Bucket mama

My tall kid? He needs a good swat every now and then.
Group ring on Saturday, he's talking with another handler, Christopher and he motions for me to hand him over his spray bottle and cool towel for Connor. To which, I'm now called the Bucket B*tch, though he did then say that I was actually his mom, but helping out. I swear there are days.....
Guess I should rewind to the beginning of the weekend?
We headed up for our first show weekend of the year. The big St Paul/January Specialties. Typcially, snowy, icy, or something like that. This year, I'm sick with a cold. Oh well, nothing ever goes smoothly.
Load up four dogs, all the crap for 3 days, the Tall Kid and the Ms. Have to remember when packing to leave room for two extra dogs returning with us and their assorted crap. The rule of Tall Kid--I can never come home with more then I left with, exceptions dualy noted.
I think I will take a moment to introduce someone first.....

Woodrose Bring It On aka "Cora"


I have to give ample thanks for the chance to have this lovely little black and white girl from Karen Lyons for the next year or so. JoAnne too for suggesting I call Karen. And yes, you may have guessed, she's the new bride of Eddie. We are showing her - she just needs her majors, health testing and plan to breed her this spring. Much anticipation is already building for this and honestly, I have too many names for the waiting list.
So Friday is the North Star Herding Group specialty. Chipper Shredder aka another Dirty Dozen child, is entered. Originally I wasn't going to go and Alec was going to show Chip, but I totally blew off that he wasn't listed as a current owner of him and therefore could not show him in BBE. So rather then change things last minute, I opted to go and show him. I hate, really hate this age-hormonely challenged 17 mo old boys. UGH! He also decided he wanted to move, like really MOVE. To which I need to apologize to Mac-never did run into her again during the weekend. I had no idea he could gait like that and even with giving Mac tons of room, we caught up with her and almost ran into her. EEEK! I felt like such a heel. But beyond moving like a mad man and hormones, Chip did well-won his class and took RWD to Wanda B's beautiful Tiger.
Also a surprise for me was that Liz came over from WI to show another Dirty Dozen boy, Max. She got grooming space for us and we had a blast! Alec showed Max for her and it was again, a hard choice--Max did well and I think any given day would have swapped places with Chipper.
Cora for her first time out with Alec was awesome, RWB to Teddy's little b/w girl, who has more hair then Cora right now.
Collies ended with another BOV win for Connor, getting him within a few single points of his Silver GRCH!!!! He got pull in the group too.
Friday night-dinner with the girls then back to the motel for a restful(ha) nights sleep.
Saturday dawned with the constant decision, where to park! That's the one thing I hate about this show is parking. Once you get that figured out, the show is awesome. Oh and not being able to walk the dogs outside. But back to the show.
Saturday-early ring time juniors and collies. Oh and pems. Forgot about pems. Yes Shelley, I'm putting you on the spot. We also are showing Cara the pem for Shelley, which when pulled out of the crate on Friday, I went oh no. She's fat--like rolling in it. Seriously not pretty. She's now at Fat Camp and is not happy at all.
Collies--another good day with another BOV win for Connor and now just a few points towards that Silver!
We also got the chance to help show a new to AKC breed-Treeing Walker Coonhounds. Even more interesting was that this breeder, is the foundation of the breed with her grandparents being the original creators of this hound breed. We look forward to showing more for Tricia and Alec's excited to be on the ground floor as it takes off in AKC.
Cardigans rolled around and well, sorry, we didn't share much. After realizing Chipper wants to move, we gave Mac loads more room. Hormones were again flowing and this time the judge and I shared a good laugh as he really was more interested in the afghans in the next ring then me or the bait. The judge was awesome with giving him lots of time to settle once we talked about his "issue" aka girls, girls, girls. We won our class again! Alec went in with Max and won their class too! Then it was on to WD. We made it hard, very hard for the judge. Both boys wanted to play, which made Chip move with his head twisted backwards most of the time. So she took us around seperately, thank goodness. Chip went WD for his first major and Max was RWD. At pictures afterwards she mentioned she thought they were littermates and that it was a flip of the coin as to who won-she just wanted for one of them to make a little mistake.
Alec went in with Cora and easily won WB for her first major. We are all super happy about that win.
Finished out with BOW for Chipper and a chance to relax for the rest of the afternoon. Well that was until Groups and when I had to change my hat to be the Bucket B*tch.
Dinner with friends was great-Barb, Steve, Dawn and her son joined us. Great food, perfect conversation. We delivered eggs to everyone and also presented Dawn with Grace's new bailey chair. Can't say much more-great day, wonderful evening.
Sunday-easy day, right? No that's the packing day. Pem's in early, so was juniors. Then it's the 5 hour wait for collies. We didn't enter cardigans as the judge is predictable as in blue predictable. I could have been a millionaire if there were bets to take on the results of the day. Called every class. And yes we got Select in Collies-the blue dog won. Because it was blue.
Packing - we still managed 2 extra dogs to come home with us, their food and stuff, and had room to spare! Go figure???? Long trip home, nice to sleep in my own bed and sip a hot cup of tea with the hubby while watching Downton Abbey.
It was awesome to see everyone, catch up on what's what and who's who. I'll have a couple more posts on the oddities for the weekend. But now, it's time to relax and get ready for the next show in two weeks. Alec's got an easy shot for groups, no one else wanted to play in smooths for the weekend. Chipper and Cora are both entered, let's hope the major holds. And I swear that Cara the pem will look lean and mean by then. She's so not happy with the diet she's on--keeps looking at her bowl and wondering where the rest of her food is.
Then it's chaos-Alec's hitting shows every weekend in February, gearing up for the Collie Nationals in March/April. And crossing fingers that I'm stuck home whelping puppies :)


Later gators....
C

Reflections

Hoping that you had a great 2011 and that 2012 is all that you hope for!

See ya in the New Year.....
C

In a bahumbug sort of mood

There are days and then there are DAYS.

Forgot I needed to run to the bank across the corner, at the end of the work day. No one else had anything else that needed running, so I grabbed my RED coat, and walked over to talk to Vicki and Sharon.

Sharon's off, so Vicki helped me. We talked eggs, chickens(typical topic) and baking. After I'm done in the bank, buttoned up my RED coat and went to the cross walk.

I waited, patiently, no jay walking this time of night/day. The intersection I have to walk across is one way going away from the down town, with the cross street two way. I was walking across the two way street, with the light in my favor, ie, the white walking dude telling me I can go.

So me and my RED coat, start walking. Traffic on the one way, can turn left on to the two way street.....and it did, as fast as the little white van could go and ALMOST HIT ME!!!!!!!!! And my RED coat.

I had been watching the van while it was waiting for the green light, out of the corner of my eye. I kept it in my limited view as I started walking. How in the world can you miss me and my RED coat???? Well he did and the gal who also was starting to walk across the street thought for sure that the van had clipped me. It did stop short of me, by an inch, and waited for me to move with my hands thrown up in the air and a loud-WHAT THE FFFFF???

You take your life in your own hands walking in the downtown area.

When I got back to the office, shaken through and through, I called the company who owned the van. Luck had it the owner's cartoon face and logo were all over the vehicle. I got an Oh My, we're so sorry. And that was it! Not even asking if I was okay, didn't ask my name or nothing. ustomer Service my foot! Not only did I about have a heart attack, but had witnesses and could have been seriously hurt. I was pissed, upset and really not in a good mood the rest of the evening.

Lesson learned---I need to wear reflective orange as my RED coat isn't visable. I won't be purchasing or using the service dept of that business and well, we were life long customers.

I have though kept a slight sense of humor about it all---I'm taking the skywalks from now on!

Later gators....
C

Fa fa fa la la la la

Update on the non-fluff monster! Thought I would share with you all Jeff Fa Fa's recent de-construction moment. Seems the telephone books at my house weren't enough, he now is into just about anything paper with his new family. Eeek! Sorry Ron and Nancy!

Later gators....
C

Blessings to you and yours'!

The chaos crew at Foggy Bottom--Hubby, Me, Tall Kid and the Ms along with the furry four legged, featherd two footed and very hairy hooved beasts want to wish you and yours' a very Blessed Christmas and a Prosperous New Year!

Later gators....
C

Ears to you!

I love my dogs’ ears. The Hubby always commented about wanting a blanket that felt just like his labrador’s ears. I just love the shape and colors that come in…
Of course there are the “paint brush” ears, we have several of those....
Then there’s the super fuzzy ones….

Non-fuzzy blue... Brindle in all shades...
Red that could be a tich bigger
Sable—wait, those are tipped.
How about hairy tipped ears?
We have also an identity crisis in our house-to tip or not to tip?
Where are her ears? Brother's ears....
Holiday ears...
And just some honkin’ big ears.

Later gators...
C

Eggxalted!

Okay, so here's what they really look like. And yes, that's about a day and half worth or what happens when you collect in the morning one day, the evening on the next. The color of the blue egg is just not justified with the photo.

Later gators...
C