On the road

Well, look at that! It’s been three months since my last confession… err, post. Oops.

I’d like to have a decent excuse- a secret overseas mission, the birth of new triplets, my enormous Lotto win, but sadly none of these apply. It isn’t like I don’t have any free time. I guess I’ve just been choosing to spend it elsewhere. Like afternoons with Norman (my regular riding school horse), and running.

Yep, I’m back on the road, after more than 5 years and numerous half-arsed attempts- still more penguin than Pheidippides, but we’re getting there.

Most of the time we’re going around the paddocks. The downside to this off-road route is that if I have to take the pram, I’m pushing an extra 30kg through sand and mud and basically, I nearly die. The down side to the other option- running on the bitumenised road- is that I may well actually die, courtesy of the many country vehicles, including huge grain and sheep trucks, that hammer up and down our road. This is a rural area, so the idea of using one’s legs to move from place to place is quite foreign and not something drivers here would expect to encounter. Also, the black plumage of a penguin tends to blend into the background. 

But this is my newest bit of running gear (thanks to the lovely Boss, who really doesn’t want me to die because then he’d have to do all the reading of Hairy Maclary, every single night):

The other obstacle to be overcome in my quest for regular running time is winter, daylight and the lack of it. Generally if I want to squeeze a run in before school and work, I have to go around 5am. In case anyone isn’t up and well into their day by that time, at 5am in May, it’s very dark. Most paddocks have sheep in them (generally rather pregnant ewes at this time of year), and even though most of the dogs in my running pack have pretty good recalls, it isn’t beyond some of them (hello, Mabel! Ziggy! Elvis! Queani!!) to accidentally drop behind in the dark… and meet us at the gate with five hundred woolly friends. Here’s my solution:

Taking a few of the pack out to test drive the new gear was brilliant. Running through the paddocks below the silhouette of redgums against a clear starstrewn night sky, the dogs orbitting around me like huge blue fireflies- I was in heaven. As we went across White Dam paddock on a path halfway up the hill, a car passed along the road about 400m below, slowing abruptly and then crawling along until they rounded the bend, stopped at our driveway- I wondered if they were considering warning us of approaching alien life- and then took off again. I’m hoping we make Today Tonight!

Of course, being able to see the dogs is one thing, being able to see the ground is another.

Some of our paddocks have quite a few rocks in them.

(and yes, I’m aware that with such massive expanses of fluorescent white doubling as legs, my high-vis gear is probably redundant)

Binnaburra Tuff

A rather dodgy clip from my still camera- part of Gordon Curtis and Binnaburra Tuff (Jendara Tuff x Binnaburra Connie) running in the Open Final at Albany. They ended up with an 81 for this run, with 89 in the first round, and won the event. We don't usually have commentary at trials- but this was the Albany Ag Show and there's a fair crowd, so it works as a demonstration event too.

Sorry about the quality- dicky satellite broadband keeps dropping out.

Clippings

At most trials I take along my video camera, and then either forget to take disks or to charge battery or where I packed the camera, so the only video I end up taking is the odd clip on my digital still camera. These are usually short and frustrating as I run out of card room or battery just as the run gets interesting. Or forget to stop filming so I fill the card up with three minutes of grass and sky. Then I never get around to actually processing them on the computer, so they just sit around clogging up my hard drive.

But- today I actually found the collection of short clips from the States, and after I removed all the sky and grass (picturesque though it was), there were a few useable clips left over.

Featuring a couple of R's dogs, as well as Esme's dad, Grassvalley Tippy, and Mick and Moss' dad, Grassvalley Tod:

From My Videos

Andrew Gorton and Boylee Ella, eventual winners of the State Open Championship.
Bell is Esme's mother.

I should have been planting out lettuces...

but it was too beautiful a day. So instead, for the first time in months, we played with pups. Just for a very little while...

JJ:






Elvis:


Tom:








Sulking:


A little vid:

Agility Archives

A few random agility videos from the hard drive clear out:

Midland club trial, 2006

Karen Phillips' Riot running an Open jumping course:


Simone Tolhurst's Raven on the OJ course (this was pre-lymphoma, but I'm happy to say she's just as fast and happy to be out there now she's officially a Cancer Survivor):


Kriszty Cumming's Terra (Bill and Fred's great-aunty) running (I think!) Novice Jumping:


Tom Weir and Brynn, also Midland, Open Agility:


Ash Poli and Bailey at the Canine Centre, 2005:



Ash and Bailey at Northern Suburbs training, 2005 sometime. Nice weave entry, Bailey!



And the Flyboys' aunties show how it's done, ? early 2008:


Terra's earliest trialling days:


Boylee Ceilydh, May 2005:

Rainy days

If you've noticed that there's been an absence of anything interesting on this blog recently, that's because it's been raining. Hard. And hailing. The weather has been completely deranged, which has made farm stuff more than a little difficult. Shearing was postponed repeatedly, and R spent hours putting sheep in the shed to avoid the rain, taking them out in the sunshine to dry off, then rushing to put them back when the sky suddenly turned black. We can fit about 900 sheep in the shed, which is enough for about a day, so eventually the last of the shearing happened in dribs and drabs on the odd days between downpours.

The canola is finally harvested and considering the rain and wind and hail, we didn't do too badly. People just down the road lost up to 70% of their crop, and further south they've had even more rain and hail piled a metre high, so we're counting our blessings.

The oats are still to be done, and then it'll be Christmas and maybe we can relax for a while.

When we haven't been standing staring in bewilderment at the sky, Farmboy and I have been renovating the veggie garden, reading lots of books, and messing around with videos on the computer.

Ta da!

Non-

Warning- these videos were designed to amuse me- J's doting mother, and they pose a significant risk of life-threatening boredom to sane child-free adults.

Farmboy, Bill, Fred and a big red ball:


Scenes from the shed on the last day of shearing:


Esme and the Flyboys- a day in the garden (lawn since mown), with J, Bill, Muddy, Fred, Bella and Charlie:

Trim clip

Tom- video

Fred at Binnaburra- video

Fred at Binnaburra- not his best work, Fred's still a bit stiff from his back injury and Richard was away with the cold/flu medicine fairies, but since I finally managed to get some footage, I'll put it up (excuse the poor quality and editting, once again):

Yarralonga Bella- 2008 WA Novice Yard Champion- video

Pups- video!

Clancy + Spotty are 2 of Tony's pups. We're looking after them (with their half-brother Bart) while he's in hospital, and hopefully selling them. On their 1st time near sheep, they had a bit of a look, so the other day I took them down to the training paddock to see what they'd do.

What they did was pull their leashes off the car towbar, and come over to "help" me get training mob in (I had to sort out some of the quieter ones for them to start on). Since I had a free hand and a camera, and it looked like they were switching on, I tried to get a bit of footage.

Trying again

Argh!!!

Computers and I- not a good mix. How on earth can I convert .MOV files from my digi camera to a format (AVI or whatever) that I can edit with Movie Maker and upload to YouTube so people can actually watch them?

Sigh...

Testing- embedded video?

Shona at Binnaburra