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

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
Sniffing Time
Another great day at See Spot Run doing C-WAGS nosework. Thank you to Anneli, our Judges and the wonderful volunteers. Both Brodie and Spirit Q’d in Level 1 Ranger and Level 3.

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
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.
Basil from my Tower

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
Week 7 Unity Update

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
Week 6 Unity Update

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
Tower Garden Update

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