Thursday 1 July 2010

Seriously???

Yup, seriously!!! This was the temperature in our yard this morning. My first thought on waking up at 4am and seeing the display on my ceiling reading 1C was "MY TOMATOES" . My second thought was "TIME TO RUN DOGS".
I quickly ran outside in a t-shirt and Crocs to roll the tomatoes into the garage. Losing the latest batch to frost on July 1st would be....well...embarrassing, at best!
Back up to the house where I threw on a pot of coffee. By now Mark was stirring. I visited with him while having a cup of coffee and checking emails, saw him off to work, drained the last drops out of my coffee cup and headed out the door.
The dogs and I have been on 'holidays' for the last 6 weeks, but once the calendar hits July 1st we hookup every day we can.
When I hopped on the ATV and turned it on the entire dog yard rose to their feet and started to SCREAM their delight!
I stretched out ganglines and started pulling the 16 lucky dogs from the yard. Jinx, Dasher, Smartie, Tess, Casey, Beauty, Xena, Meg, Crunchie, Jack, Q, Wifi,  Shooter, Pop, Tie and TopDog. Harness came off the hooks and went on dogs. Dogs were attached to the gangline (nope, no necklines!)  and off we went.



Our 'out trail' goes between the puppy pens housing the Brits and the Explosions. It was pretty interesting to watch the two litter react to 16 crazy to run dogs storming by their pen - everyone scattered for their houses EXCEPT for Todd on the Brit side and C4 on the Explosion side. Those two held their ground and watched the team thunder by. Brave boys!!

The run was pretty close to perfect - but that just could be because we were all so excited to get out!


Oh yeah....there was THIS incident....

...but it was JACK - and neither the rest of the dog yard nor I expect much of Jack. He's an enthusiastic and hard working young man but he isn't giving up a career as a rocket scientist to be a sled dog, if you know what I mean!!






You would think the morning couldn't get any perfect!! But it did when Bet and I took the Brits out for a great run!!


By 8am I was back in the house, a second pot of coffee was dripping in the coffee maker and a loaf of cranberry date bread baking away in the oven!

Life is SWEEEEET!!

Karen

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe JACK just needs a little more guidance and understanding then the rest of the yard. His mommy KitKat is smart. Just give him time.

BADASmusher said...

AWESOME! How far did you go and how long were you out for?

Cobey Williamson said...

What a great way to spend your holiday!

Karen Ramstead said...

April,
Three and a half miles. I don't time training runs and honestly have no idea how long I was out!
Karen

Kathryn said...

Well, you need one in the group and Jack must be it!

granimar said...

O-o-o-o-oh Karen, I wish we were looking at those temps. It's so hot, sticky and thunderstormy here. Yuck.
I can hear the excitement from clear down here.

Sherry Sutherby http://russ-stickacres.blogspot.com/ said...

Awesome post and pics. All done by 8 ~ and wonderful bread to boot! That's the way to run one's day! Truly Heaven!

Anonymous said...

Yay! I can tell how excited you were from your blog!

Anonymous said...

Yay! I can tell how excited you were from your blog!

Anonymous said...

How fast do you go when you first start training? Are you helping with the ATV or just putting it in neutral and letting them have at it so to speak?

Karen Ramstead said...

I don't look the speedometer Nanette, so not certain how fast we are going.
I don't help with the throttle and I don't run the machine in neutral. I have the ATV in gear and then can use the engine compression to make it easier or harder for them to pull. At this time of the year, the ATV is usually in 3rd or 2nd gear.
Karen