Why Did the Chicken NOT Want to Cross the Road?

'Cause the road was where the light was, of course!

Last night, just after dark, we got a call from one of our neighbours.  She said she had just got home, and one of our chickens was stood in the middle of the road.  We had seen one on the driveway earlier when we went out, but hadn't noticed it when we got home.  There are one or two chickens that manage to get through the fence along the driveway, outside of our front gate.  Generally, they always seem to get back through before dark.    We grabbed a couple of flashlights and dashed out there.   Our road isn't particularly busy, but cars do go fairly fast.   There is a dead end road that tee's into our road, directly across from our driveway.   Therefore, the powers that be determined that was a good place for a street light, which it is, and we reap the benefits of it.  That piece of road, right at the bottom of our driveway, is nice and bright.  Our chicken was stood in the middle of that bright spot.  We foolishly thought we'd be able to grab her easily.  Wasn't happening.  We tried to herd her off the road into the darker area.  She wasn't having anything to do with that, and kept dashing around us back to the bright spot.  We made a few grabs at her and missed.  I made contact once but was unable to maintain it.  We could see a car coming up the road, 3/4 of a mile away.  We moved faster, the chicken moved faster, we were starting to worry.  I was thinking I was going to have to wave my flashlight around and try to stop the car, which was coming fast.  Thank goodness Larry made a successful lunge, got hold of the hen, and took her back to the coop.  I suppose it's time to add some more wire to that fence.

Throwback Thursday

Here's a couple of 1964 pictures.   There aren't many pictures of me alone.  I was heading off to a birthday party. My mother would have made my dress.

This was our first pet in Canada, the first of many.  His name was Tiptoes, as in 'tiptoe...through the tulips'.  He must have been a cooperative cat who liked to keep the top of his head in the shade.  We had a cat in England by the same name, that we left with my aunt.  With little sister Cathryn (Cathy) and one of my friends, Joan, who was in my class and lived on the next street over.

Calli, Cart, Ball

When we are staying in Oliver we visit the dog park every other day so that the dogs can have a good ball and frisbee session.  Calli had been cartless, and she loved chasing the ball, but her back legs didn't, so she ended up dragging them much of the way.  Last time we were there we decided to put her in the cart and see how that went.  Well, it went much much better, I don't know why we didn't do it before. Slaps forehead...Dah!  The field has a couple of baseball diamonds in it, is nice and flat, we quite often have it to ourselves, what better place to give her in her cart some freedom.  She still managed to tip it over once, but as soon as we got her upright she grabbed the ball and was ready to go again.  When we first started throwing the ball she was running part of the way, but by the time I remembered that the camera was in the truck, she had worn the edge off and was mostly trotting...FAST!   It was exciting to see her run, we haven't seen that for a few years.

After a bit, Jake in particular will start going to the gate (we usually forget to take water).  They know that there is a very narrow creek just past the pool, so if we open the gate they will dash over there and flop in the water, which is much better than drinking out of a bucket in their minds.  We all got a shock this last time, the creek had frozen over, and there was very little water left in it.  We were able to break enough ice to allow the dogs to drink though.

Enjoy!

From Spring back to Winter

On Friday it was Spring.  We did a bit of pruning of the fruit trees, trying to stop before we overworked our crappy shoulders.  I was down to a t-shirt (I always get warmer than Larry when we are working).  I washed all those loads of laundry.  No, our washing machine is nothing special.  An ordinary top loader I bought second hand off Craigslist.

The dogs were chewing on some bones, well Luna and Jake at least.  I gave Calli the best bone.  She didn't care.  We had come back from our walk and she just wanted to go back into her dark hole in the basement.  I didn't want her to.  I wanted her to lay outside in the warm of the sun and chew on her bone.  She didn't want to.  She kept going to the basement door and barking to go in.  We were all outside, and I wanted her to stay out and get some vitamin D.  I have no idea if dogs absorb vitamin D like we do, but I wanted her out there anyway.  Larry suggested we put her in the x-pen.  Great idea!  She never really did chew on the bone, but she did relax and didn't bark about her situation.  After a while Luna realized that Calli had the best bone.  She circled the x-pen and nudged it with her nose a few times, but wouldn't really dare do any more than that  while we were there.

Lunchtime rolled around.  We are always happy to have the excuse to stop for lunch.  The dogs were still outside.  I glanced out of the window and saw this.

Luna had pushed the side of the x-pen in.  She was digging at the outside.  It's hard to see, but the bone is just on the other side of the wire in her shadow.  Then she laid down to see if her pointy nose would fit under.  Not yet.

I managed to sneak out of the back door without her noticing. .

Did I mention what a glorious day it was?:)  It truly was, the birds were chirping, it was warm, we thought Spring had arrived.  Nope.

 The next day, March 1st, came in like a lion.  It was cold, it was windy, my dog club was holding an agility trial in an unheated barn.  A little bit of snow was blowing in the wind.  Snow would flutter down through the venting strip at the ridge of the barn roof.  People were huddled under a patio heater.  The ring crew were huddled in their blankets.  Sunday morning was the worst.  The snow had started in earnest.  The roads were not the best.  People told of seeing cars in the ditch on the drive there.  There was a white strip of snow all the way down the middle of the ring that had blown thrown the vent strip on the roof overnight. Us dog people are a hardy bunch though, and eventually almost all the entries straggled in.  We started the trial late to allow some leeway on travelling times, and then we seemed to get farther behind as the day went on.  I had spent the first hour and a half as the parking attendant, as the parking area is small and we were trying to cram in as many cars as we could.  I figured on Sunday that a lot of people would cancel and I wouldn't really have to worry, but no, that parking lot filled up again.  It was a 12 hour day.

Oh the joys of using outdoor portapotties in the cold.  Umpteen layers seem to make you twice the size, with barely room to manoeuvre in there.  When you're done you pull the first bottom layer up, pull the first top layer down over it, pull the next bottom layer up over that, pull then next top layer down over that, and so on...., so every thing is all nicely tucked in so there are no cold drafts blowing round your back.  Three layers on the bottom, 5 layers on the top.

I was able to run my dogs at the trial.  Jake, well he was just amazing:)  Like someone said, you can bring him out of the closet, dust him off, throw him in the ring, and he just performs.  Neither dog had seen any agility equipment since early January, and hadn't had any serious work since last Fall.  Not that I take agility seriously any more, it's just something fun I do with my dogs occasionally.  We lose our practice barn to the BMXers over much of the winter.

 Jake went 5 for 5.  Five Qualifying runs, with a first, three seconds, and a third place.  Love my little red dog:)  He has now earned enough Q's to get his Silver award.  Two nice rosettes for that, which I borrowed for a photo, and were handed back.   I don't display them, and no point in just stuffing them in a drawer to become more junk.

Luna, well she is a riot to run.  She is kind of crazy, okay a lot crazy on Saturday.  Let's just say we had a lot of fun.  She was the only dog I ran on Sunday, and got 2 out of 3 Qualifying runs, and just one bar down to prevent the third.  A first place in one class for sure, and I think a first in the other.  I don't take any ribbons, and don't care too much about the placements, it is really the 'Q' (as we agility people call the Qualifying runs) that counts.  It is the 'Q's accumulated that allow you to move up in divisions, or receive titles.

Luna was good, was quite social, and only had a couple of small snarks with dogs that 'stared' at her.  An awesome weekend spent with my dogs.

We got a got about 3 inches of snow on Sunday, and then we got freezing rain, just barely freezing.  Thankfully not a lot, about a 1/4 inch coating on everything.  The roads were good for driving home.  The power went off last night, just as Amazing Race was starting:(  A few branches off a large fir tree near the front of the house broke off with almighty cracks.  The power is on this morning.  Unfortunately this snow melt will not be as kind as last week's, with it's sunshine, mild temperatures and NO rain.  It is wet, slushy and raining out there this morning, with rain forecast all week.  The birds are singing though, so Spring surely must be on it's way.

One Fine Day

Friday was a beautiful day.  A high of 10 C or 50 F, sunshine, a nice breeze.  The perfect day for hanging your laundry on the clothes line.

Do your clothes hang high?

Do they reach up to the sky?

Do they droop when they are wet?

Do they stiffen when they're dry?

Can you semaphore your neighbour

With a minimum of labour

When your clothes hang high?

The laundry was drying fast,  I hung six loads out today.  No, we didn't have that many dirty clothes.  I washed mattress covers, bedding, blankets and cushion covers as well as clothes.  The sixth load was the one that broke the camel's back clothesline post.  Not the actual clothesline, which I've had happen too many times, and that ALWAYS happens when the line is full of clean wet clothes, because of course that is when it is the heaviest.  This time it was the monstrous 6x6 treated post.  I pushing the line out, and I wondered about that heavy, heavy cotton blanket, and then there was a crack, and the clothesline sagged.  Thankfully everything was still held up off the ground, and the post hadn't fallen over, probably because it was fastened to the wire fence next to it.  Larry went out and tied a rope to the post and then to a nearby tree to make sure it didn't fall over.  Can you see the post just beyond the last clothes?  I guess 27 years of being in the ground had just slowly rotted it away, and that heavy cotton blanket was the last straw.

Do your clothes hang low?

Do they wobble to and fro?

Can you tie them in a knot?

Can you tie them in a bow?

Can you throw them o'er your shoulder

Like a continental soldier

When your clothes hang low?

Not much left of our snow is there?  Mild temperatures and a good wind has made short work of it.

More snow predicted for Saturday night though:(

Fun in the Sun and Snow

The dogs spent a lot of time Tuesday and Wednesday laid in the snow, chewing on bones.  This afternoon Jake tried to get Luna to play, but her bone was about 15 feet behind her and she is very protective of her food.  The only response she was giving Jake was a raised lip and a lot of teeth.  

He tried again a bit later, and had a bit more success.

I'm taking these pictures from the house, trying to dash from one window to another to get a good shot.  If I went out of the door, all play would stop.  Don't you hate it when you can't avoid getting the junky mess in the background.  

I bow, you bow, we all play together now

  

Jake heading down the driveway to run under the cedar hedge and the rhododendron bushes to frantically dig.  Just something he does when he gets all wound up when playing.  That was the end of Luna's involvement, next thing she was at the door demanding asking to come in.  Luna...demanding?...never:)

So Jake went back and started chewing on the bone Luna had.  I'll show her, he's probably saying.  He's in a blissful state, with his eyes closed...or maybe the sun was just too bright.

Are you talking about me?

Three Day Snowstorm

Well the meteorologists messed up this time.  It was supposed to be raining yesterday.  Oh no, it didn't rain, it just kept on snowing.  All day.  At 5pm there was 13 inches, and it snowed for a few more hours, and then cleared off overnight.  That meant it froze overnight, and then we woke up this morning to this.

Time to take photos and try to capture all that glitter and sparkle.   Sometimes I was sort of successful.

Looking over our hay field and the neighbour's field.

And back at the house.  Look at that blue ski!  We don't often get those brilliantly blue skies.  Being not far from the ocean adds a lot of moisture to our air, and often there is a very thin haze or high cloud.

Jake and Luna had fun.  We didn't take Calli, it was just too deep for her back legs to handle.

It was good to have a trailbreaker with tall boots.  It wasn't very deep right here...

But other places were, and my boots were shorter, just like me, and of course I ended up with wet socks.

A race up the bush field

Looking over the back hay field towards the house.

An 'arty' shot

An icicle hanging off that branch.  The camera didn't like this shot, it didn't want to focus.  I finally seemed to get the settings sorted out, and the icicle fell off the branch right in front of my eyes:)  At least one shot turned out half decent.

The snow had flattened parts of the undergrowth.  Normally we would have been looking through the salmonberry bushes here, not over them.

It was just so darn pretty, although the wind had knocked a lot of the snow off the trees in the more exposed areas.

You called?

It was a tough slog though, I was wishing I could bound through the snow like the dogs.  I'll bet they were tired too, it was hard work, and they went much farther than us.  Some snow shoes would have been handy:)