Pretty happy with our garlic harvest from the cloves I planted last fall. Still have a bunch more to harvest but they were planted in the spring so they still have some growing to do. Mmmmmm 😃
Filed under Garden
Rat!!
Brodie and I spent the day at Dynamo Dogsports participating in a COVID safe barn hunt fun trial put on by Badger Barn Rats. It gave us the opportunity to try every level. We passed Instinct, Novice and Open but he false alerted in Senior and Master. It was nice to be back participating again and Brodie loves hunting gerbils (no rats 🐀 allowed in Alberta)
Toss and Fetch League
Last week we joined a disc league. You get 1 minute to throw a disc as many times as you can. You get points for each catch and more points for longer tosses. Poor Brodie tries so hard to catch my wonky throws and he is awesome at running back to me to give me the disc to throw again. Hopefully my skills will improve.
Filed under Uncategorized
Sour Cherry Love
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
Calgary C-WAGS Scent League
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.
You VS 2020 July Update
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
First post COVID SDDA Trial
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.
More C-WAGS Fun
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
Tower progress
We are now overrun with beautiful ripe tomatoes and we have our first strawberry starting to turn red.
Filed under Tower Garden
You VS 2020…we did it!
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
Father’s Day C-WAGS Fun
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.
Sleepy head
My boy sound asleep with a rubber chicken still in his mouth 🤣🤪❤️🐶
Strawberries?
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
Blind Track
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 ❤️🐶❤️.
Planters Finished
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.
You VS 2020 May Update
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
Puppy play date
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 are Sniffing Again
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.
Cheezie Afternoon
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.
