Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Some Photos from Taj MuttHall Yard

SUMMARY: Spring! Sproing!
Momma dove cocks her head at the camera and tripod and oddball human balancing on the side of the hot tub.
Taj MuttYard has this old dying--well, ok, dead--apple tree that these big old bees just love. Bees bigger than the first joint on my thumb. They never sit still, never, buzz buzz buzz bumble bumble bumble. Need to figure out a better way to try to get a clearer shot. There are Big Black Bees--
and Big Yellow Bees. [Note added later in the evening: These appear to be The bees appear to be Xylocopa varipuncta (Valley carpenter bees), and the male is yellow, the female black!
And sproinging around in the yard--Human Mom is on a quest to get an awesome Tika With Favorite Toy shot. Not there yet, but this is kind of getting there.

Boost helps Human Mom figure out camera angles.

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Friday, March 19, 2010

Some Things You Just Don't Take Photos Of

SUMMARY: Not the best health week ever.
One tries to do what one can to live a healthier life, given that one has exceeded half a century on this earth (could it be?! doesn't seem possible in those terms).

Plan A: Vacation

So, for example, one might go down to Carmel for a couple of days of wonderful long multi-mile walks in the perfect weather. Despite a sore throat waking one up during the night a couple of nights in a row, because surely that's just the change in the weather, maybe allergies.

Plan A1: Beach

Then after one day there, the next morning finding that one's body has no interest in getting out of bed, not very hungry for breakfast. One almost bags it and goes home right away, but no, it's beautiful down there and dammit one is going to follow one's plan and dammit go to the beach again and go hiking again.

So one goes to the beach and discovers that one doesn't have the energy or enthusiasm to go to the other end of the beach after all.

Plan A2: Hiking

So again one almost bags it and goes home, but figures, what the heck, now that one and one's beasts are in MUTT MVR, one might as well at least drop by the hiking park again for a tiny stroll in the sunshine.

So one does that. One finds that sitting down on every available bench has tremendous appeal. One's dogs are a little impatient. One ends up covering maybe a mile and a half, on the level, slowly, before discovering that one is suddenly very grateful for there being a restroom not too far from the chosen path. Perhaps something one ate the night before?

Plan B: Sleep sleep sleep

So one DOES bag it and head for home, an hour's drive, and despite a long night's sleep, one is dyin' for bed, crashes at home and sleeps for 2-3 hours before dragging one's self out of bed to try to do something useful with one's evening. Brain dead tired.

Plan C?: Common Cold

One wakes up still exhausted the next day and the nose has gone into full-time exercise (yes, running), and one is now pretty sure it's a cold, not just allergies. One sleeps a lot despite it being a work day. (So much for that Personal Time Off that one has finally accrued by doing less agility and more work--wasting it on sick days! When one works at home! That's pathetic.)

Making an effort on Wednesday

The next day, one crawls out of bed, still tired, still with a marathon nose, but puts in a full-time day to try to get the clients' deadlines met. Something, er, intestinal is telling one that perhaps one did have something that disagreed with one back in Carmel. Not too bad, just enough to notice.

Plan T: Thursday already, so on with the Chard

And that fatigue, the cold, the iffy digestive system keep one mostly in bed the next day, too, but by the middle of the afternoon, one showers (steam feels good!), washes hands thoroughly, bops into the grocery store for milk and bread and fresh garlic so one can finally cook that Swiss Chard.

Because, yes, in an effort to be healthy, one signed up for a local "CSE" (Community Supported Agriculture) delivery of fresh fruit & vegetables every 2 weeks, and the first box arrived last Friday. Fruits have been good but time to cook that Chard! If one has never cooked Chard before, or even eaten it as far as one knows, and one's renter has never eaten Chard before, one follows the farm's recipe for cooking it. Pretty easy and very tasty! And it's supposed to be very healthy. Even the renter, who's not much into "oddball" vegetables, seems to like it, and one discusses with one's renter how to use the next batch in salads or soups.

Plan ugh: Not what one had expected

Except halfway through, one's intestinal portions give a mighty alarm and now it's really serious. One hasn't been eating much all day, but still, not a happy system. But back to the Chard, finish it (very tasty, a little garlic & a little cayenne & a little olive oil).

And then--one spends the rest of the evening essentially in close personal communication with the white porcelain fixture in the Reading Room. One can't even sit at the computer long enough to read a paragraph. One finally discovers that lying down eases nature's call somewhat, at least longer between porcelain visits, so one gives up and crawls into bed.

Then one and one's renter, also, it turns out, spend the evening and most of the night in turns hurrying to each own's Reading Room, over and over, and then one hears the flushing of the facility, and on and on and on. One catches half an hour of sleep here or there but not much.

Look, now it's Friday

So then it's Friday. One is thirsty. One drinks a bit of water but it is still rejected. Later a little toast; maybe a little better received. Banana eaten slowly over a period of an hour mostly seems to be accepted. Around noon, one makes a bowl of jello that one and one's renter consume cautiously but mostly seems to be a safe thing to eat.

One crawls back into bed after that and sleeps for maybe 4 hours or so, so hooray, one's system seems to be cautiously optimistic about functioning a bit more normally.

So, more toast, more jello, a bit more water, then one has the energy to play fetch with the dogs for a bit out in the yard for the first time in several days.

By 8 p.m., one has successfully consumed two diet soft drinks and several handfuls of pretzels as well, plus a slice of very lightly buttered toast. Who knew how good such simple foods can taste when one is very hungry and very thirsty!

Who knew?

So: Apparently Swiss Chard has all kinds of useful nutrients. Which, when eaten in large quantities in particular to ones who aren't accustomed to it, can cause awful intestinal & stomach upset. (Many web sites, incidentally, point out not to give it to your rabbits, goats, or dogs, as it can cause severe diarrhea. Most human web sites point out how many healthy nutrients it has; only a few point out that it can cause issues. So one thinks that perhaps it's inherent in the Chard itself, not some infection--and one has taken it off the list of things to be delivered to one's house in the future.

Ah, isn't it lovely to live such a healthier life?!

Gratuitous nature photos to expunge mental images of intestinal distress

So, let one leave one with a few wildflowers from Monday, now that one has the energy to sit at the computer for an hour.




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Monday, March 15, 2010

A Few Carmel Photos

SUMMARY: From among the hundreds I took.
I'm so tired, so very very very tired. Beyond just hiking and beaching tired. Don't know why. I think the sore-ish throat I've had since Friday night is just dry air and/or allergies. I *did* cover about 9 miles Saturday and 4 miles Sunday; but still, just drop-dead bone tired beyond reason.

So here are just a few of the photos from Saturday.

Our hotel room, with the stack o'dog supplies they provided us, and the 6"-deep pseudo-fireplace.

Tika loves the beach.

Boot did some running, too. Here, she looks like some sort of heraldic beast, not so much like a Border Collie. Perhaps a heraldic border collie, rampant.

One spot on the beach smelled really good, apparently. Both dogs rolled enthusiastically, then Tika discovered that if she dug instead of rolling, she could find some really excellent stuff to eat, which Human Mom annoyingly put a quick end to.

Tika loved to chase the frisbee. Boost usually brought it back.

After our beach trip, dogs took a nice nap.

After the nap, we hiked for a couple of hours, maybe 4-5 miles at Garland Regional Park. Thirsty dogs discover a new use for the rainwater collected in the Indian Grinding Rock. [why is this photo not showing up? Maybe it's still processing. Will double-check in the morning--]


Around sunset, we raced back to the beach to try for some sunset photos.

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Monday, March 08, 2010

Miscellany

SUMMARY: Musings between agilities.

Tika's fur is SO thick that her feet and legs are like sponges, and particularly the thick hairy bits on her behind. I'm thinkin' that makes her Sponge-dog Hairpants. Am I right?

My not-too inspired-photo for week 9 of 52 Weeks for Dogs:

When we go for a walk, and we encounter grassy areas, I play tug of war with Boost and her leash and allow her to run run run a bit with the handle of the leash in her mouth. She runs 20 feet ahead and then comes back for more tug. (She has never ever ever run out into the street, but I'm very careful anyway.) She now gets very excited when we get to grassland! Because we all get to run and play! And so, singing to her as we go, with apologies to Paul Simon:

We're going to grassland
grassland
In southern San Jose
We're going to grassland.
Doggies and walkers with leashies
and we are going to grassland!
My walking companion is five years old
She is so bored with simply smells
But soon we'll tug and play
And pretend to run away
in grassland!

(Original lyrics here.)

We've had no class for two weeks; been rained out. Rented the field with a friend and her 3 border collies Saturday afternoon and went up and practiced for a couple of hours. Mostly ran Tika just to run Tika. Tried to set up things with Boost where she's ahead of me or I have to push her out or I have to serp her. Bars were knocked. Speed occurred. Progress might have been made. I think just DOING things like that over and over until we get them right is probably good.

At home, have done some desultory threadles and serps. Today took a different approach: Worked on sending them into gambles where they had to keep going straight ahead of me. Not too bad on just jump jump tunnel, but stick a teeter instead of the 2nd jump and things went all to pot. This was good. Good practice at keeping their focus straight ahead.

Then the skies burst into a sudden downpour, although the sun continued to shine brightly. I retreated to the back porch, but continued to send the dogs down to the lawn area to do obstacles for a thrown reward. Rain didn't bother either of them! And revealed again that Boost doesn't know her left from right except in certain very circumscribed situations. I think this was actually an excellent exercise, because now the dogs do not have my body language (good and/or bad) to guide them, just my commands! So they have to listen! AND pay attention!

Again, I think progress occurred and I think I'll try more of that. That continued until I looked up across my back fence--and had to abandon the dogs to race for my camera:

Meanwhile, I am STILL liking the idea of not doing agility. Of course, after our 4-day mega-event Apr 15-18, in rapid succession there are my own home clubs' USDAA trials April 24-25 and May 1-2. See, this is the problem with trying to spread my agility out over the year: The convenient ones and the highest ROI ones are all glopped exceedingly tightly in just a couple of spots during the year, and the rest of the year is empy (that's empty without the hard-to-pronounce t in the middle).

Sigh. I will be VERY tired after those two and a half weeks are over! And probably ready for no more agility for a very long time.

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Sunday, February 28, 2010

Quick Monterey Jaunt

SUMMARY: Photos photos photos

My sister called this morning and said, "We've decided to be spontaneous today!" and I said, "Cool, does that mean you're going to Monterey?"

She laaaaaughed, because of course they were going to Monterey. She asked how I knew. I said that's because that's what you always do when you're feeling spontaneous.

I grabbed my camera (she and her spouse are very patient with me) and we headed out. Scenery was beautiful, clouds were gorgeous, Monterey is always fun. Took a lot of photos, many related to dogs of course, and they're posted on my usual photo site with commentary.

To see them in a slide show, click the Slideshow button in the upper right when you go here:

http://elf1.smugmug.com/Travel/Monterey-Feb-2010/

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Friday, February 19, 2010

Life Outside the Agility Lane

SUMMARY: Walking, photos, funeral--

I've started a standing date [well--I guess a standing walking date] with a friend to go for a bit of a walk-hike Friday mornings to make sure I get out and move. The dogs go with us. These are for our own exercise, so we haven't been taking our nice cameras with us. Today we walked along the Los Alamitos Creek Trail--another one of our urban trails that meanders in a more-or-less natural setting alongside a creek, with houses and businesses lurking unobtrusively on either side.

It was a fantastic section of trail, and only about 5 minutes from my house. Wildflowers are starting to come out everywhere; birdhouses of various sizes are placed strategically all among the trees. We saw tons of birds of many varieties, up to a great blue heron soaring past. Talked for a bit with a photographer with his tripod set-up, poised to snap woodpecker photos, and we had a nice chat about birds and nature and all that. I am going to have to go back with my camera. In my copious spare time. Since I don't take nearly enough photos already. [Riiiiight--]

I missed my 52 weeks for dogs photo last week. Today, with help of aforementioned friend, I went into the yard with Tika and the camera specifically to get this shot:


This was about the middle shot of 30 I took from different angles while the friend baited Tika's attention with treats. I rather like this. BUT a little bit earlier, I was able to snap a whole bunch of "ready" photos of Tika while the renter baited her attention with her Jolly Ball, and I decided that it would be more likely that I could reproduce the ear photo at some later date than the nice ready pose. [Rule is that the photo must be taken & posted in the same week.]


Good thing we got in some photos and exercise today (also did some agility late this afternoon) because tomorrow I'll be gone likely all day to John Nunes' funeral. I expect to see quite a few other agility folks there, but he also has a huge extended family that I've never met, and from all accounts they're all as wonderful as he is. Was. Argh.

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Sunday, February 07, 2010

Bad Dog

SUMMARY: Who's the agility champion?
Here's my week 5 photo for my 52 Weeks for Dogs photo group. The challenge this week was "where dogs shouldn't be."

My notes on the Flickr site:

Places where dogs should not be: Any *good* agility dog knows that one is supposed to go *through* the tunnel, not stand *on* it to get a better look at the squirrels and birds.

Although this one is posed, there is a reason that all of my less-sturdy tunnels in the back yard are squished into narrow oblongs instead of being open circles.

Fortunately, Tika is also an expert at running through the tunnels and has earned her championships multiple times over.

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Wednesday, February 03, 2010

This Training Thing Is Hard!

SUMMARY: Thanks to my friend Sarah for these photos from Sunday's fun match.

Boost is so intent on watching me as I start lining her up at my side at the start line. She'd probably be a great heeler in obedience.

Boost waiting as I lead out. Is this an intense dog or what?

Tika saves her energy at the start line for more important things.

...Like blasting her way up the dogwalk. Too bad that she slows on the down ramp. She's so fast going down at home when I get her revved up. This training thing is hard!


...Or like blasting away from the teeter. She's not superfast on the teeter; jumps to a comfortable tilting point, rides it down gently, then takes off. Always in the yellow zone, 2o2o not needed, but not the fastest ride down. This training thing is hard!

...Or like blasting away from the Aframe after correctly getting her 2o2o. Again, fast 2o2o at home and in class, just trots down to it in competition or flies off way high. This--er--yes--training thing is hard!

Boost sails over the top of the Aframe. She doesn't usually catch some air doing it, but keeps her center of gravity low and wastes no steps. (Here you can really see that streak of gray in my hair above my ear. Good thing I'm blonde and it doesn't show that easily. Yet. In some light.)

I like this one because you can see the wood chips flying behind her, and those wide-open eyes show that she is having the hyper time of her life out there.

Boost's teeter is blazing. She doesn't ride it down out at the end like some dogs; near as I can tell, she rides it down her and uses the momentum of the slam-down to slide to the end as it hits. Some times faster than others. Wish I could get the fastest version all the time. This, sigh, training thing is hard. BUT her teeter is blazing even when it's slow, so of course I don't work on improving it.

Oh, good lord, who trained that dogwalk? Why is she not driving to the end looking forward? That is SUCH a problem that she's looking back at me instead of driving to the end. Training is... well... you know...

At least this time she actually got one foot in the correct zone (ground at end of board) rather than popping off halfway into the yellow to come back and meet me. I was *warned* that if I didn't keep up my drive-to-nose-touch-at-end criteria, I'd pay for it eventually. I hate when they're right and I'm lazy.

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Sunday, January 31, 2010

UKI Birthday Fun Match

SUMMARY: A good time was had by all.
Compared to a regular agility weekend, it was SO much nicer to (a) not have to pack nearly as much, (b) sleep until 6:30 rather than 4:00 a.m., (c) drive half an hour rather than 2 hours, (d) watch the sun rise and the full moon sink (wanted photos but didn't want to stop. Regretting that decision.), (d) be done with 4 runs by noon.

I'm not the best person to comment on the styles of courses; course design doesn't interest me at all; I just like the challenge of how I'm going to get myself and my dogs through in the most efficient way possible, and it doesn't really matter what the specific challenges are. I must say that nothing I saw today looked out of the range of possibility for a USDAA trial (in terms of odd turns or weird positions or that ilk). But all the courses were run on a very small rings; they might have been 70x70 (rather than 100+ square), but I'm thinking they were maybe even smaller than that.

Java Agility has a permanent fenced location set up in one corner of the Swiss Park ("available for rental! Banquet hall!") in Newark. I have no idea what the Swiss part is all about, but the building was pretty cool.

Fun matches are useless for us to work on anything that dogs do only in competition; despite my best efforts, they know it's not real--e.g., Tika did every one of her contacts perfectly. In fact, Tika just kind of glided through the courses, OK, this is fun but not REALLY serious.

Standard agility ("agility") was your basic numbered course with all obstacles but no table. Jumpers is jumpers-with-weaves, different from USDAA but same as for AKC and international. Gamblers has an interesting variation; someone said it's sort of a combination of AKC FAST and USDAA gamblers; I'm not familiar with FAST so dunno. The gamble always has an option of going over the line to do it but for fewer points, which is nice.

Their Speed Stakes is just a Jumpers course like USDAA (no weaves) but set up for speed like a Steeplechase would be. We finished with that and both dogs loved it; Tika even got excited enough once she caught on to what kind of course it was that she zoomed in and grabbed my feet at the end, which is normally an only-at-trials behavior.

Boost knocked bars but her contacts and weaves were lovely. I was trying to concentrate more on having her keep moving out ahead of me and taking obstacles rather than checking in before every one. We had some success with that, but still a ways to go.

Tika waits her turn. (This is my 4/52 in my 52 Weeks For Dogs photo group.)


On the way home, the lighting was so interesting (sunny but muted by faint cloudiness) that I stopped and took photos. These are the mountains east of Newark rising above the NUMMI plant (New united motors), a joint venture between GM and Toyota for the last quarter century that employs 5500 people--until GM announced that they're pulling out, and Toyota isn't going to keep it running by themselves, so in 2 months it's shut-down and outawork.
It's amazing what you can see while standing at a freeway overpass in the business/industrial part of town on a spur-of-the-moment stop to take photos of the mountains.
 
Marsh grasses surrounding a reflective pond.

Purple flowers (duh!).


 
Bird of Paradise


These guys cracked me up. It was clear they were talking about the neighbors.


  
But when they took off, pure grace.


Seagulls may be the rats o'the sea, but they sure do look nice against a bright blue sky.

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Le Deluge -- Part 2

SUMMARY: A wee bit o'rain and even loud noise from sky.

San Jose's average rainfall is about 15" a year. We've had 3 years of drought. This year we seem to be making up for it in an odd sort of way. Like, remember back in October when we got 3.5" of rain in a day?

This week they're saying 5 to 10 inches of rain over maybe a 7-day period in the low areas around the San Francisco Bay and two or three times that in the mountains around the bay area. As of about noon today, we'd had 2" in the last 2 and a half days. Most of it last night and this morning, I suspect.


We have a one-day USDAA trial this weekend. Boost's next chance to complete her MAD (with that one elusive Jumpers Q). We need to be practicing our bar-knocking drills. But--



 
So hoooold on there, Baba Looey, I'm thinnin'--not today! Maybe not all week! A series of storms are supposed to keep drenching us repeatedly through the weekend. It's raining again now. This is also a little scary; we have these "average" rainfall figures, but they're based on just about 100 years of history and who knows whether that's really normal?

There is a street in San Jose named Dry Creek Road. Nice winding tree-lined road below grade along which luxurious homes nestle, alone surrounded by the usual right angle grids of basic suburbia. Know how it got that way? So much rain in a single week in the winter of 1861-1862 that "most of the valley filled with water," and when the waters subsided, the creek had changed course. (ref) We've not had anything quite like that since, although a couple of winters came close. (Read a bit more about that flooding here.) I sure hope we don't have anything like that again, since most of us don't have flood insurance in this valley. No big rivers go through here, just really small ones that mostly you can wade across in several steps.

Oh, sure, Alviso--which has subsided below sea level because of all the water sucked out of the aquifers--floods more regularly than anyone would like, and downtown San Jose, which is right about sea level and right near the end of the Guadalupe where it meets the bay, has had flooding problems off and on. ("The Guadalupe River flooded downtown San Jose and Alviso in 1862, 1895, 1911, 1955, 1958, 1963, 1969, 1982, 1986, and 1995." (ref)) But not the rest of us in the rest of the valley.

Oooh--just had some thunder and lightning! Very rare for this part of California (and most of California). Boom! Dogs jumped up and barked. I did same thing my dad did when I was a child--explained what thunder and lightning are and how they're a natural part of the world and that thunder is loud but harmless. That seemed to satisfy them for the moment.

When the rain quit for a while midday, I stuffed the Merle Girls into MUTT MVR and headed down the road a bit. The air is SO CLEAR around here right after rain! Washes all that grody polluting crud right out of the sky. Climbed to the 5th story of the Kaiser medical center parking garage for some photos.

To the west, Mount Hamilton hid behind clouds but the foothills glowed green in the sun. And look at that stunning blue sky!
 
To the northeast--more or less towards the bay in the far far distance--the puddles in the former sprawling IBM complex are reminders of how much of this valley used to be seasonal wetlands. (Property was supposed to be developed into mixed-use retail & residential; all the old buildings were torn down after a failed fight to preserve the main building as an historic structure (read some here); then--Bust!) The light rail sweeps by in the median of highway 85.
 
To the southwest--oooh, OK, better hustle, the Santa Cruz mountains (coastal range) are still enveloped in rainclouds. And it's moving this way.
 

We hustle over to our favorite park where we can get away with off leashedness. I throw the frisbee a bunch; the dogs are delighted to be out and about and moving, although Tika takes frequent breaks to go exploring. Boost is all frisbee, all the time. When the dogs are far and away out after the frisbee, I can hear thousands upon thousands of tiny crisp pops, of air bubbles rising from the grassy ground as the water seeps in or the tension on the water breaks as it's absorbed--very interesting to hear. Like what you hear on a beach right after a wave has washed across the sand and receded.

The dogs are sopping with rainwater and mud but are tired and happy. (Happy at least til we get home and I have to hose them down. Ewwwww--don't get me wet human mom!)

We get home just as the rain begins again.

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