Calm, Gale, Rain, Hail

Last weekend, the Eugene Yacht Club hosted it's annual Memorial Day Regatta. Summer still has not yet come to Oregon. Cold, winter rains prevail. Over the weekend, racing conditions were very challenging. Winds came from every quadrant. Each weather cell brought it's own calm before the storm.

calm from East

blow from West

calm from NE

funnel clouds to the eastcalm from Southa blast from the SWnot where you want to be, no matter the wind direction

While we were getting soaked and freezing, the dogs were home - warm and dry, gnawing their new marrow bones.

Urban Mushing

Thirty minutes to load the dog cart, gear and the dogs and hook the trailer to the van. Thirty-five minutes to drive to the park. Fifteen minutes to unload the rig, hook up the dogs and get them headed in the right direction. Less than 4 minutes to mush .7 miles. Thus was our first urban mushing experience. I would have gone further but there were loose dogs. I never want to repeat having my dogs attacked while in harness again so we swung around and headed back to the van.
Finding a traffic free, flat place to run the cart is difficult around here. After scouting various options, I decided to try the maintenance road for a large city park. Once the dogs get more comfortable around joggers, dogs and bikes, we have miles of paved trail options from this location.

About 1/2 way I stopped to grab the camera.

I am always amazed at how quickly and how tangled dogs in harness can get when not pulling forward.off and running again
time to load back up

Future trips should take much less prep and pack time. After being attacked while in harness, Willy can be reactive with other dogs. Increasing our distance traveled will probably take several trips until he feels safe and can just enjoy the run. But I am committed to the effort. Chinooks were bred to mush. Ferrari is just too much fun for both the dogs and myself.

Play Date

The dogs resting in the meadow that once was a lawn.Yesterday, Lupin and her human family came over for a long overdue play date. The excited dogs immediately engaged in vigorous games of Chinook tag. While the dogs were zooming around the house, Anna was checking out the agility equipment. She has mastered the dog walk. The teeter is a new addition. To her, sitting on one side was not how the teeter-totter was to be used. Fearless Anna wanted to go on it the way the dogs do. Unfortunately I did not have my camera. Anna convinced her mother that she could walk the length of the teeter. Just as Anna reached the tip point, Klara put the metal dog water bowl on the down end. Thunk!, Bang! Splash! Anna was right, walking the teeter is much more entertaining than just sitting there and going up and down.
Once inside Lupin always raids the toy basket. Klara is quick to follow the search for a new toy. Yesterday, Lupin first found the dog bed full of bones and settled in for a chew. After rummaging through the pile, Klara grabbed her own perfect bone to gnaw. (not!)How I wish I had grown-up like Anna and Klara! My parent's mantra was "don't - you will get hurt". We lived in constant fear of bumps, bruises or worse. My run-away tricycle accident, which left permanent scars on my knees and an almost immobilizing fear of going downhill, was always alluded to whenever I attempted anything adventurous including riding a trike again. It was a pretty confining childhood for a tomboy. Fortunately, I have been able to lead a life of adventure and exploration since leaving home. Though as much as I have tried to overcome it, I still fear going downhill.

Skunk

I now have two swear words: squirrel and skunk. Last night Dave forgot to close the kennel door after powerwashing. Around 2330 the dogs came in reeking. (I have not been able to smell for weeks. This was not a pleasant reentry into the ofactory world.) The dogs had encountered either a skunk or a civet cat and got the worst end of the experience. Two dog shampoo baths and one Dawn soap bath did not alter the stench. The dogs sleep with us, either on the bed or right next to it. When I finished their bathing, about 0045, I locked myself in the guest bedroom and left the dogs and Dave to our bedroom. Cruel I know but I did not leave the kennel door open. My maneuvers sort of worked. The dogs parked themselves outside the guest room door and whined all night to be with me. Of course neither Dave or I got restful sleep but we both got a bed without skunk smell.

rain rinsed, bleached dog towels

I took Willy and Cedar to class which was not really fair to the other humans but the dogs have missed so many classes with me being sick. Stinky Cedar was isolated from the other dogs during the "down stay'. Even the other dogs turned away.On the way home from class I bought a gallon of tomato juice then did a web search of de-skunking dogs. Apparently tomato juice is a myth. Unfortunately the official recipes state: "keep the mixture away from dog's faces". Well, where do you think they got hit?! SKUNK! and SQUIRREL!

"Dismal doesn't begin to describe..."

Yesterday I put on my winter coat, ski hat and tall rain boots to tackle the garden weeds (second full weeding this year) in hopes of being able to rototill once the soil dries out. The local paper, front page, headline read: "Not your imagination: It's been a dreary year" "Dismal doesn't begin to describe the kind of spring we are having...(along with all the rain) Oregon had the 5th coldest April ever logged and May hasn't shown much improvement. The high temperatures recorded were almost 5 degrees below the long-term average...In the mountains, spring is just an abstract concept. Snowpacks, which were barely above average on April 1, now range from 180 to 225 percent normal...The bottom line: 'Don't expect thing to change real soon. I'm thinking write off all of June. I don't think we're going to get any break in the weather until mid or late July'."
Today we put on rain suits over our winter coats. Not able to beat the weather, as long as we would be getting wet anyway, we are power washing the moss and mold covering everything. Several more days of rain and cold are predicted. Hopefully garden weeds won't again germinate before I can plant. Then again, maybe I'll just do the entire garden in the green house this summer - if we have a summer.

A Few Hours of Sunshine

I mowed the lawn less than a week ago, but we have had so much rain, it is once again very long. During today's brief sun appearance the honey bees made up for lost time pollinating all the wild lawn daisys while I set up a small agility course for the dogs. (Poor things have not had practice for about a month. I still have chest congestion and running is painful, but it was good to give the dogs a challenge.)
The greenhouse is filling-up with vegetable starts - some of which have had to be transplanted into gallon pots - and my hanging baskets. The weather is still too cold for the fuchsias and begonias to be hung outside and the garden is still under water and becoming very weed choked.
Rain is again here and is predicted for a few more days but today was good with it's few hours of sunshine.

We've Come a Long Way Baby

I have been waiting a long time for tonight - 249 women received our long. overdue Athletic Letters at a first rate dinner and ceremony in the new, several hundred million dollar Matt Arena basketball court. During 1968-1972 I was on the U of O women's varsity swim team. Back then, women athletes were not acknowledged at all. We had no financial or equipment backing. Heck - we had no equipment except what we as individuals supplied. There were no scholarships. We car pooled to away games. Our facilities were second rate. Our exercise field was the Pioneer cemetery because after the ROTC building was burned during an anti-VietNam campus riot, we could no longer use their parade ground. The swim team swam in a pool that was 5 yards too short, making timing nearly impossible but women were not allowed in the regulation size, "men's" pool. What a thrill to see my name scroll across the arena marquee; to talk with other female athletes; to share in their pride and to walk across the stage to receive my letter.

Boy, Did I Blow It

Monday, Dave used my tractor to help someone. He parked the truck with tractor bearing trailer on the road just beyond the house successfully blocking access to the bee hives and cabooses. When our caboose guest, Mindy, came home, I decided to move the truck/trailer to another location. I put the ramps up and secured them. I made sure the trailer was chained to the truck. The truck started pulling with effort but being a diesel truck, it is always slow to start forward and it had a load. However, after about 4 feet forward, I knew something was not right. Dave had just put rear jacks on the trailer. Not expecting them, I did not notice that one was down until I had a 4" trench in the hardpack, gravel road. Whoops! Mindy and I dug the jack out and tried to make it go up but no luck - even with a bigger hammer. Plan B - just deflate the truck airbags and the front end of the trailer will go down, lifting the rear and pressure on the jack. Still did not budge. Plan C - take the tractor off the trailer to take the pressure off the jack. Tractor battery was dead, thus the reason Dave had left it on the trailer. He was going to take it back to the repair shop because even after two, spendy service attempts, the battery still does not charge with the motor on and drains charge at an alarming rate. Plan D - make a nice dinner for Dave.

Needless to say, Dave was not happy when he got home. To compound the problem, Dave had burned up the truck air compressor on his Monday errand. (Something I did not know.) There is no way to re-inflate the air bags, thus there is no way to lift the trailer tongue to set the front jack so the trailer can be removed from the truck. A battery charger and long extension cord got the tractor charged enough to get it off the trailer and relieve the pressure on the rear so the jack could be straightened and raised. The truck/trailer is now moved out of the way and is ready to go back to the tractor shop for a battery charging fix and the truck shop for a new air bag compressor. Of course by this time, dinner was a bit overdone. Yea, I blew it.

Walk in the Park

This morning I bundled up (it froze yesterday and snowed the day before) and took Cedar to competition obedience class. It was raining hard and cold. Fortunately the park has a nice shelter we can work in. When the rain stopped, some of us took a long walk for the humans to check out the flowers and newly hatched goslings and the dogs to check out every bush and tree.The rhodys are just starting to pop. Soon these paths will have walls of flowers.