Squatter's Rights

We've been waiting impatiently for an opportunity to take the new trailer out. The May long weekend is a very "traditional" camping weekend, but the thought of going to a campground with every other Albertan when we have great trails, a fire pit, and no nearby neighbours, just wasn't that appealing. So...we filled the trailer up with water, packed up essentials... and picked a nice spot in the yard to park. Really it was the best of both worlds - away from the hustle bustle (no tv, no phone, no laptop) but close to home (literally!) if we needed anything.

Here's a rare shot...

A picture of me! Here I am preparing to kick Travis's butt at Backgammon AGAIN...

The boys quickly settled in to "camp life"

" We LOVE roughing it!"

In case you're wondering where Kate is, she decided to come into season a couple of weeks ago so she spent the weekend in purgatory (her run) rather than cooped up in a wee trailer with two very eager boys.

Spring cleaning

It's that time of year. Time to tidy up the yard and get things ready for summer. Summer's pretty short around here so let's face it, we like to make the most of it - there's no point in wasting time.

Now that we have sheep our "yard" has grown considerably. Yesterday we were able to borrow Eve and Bud's tractor ( I don't even like to think about life before Eve and Bud's tractor) to essentially clean up after the sheep.

This is a bit of the mess - essentially it's a dinner plate (left over from a round bale) that needs to be scraped.

As always, there's a huge grin on Travis' face whenever work involves the use of a tractor. It's definitely a guy thing.

I wonder how long it will Take Travis to figure out that while I'm taking pictures for my blog I'm...not...actually....working.

As you can see, the sheep found all of this very stressful. So stressful that they had to come over and hang around/supervise.

Travis was in charge of the tractor. I was in charge of another very sophisticated, highly technical piece of equipment - the pitchfork. Please note that unlike the last blog my truck was featured in (with the trailer) it is very spiffy and clean in this shot...except for the huge pile of crap in the back.

Bruce had to help out.

by bringin IN as much spring as he could possibly jam on to his hairy body.

This blog's not really finished. I need to go out and get a shot of what I've privately (I guess it's not so private) dubbed the Poop Pyramid of Meanook. It's quite impressive in a "oh my god sheep are wasters!!" kind of way.

It's a dry spring.

A dry spring with high winds is a bad combination. There are all kinds of fires burning in the province right now.

This afternoon the smoke started rolling in.

There should be hills back there.

The fires are no where near our place but needless to say we're hoping for rain.

Pictures from the trial

...or not.

I had the best of intentions, really I did. However, when I finally remembered to drag my camera out on Sunday to take some shots of the double lift I quickly realized that while I had remembered to bring my camera, I had forgotten to take its memory card out of my laptop.
So...I'll try harder next time.

As for the trial, the weather was great and it was wonderful seeing everyone and their dogs again after a long winter. Hope and I took first overall in Intermediate and we held our own in Pro Novice. We started a bit on the pushy side at first but by the last run we'd settled into our groove and I was pleased as punch with him. Louanne has some pretty big brags of her own so check out her blog. I'd say this weekend was a great start to a good trial season. Next up Paxton Valley at the end of the month.

Let the games begin!

Hope and I are off to our first trial of the season. We're heading down to the Carlton Creek trial just east of Airdrie. After a long winter hanging out with the dogs THINKING about trialing, it will be great to finally get to hang out with everyone and actually DO some trialing.

I've packed the camera and hope to have great tales to tell when I get back. Wish us luck!

Interior design

Lots of people throw an afghan over the back of their couch.


We apparantly prefer to drape an Australian Shepherd over ours.

Our new little "home away from home"

Last year I originally planned to go to ONE trial. Instead I went to MANY.

This year Travis would like to spend the occasional weekend with me, so the solution was obvious.

Sorry about the muddy truck - that's just the kind of weather it's been lately.