Masters Q ..... Not Quite Yet

Yesterday, Beckett, Tucker and I went to the Absolute Agility Trial in Spencerville which is about an hour away from home. It's a nice place to trial as the crating area is big and heated so that's why Tucker came along as a spectator. The facility is located on a fairgrounds and as the weather was very nice, we also had fun roaming around and playing Frisbee.

Beckett was entered in five events, two Standards, one Gamblers, one Steeplechase and one Jumpers.  In his first Standard, Beckett had two refusals, missed his weaves and had an off course which led to an elimination. In Gamblers, our opening was nice and we got 33 opening points,  you need 28 points in Masters Gamblers to Q so we were all right there. The mini gamble was tunnel, A-frame, tunnel  layered with the weaves. The A-frame is kind of our nemesis right now so we didn't try it as a mini just ran the obstacles. We didn't get the main gamble which was tunnel, teeter, tire, jump; again the tunnel went under the dog walk and you had to turn the dog nearly180 degrees back onto the teeter which was just past the entry of the dog walk.  I hesitated as I didn't want to turn Beckett too soon and he missed the teeter and once he came out too far, I couldn't get him back. Our Steeplechase was nice but two A-frames caused us to be over time. Jumpers at the end of a long day was kind of a train wreck but he did do some parts of it very nicely.

Masters Gamblers - Judge: John Willis

Our best run of the day was the second Masters Standard. Beckett ran beautifully. His turn into the tunnel after jump 10  and 16 were incredible. From my perspective (although you can't see it in the video), he turned into the tunnel at the last possible second. I'm not sure how he even did it and stayed on his feet. Unfortunately, he didn't collect enough in the weaves and hit the third pole and popped out. I didn't notice at the time that he back-weaved, I thought he had skipped a pole, so erroneously posted on Facebook that it was his first non-elimination Masters Standard. But that's okay, it was a great run and we'll get those Q's sooner than later, I'm sure. He had a time of 64.19 seconds on this run with a course time of 66 seconds, so with a faster A-frame and a good set of weaves we would have been well under time.

Masters Standard - Judge: John Willis

Beckett - Masters Standard

I'm very happy with Beckett, he loves to play agility and he's great fun to run. And he does make me run.

True Colours - Terra Cotta

Fredericton City Hall Collectible

Okay, this week's colour was a little difficult. I thought I would have lots of terra cotta since I like earth colours but I didn't find many items around the house.

The first item really might be considered brick red but what the heck. It's my Katherine Karnes Munn collectible of the city hall in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

City Hall, Fredericton, New Brunswick

The next item I chose is a painting I got from what I call "a starving artist sale". It's a one day art show and they have all kinds of canvases painted by art students. You can also buy frames and they will frame the painting for you right at the show. The frames usually cost more than the paintings.  Most of the oil painting I have in the house come from shows like this.

I liked the painting because it was of horses. Also because the painting style was unique; the gold outline around the horses and warriors is all raised like embossing. But best of all the colours tied in the new fire place mantle and stonework that I had just had installed.

 

Lastly, there was the twist. I thought I had a terra cotta pot and I did, but as you can see in the picture that pot is no longer terra cotta in colour. I had to go to hardware store to buy a terra cotta pot. They are cheap but not a lot selection in mid winter. What to put in my terra cotta pot that was unusual. Can you guess what they are?

Did you guess? They are my collection of glass swizzle sticks. I have 13 different pairs, coke bottles, Scottie dogs, top hats and candy canes just to name a few. They are hard to find now as more and more people drink wine or beer, so usually what you find are wine charms or those elastic bands for beer bottles and vodka coolers.

I had fun with the challenge this week.

Pet Photo Contest

Iams Christmas Pet Photo Contest

I registered Tucker and Beckett in a photo contest. If you register and provide some good feedback on our photo, we can win a Valentine's gift basket.

I think our picture is more Christmassy than many of the others. I think we have a good chance.

Snow and Ice

So far this winter has been rather messy, to say the least. It started out rather nice with no snow to speak of until right before Christmas. After Christmas, well that's been another story. I don't think we've had a weather event that wasn't a mixed bag of precipitation, snow, freezing rain, ice pellets and everything in between.  I scraped off one layer of ice off my driveway this past weekend only to reach the first layer of ice. Luckily I don't park in my driveway, I put the car in the garage so the driveway is pretty evenly covered with packed snow and ice. For those of my neighbours who do park in their driveways, there are craters where the cars are usually parked.

It does make for some interesting and beautiful photos though, even if they never turn out exactly how my eye sees them, I'm sure you can use your imagination a bit.

Sunlight on the ice covered vine in my backyard

Branches covered in ice, when the weight is too much it can break the branches and sometimes even kill the tree.

Christmas ornament caught in ice like a fly in amber.

Another shot of the tree and Christmas ornaments covered in ice and snow.

My neighbour's Christmas wreath.

A view of one of the maples in my backyard.

My 4 foot, artificial tree, the snow is REAL!

Cedar hedge covered with snow and ice.

 And what is the weather right now? Well today we had snow, probably about 2 inches or so, not all that much really; but tonight, it is supposed to warm up and there's a weather warning for freezing rain and ice pellets. What else is new. I left the snow in the driveway and on the back deck; if we do get freezing rain, it will be much easier to shovel or snow blow with a layer of snow underneath it.

And it's better to get the nasty weather during the week and hope for clear skies on the weekend as the winter agility season begins this weekend. Beckett will be in his first trial where we will compete seriously at the Masters level, or at least I hope we will. I know he'll try hard, hope my handling is up to it.

Bathroom Makeover

I've been buying faucets, shut-off valves, a new shower head, a toilet and new counter tops slowly over about the last year so that I could do a mini renovation primarily in my main floor powder room.

    Old sink, faucet, counter top and toilet

Initially I had asked a neighbour, who is a plumber, if he would do the work. He told me that he could do it around the end of November but things didn't go as planned and he wasn't able to fit it in his schedule. So right before Christmas, I contacted a friend of my brother-in-law, who is also a plumber to see if he could do the work in January. Marco came on 14 January to do the work for me. I had to go to an agility fun trial so I left Marco to do the work with Tucker to supervise. I expected to see the work done when I got home. I was disappointed when I got home, the toilet and sink for the powder room were still in the garage. In the kitchen, there was a note from Marco. He had taken the old counter top off and was getting ready to cut the hole for the sink when he noticed the laminate was lifting off the new counter top. He took it back to Home Depot, luckily it had a number on the underside which showed it had been ordered through Home Depot so they took it back to have it redone.

The new toilet, I know not very exciting.

Marco called this Friday night to say the counter top was in and that he would be back on Saturday to finish the work. He had already come back on  the 21st to install the toilet so all that was left was the counter top and sink.  There still was another little problem when the piece of chrome pipe to connect the sink drain to the ABS plumbing was too short, so Marco had to go off again to the hardware store to get a longer piece.  But after resolving that last complication, my mini make-over of the powder room is nearly complete, just have to do the touch up on the paint as the back splash on the new counter top is lower than the old one and we didn't install a side splash.

I love the new sink and faucet, so modern.

I think it updates the bathroom nicely without a huge cost. Now I'd like to finish the main bathroom which still has 1980's tile around the tub, yuck. And it sure is nice to have the space in the garage back, now that the toilet is out of there.