Rainy Saturday at home

Let me tell you right now, staying home on the weekend is more work than getting up at 4 a.m. and driving to an obedience or agility trial. I'm exhausted, beat, wiped out, worn to a frazzle and really, really, REALLY want a Mt. Dew right now. But no. I will be strong. No caffeine. How about a nice caffeine free Diet Coke instead?

It was cold, windy and spitting rain when I got up this morning. I trained Phoenix in the hoop building after breakfast. Important stuff first. I think he has the beginning of a nice drop on recall. Yippee, if we can master it by June, we'll do Graduate Novice at the Fort Dodge trials. 

He's learned to retrieve a food tube (one of those View-Tainer things from Mennards that normal people would use to store nails or bolts or whatever. I put dog crunchies in mine. It's perfect.) So when we're training on a dirt floor like the hoop building, I can still throw food as a reward for a fast recall and it doesn't get all gross. Not that gross, dirt-covered food bothers Phoenix but it bothers me. So the food goes in the food tube, I throw the tube, he fetches it back and I give him a cookie out of it. No, he has not figured out that he could crunch down on it really hard and have all the cookies at once. And I'm not telling him.

Then the big chore of the day: cleaning out the garage. I cannot remember the last time I cleaned it out. I may never have cleaned it out (which is pretty much what it looked like). It looked like it had a dirt floor, too, and it has really nice cement floor. Which I found 3 hours later.

Since I was feeling ambitious, I decided to take everything out of C3 and clean her out, too. I tried just rolling down all the windows and going down the interstate at 75 mph but all the dog fur did was blow around in a little tornado and I don't think any of it went out the windows. I vacuumed everything, washed the crate fuzzies, scrubbed the water buckets, dusted the interior and washed the inside of the windshield. Does a vehicle really NEED to be this clean?

I switched out Phoenix's "skinny" SUV crate for a bigger 26" General Cage like Jamie's. Here is proof you CAN fit two 24-inch-wide, 26-inch-tall General Cage crates side-by-side in a 2008 GMC Acadia. I may never get them out again but they do fit. 

The Farmer and Co. started planting corn Thursday but since it rained today, he wasn't in the field. I talked him into putting up my official National Weather Service rain gauge. Okay, it's a $1.75 Wal-Mart rain gauge. But it looks very official, even if it is a bit "farmered up," mounted on scrap lumber attached to the front fence with zip ties. We're supposed to get heavy rain tomorrow, so this is just in time. See that nice big building on the right side of the pic? The one that would make a gorgeous training building? Forget it. That's full of farm equipment too. Where is that man's sense of priority!

About 100 years ago when I was in 4-H, I absolutely HATED sewing. Guess what? That hasn't changed. So there is no telling why I thought I needed to sew a crate cover for Phoenix. It must be caffeine-deprivation making me do stupid things. I'm using two beach towels so there is a minimum of sewing. Since I'm doing it by hand, that's a darn good thing! I want to get it done by next weekend. The Belgians and I and Michele and the Labby girls are going to an obedience seminar in KC. Jamie does fine with just the sides of his crate covered but Phoenix is a little higher maintenance. His cover will have a "crabby flap" on the front and back.

The dogs all got a pedicure and a good brushing out this afternoon. Connor gets a bath tomorrow. He's going to stay with Jen, Spencer, Katie and Bo next weekend while I am at the seminar. God help them, Katie and Connor in the same house, they are both Fun Police Control Freak I'm In Charge and Don't You Forget It shelties.