It's been a busy few days. We had a nice get together at Sif's when she was hosting a party and got to catch up with everyone! It's been ages! (And yes, Cami came with... and snuggled on my lap all day.)

This weekend, Saturday was the Victorian Waterfowl Associations show and it turned out to be a nice show and of course lovely to catch up with friends old and new. Some others had very lovely birds... I totally fell in love with this adorable little call duck of BB's... very unusual colour and they're so TINY... about 1 lb I think. I told him to clone her so I cna buy some! LOL

Today was an poultry auction at Euroa. I ended up getting 3 lavender pekins and a trio of OEG bantams. Foggy morning up through the mountains... and after a great day buying and catching up (some of you may have sussed out gabbing is my favorite passtime) we wandered back doing the tourist bit in my favorite spots at Strathbogie, Alexandra, Cathedral Ranges State Park and the mountains coming up towards Healesville on the Maroondah Hwy. Now of course I do have a widdle-bitty puppy who needs meals 3x day and I could hardly leave her kenneled all day. So what to do? Well... to be honest, she was carried around all day, both days and took it all in stride. Really, I think she must be one of those little chihuahuas you see rich people carry in their purses! Put her down and she'll play or follow you but pick her up and she's happy as a clam there for as long as you like. And when I needed both hands...

Yes, she snuggled down in Laurent's sling. LOLOL She was comfy as could be and alternated between watching and snoozing. Lots of compliments to pass on to Kate on what a well behaved and clever pup she is. (She knows sit and potty on cue, this is amazing to many people who aren't used to clicker training!)

And a couple from our return trip near sunset...

Saturday was Miss Hope's birthday... one year old! Doesn't seem that long since I was checking my computer every few seconds for news of the litter's birth and crossing my fingers for a little black tri girl. For that matter, it doesn't seem that long since I was about to burst waiting for her to be brought out at the ASCV show to come home!

It's been such a busy year and I can't imagine life without her - she's my babydoll, La's bestest friend and sister and Nic's sookie-sookie-nutbag. She is one of the sweetest and most joyous dogs I've known. She was such a dear little soul and that's been something that's followed through into her adulthood... above all else, she's a love, sweet as the sky is wide. We were entered in a show at Geelong but with the state of her coat (or utter lack of it, she looks more sable than tri at the moment) as well as general tiredness, needing to get things done around here and finally getting to pick up my cockrel on Sunday in Benalla (a solid three hours each way) I was way too buggered to get up that early! Poor Hopie, might have been nice if we'd won on her birthday! There was a big genetics testing thing too which would have been two birds with one stone but water under the bridge I suppose. Hopefully it just means that by the time her second birthday rolls around, she's filled in, her chest has arrived and she can strut out and do well!

Sunday we FINALLY, FINALLY after how many months got the cockrel! The fellow I bought him from is probably the best breeder of them in the country, he was showing me all his awards and at the Centenary show he took literally every ribbon and prize in the show for hen, pullet, roo, cockrel, pair, colour, breed and show. He's been breeding and showing for fifty years which is pretty amazing in and of itself to say nothing of having hands in creating a number of clubs, books etc. He and his wife were just so gorgeous, you couldn't want to meet nicer people! He took me around and showed me all his birds, showed me more of what to look for in pairing them and selecting which chicks to keep etc. My hen and pullet trace back to him apparently as well so he reckons they should work real well together with this boy. His wife was also the sweetest, warmest person... she's very crafty, does cake decorating, cross stitch, crochet, organic gardening, beautiful flowers in their garden and loves gardening etc. They'd started out in Doncaster and moved out to the country, slowly fixing up their old house. They loved period homes and didn't care for modern ones. It was so funny to find there was so many similarities! I told Nic on the way home it was so gorgeous seeing how much they loved and supported each other. They had nine grandchildren over the previous day, it just sounded so lovely having that big family get together and I told him I hoped it would be like us in the future.

As for the cockrel himself, I'm prejudiced of course and think he's absolutely gorgeous to watch strutting around and showing off! Hopefully now I'll get some chicks... my hen has just come back to lay in the past two days so I've told her to get busy! LOL My friend who bought bantams of the same colour and breed on the day I got my girls already has her first babies out of them!

Front shot - you can't see it very well but the black on his chest gleams an irridescent green

A better example of his colouring, very gorgeous boy!

After picking mister chook up, we went to Euroa and geeked around, stopped at the cafe, the local nursery where we got some more plants (this is a thing we've been doing, bringing back plants from all our weekend get aways and vacations as living momentos) La was really chuffed to be sitting in a regular chair at the cafe and thought it was just WAY too cool!
We also found this pretty little pull-off with a walking path that we went on. Nic snapped htis one of me watching Laurent pick flowers... probably the only photo I have of just myself, without a dog or baby or both in it!

He also snapped these two of La sharing his flowers he'd picked with me, telling me, "pretty purple trees mum!" (Well... close La! Not quite but close!)

It was near to a cemetary, which had the old ornate celtic style crosses. It was very pretty but rather sad as up against the fenceline was a bunch of graves from 1900-1920's belonging to small babies, 10 weeks old, 4.5 months old etc. One where the mum died in birth and the baby at 5 weeks old. It made me think of how lucky I am, I never had to routinely worry about my babies probability of seeing his first birthday you know or how many children I'd loose before they reached five. My biggest worry is if I'm parenting him in a way such as to nurture him to become the fullest expression of himself and self actuate. Such worlds of difference. It must have been so hard for mums back then!

Feeling a bit sad and very lucky, we went to the park and had a bit of a walk there near the river. Such a lovely little park and a nice place to reflect and talk.

The rest of this week, we've just been pruning trees. Yes, I know I've BEEN doing this for weeks now but look at what I'm up against!!!

These trees are taller than the house by a bit and not pruned in gawds knows how long! The only thing that gets left out of this mess are the actual trunks. The rest of those are SUCKERS and dead-wood that need removing!

To give an idea of difference, this is what a rhodenderon looks like AFTER it's cleaned up of endless suckers and deadwood! (Actually the one thin limb starting in the left and crossing over to the upper right still needed removing in this one.)

Heh. Here's another "before" shot! There is so much dead crud in here, stuff that needs thinning etc that the trees aren't actually blooming and they're killing themselves.

And another, this tree is also bigger than the house and longer than the car. It is one massive thicket of suckers! Our ladder reaches about halfway up what is shown in the picture. (Not including canopy which is out of the frame.)

Ditto for this one!

Each of these trees that we've done has been like these ones and each has taken a good 2-3 days of first pruning out the suckers, removing all the debris, the dead/useless branches, trimming out the medium sized branches that are under the canopy and not going to do anything but suck energy from the tree, remove large dead limbs etc. including climbing (in harness!) where the ladder is too short!

And the new kid is....

Sorry for all the suspense everyone, while on the road I wasn't able to get myself to an internet cafe as we were too busy either talking dogs or being tourists! My connection has been acting up all day today as well - too much rain and wind I guess!

To keep anyone from keeling over having to wait any longer however, I'll say who our new kid is and then ramble on about the rest! *VBG*

Short story: Verity, aka Cuebiyar Dream Come True, who is also Hope's half sister through their dam has made the trip down south to join our family.

We drove up to Greta, NSW which is in the Hunter Valley on Tuesday. We got a late start after a certain Bunny Lala snurched my keys and hid them very, very well! It took us 3 hours to locate them... in my knitting yarn. *sigh* At any rate, we loaded the dogs in the trailer and headed off. It really is a gorgeous trip and there were so many places I wanted to stop but since we wanted to make good time and Laurent was sleeping, we decided to keep driving as long as he slept.

Traveling with a not-quite-two-year-old had me questioning my sanity but he slept pretty much the entire way through. He woke up a few times, we grabbed a bite to eat, walked and watered the dogs and after a few minutes of playing "I Spy The Cow/Truck/Sheep", off to sleep again! Anyone who knows La knows this is REMARKABLE! LOL As it was we got into Lochinvar at 10:30pm, took care of the dogs, grabbed a bite to eat at the pub and crashed. Just before we got there however we came up Kinta Drive! LOL (Figured you might get a kick out of that Amanda!)

This is the view from our motel.

Nic and Bunny Lala - up in the air!

An ibis I thought was pretty... whole flock of them actually but this one was closer to me.
The next day I got to meet all the dogs and spent plenty of time talking about them and watching videos. Could have done that endlessly!

Sierra and Hope in the field near the motel. For anyone wondering, yes, Cade was with us but his prissy little IG self doesn't like to get cold, wet or in the wind so he was comfortably perched in the car, on a blanket, in a sweater! Same with most of the other pics which were quite chilly!

Meeting Tilley (Hope's mum) confirmed why I love the McMatt line so much - great temperments and big love-sponges to go with their good looks. As you can see, she's got no hesitation in making herself quite at home in my lap and getting an ear rub! LOL I tried to sneak Tilley into my trailer but no luck! ;-p Courage, Hope's sire is the same - beautiful temperment but was elsewhere with his other co-owners this visit so I didn't get to see him.

Rush (Hope's half brother, Verity's litter brother) whom (didn't get a pic of him while there) is also a lovely boy and much filled out from the last time I saw him! (Go figure... it's only been several months!) He is a gorgeous friendly boy, in my lap and giving kisses the big love bug... reminds me a lot of Hope in temperment, he just wants loving, loving and more loving and thinks everyone adores him! LOL

Ditto was the suprise... having not seen her except in pictures I wasn't sure how closely they'd look alike. They are TWINS... seriously very nearly -identical- in build! Ditto has a slightly straighter front (Hope at the moment hasn't had her chest arrive so tends to toe out slightly), Hope has more coat and perhaps more bone (I'd say pretty slightly, her coat makes it look more dramatic but underneath very similar) but other than that their build is very, very, very close! I ended up calling Hope "Ditto" and Ditto "Hope" more than once!

Of course, I also met both Dawn and Verity since that was rather key! Both girls seemed willing to learn, despite being a bit shy. Both needed socialization but showed they were willing to work with me. Verity I'd liked since she was born... she and Rush were my two favs of the litter since they were newborns but of course there was no way I could put my hand up for a pup from that litter as La was a newborn himself. Having Hope's sister and a dog I'd liked for so long was a very big appeal, she is a gorgeous girl and seems to have a lot of her mum in her and I'm sure she'll be working her audience shortly enough. (She barked at me the first day, barked less the second and has shown absolutely ZERO of that yesterday or today... in my lap, soaking up attention and treats like a sponge!)

Dawn reminded me a lot of a particular dog I'd grown up with... not so much physically but something about the spirit more I suppose and something in the eyes... and of course I liked the lines and the idea of having a dog who'd quite probably have a good bit of working instinct. After the first day I still had no more idea of who would be coming home than when coming up though. I was hoping something big would jump out at me... but it seemed I was in the same quandry - both different girls, different advantages and different points that would need more socializing. One of the big tests was how they'd react to Laurent and again, both very different reactions with different advantages and points that'd need some work. (Bearing in mind neither girl has seen children, let alone a wild-n-wooly toddler who was fed up with traveling and threw a couple of terrific tantrums!)

So the next day back again to talk more dogs, see how the girls reacted to me after they'd been pushed a bit the previous day... I'd mucked about clicking on little things to see how they'd respond to it and both seemed to quickly 'get' the clicker concept and retain it the next day. The first day I'd pushed much longer than I'd normally work a dog as well, so got some insight as to how they might handle being pushed or reacting when a bit tired and overwhelmed. We'd also held off introducing Sierra, Cade and Hope because they'd had enough new suprises sprung on them the first day.

This ended up being the deciding factor. Dawn and Hope weren't a good match... they may have eventually gotten on well enough to live together with some management and work but not an *ideal* match... they'd never really be best mates. Since all my dogs live in the house and together and I firmly believe every one has a right to feel treasured and safe in their own home, how the dogs like each other has always been a big factor in my choice of who to get. Cade chose Bria (who was rescued as a senior and passed away in 2001), then Isabella when rescued from the puppymill where she'd been a brood bitch for years - she was a foster but I'd have literally needed a crow-bar to pry them apart. She crossed the rainbow bridge in 2006 but in early 2004 they'd both chose Sierra and were best friends. I'd looked at a couple pups that were what I wanted in terms of temperment and what I thought Cade and Isabella would get along with as well but the final say was theirs and they kept wanting to play with her most. When looking for Hope I'd given a pretty exact description of what sort of temperment Cade and Sierra got along with since we couldn't go see the pups. It's worked out really well and all the dogs have been very close and best friends with each-other. Unfortunately it didn't seem to be in the cards for Dawn and I felt that wouldn't be fair to either dog to force them to live with someone they only "tollerate" or maybe even "like" but don't love as a best buddy.

Verity seemed quite amenable however. Actually being in season she is a big flirt at the moment! Cade, being male (never mind he's been neutered for 9 years!) thinks Verity is really, really, really neat! Hope was initially a bit unsure, I think just from being overwhelmed by all the other dogs there, but once on the road those two have been doing nothing but wanting to play and horse around. Sierra and Verity are likewise working out their roles and horsing around!

Verity ended up traveling supurbly, was happy to munch cookies and pretty quickly worked out I had a lot of good stuff stashed on my person. Since we didn't do the tourist thing on the way up we decided to do so on the way back. We meandered around Newcastle for a good while, haunting the antique stores and found a lovely blue-and-white plate, a lily of the valley tea cup and a gorgeous blue vaseline milk glass hen... perfect condition, the colour being rather rare and hard to find. I'm considering a it good omen since she was quite reasonable price and 'hatching' a clutch of eggs (hopefully hatching new and good thigns for me you see!) We stopped and had lunch as well, letting the dogs stretch their legs a bit.

La was a bit confused over the "hot dog" we got him which was about the only dairy free thing on the kids menu. First it wasn't a dog and there wasn't one to feed it to. Second, every time we told him to eat the HOT dog, he looked at us like, "Are you nuts?!?" and blew on it to cool it off. LOL

The bun, however, made far more sense! Yum! Dinosaur Lala tears into it with a mighty roar!

We went on and stopped at several little places between there and where Nic's mate lived just outside of Sydney.

We ended up staying the night with them, getting to catch up with Dave and Lou and Katelyn (who is Nic's god-daughter, four years old and so astonishingly grown up) which Laurent thought was simply brilliant! It's a pity he's the first child as I think he'd love to have been the second and have an older sibling! He LOVES playing with the big kids! I was so glad we got
to spend the extra time with them as we haven't seen them since February I think and they're not likely to be able to get down here super soon either. After spending the night, Dave had to take off for work and Lou and Katelyn had to get a move on and so did we since it's still a long trip home!

We stopped in several little towns to browse, stopped for a good while in Goldburn to look at the sites as well. Nic had me go first to the War Memorial which was a good place to go but decidedly NOT trailer friendly on top of a peak with a very narrow road and a steep drop. That said the view was lovely and the town quite cute.

It was a bit of a toss up because I wanted to see the Lavender Farm there but also wanted to see the Albury Botanic Gardens since we'd missed some of the nice gardens earlier on. We opted to go to the Lavender Farm after checking in with the tourist information on the roads (several being closed due to flooding or damage from the flooding) and went on our merry way only to find out there were closed for unknown reasons. We ended up stopping at a nursery to get our plant (always try to buy a plant to bring home and incorporate into our garden wherever we go) and got a lavender there called a "Merle" which is a Spanish type of lavender that gets to be 80x70cm and is related closely to Avonview and Ploughman's Purple and a lovely variety of She Oak. Our last touristy bit was about 20 minutes from the border, where we wandered down a walk and saw some little waterfalls, cattle, sheep and roos near a beautiful little river.
I have a whole list of places after that I now want to visit at some point including Celtic Country which looks to be a wonderful time. We spent literally the whole time we were driving talking about everything and nothing, which was wonderfully relaxing and fun. It reminded me how much I love traveling, seeing new places and spending time together like this this... just total bliss!



Towards dinner we stopped at Albury and Wodonga and for desert Laurent got a rare treat - a taste of gellati! He's probably had it about 4 times in his life but was in rapture with it... chiefly because it was GREEN. The red (strawberry) and white (lemon) were studiously ignored in favor of the green apple flavoured one! True Italian gellati has no dairy in it so it was perfectly safe for him but since we don't want him having sweets and don't usually have them ourselves it's a pretty special occasion but this trip warranted it.

At about 1:30 am I was pretty tuckered out, so we pulled over for a brief rest and ended up pulling in the house at about quarter after five in the morning. Good to be home and get the dogs out and into our own home! Verity trotted in quite happily, got bikkies with the rest of them and started horsing around wanting to play. It didn't take long to discover the beds and sheepskins either! LOL

We'll start working on gradual desensitization to anything that bothers her in a few days. I want to give her a bit to settle in, let the stress of traveling and leaving her birth home to live here and getting used to a new family etc process through and have her stress levels and hormones back to baseline before I start anything. Till then she's having fun discovering that all three of us are walking vending machines.

After last Sunday at Croyden obedience, I spent a lot of time weighing options. I'd wanted a beginners class where Sierra knew the skill set and we could focus on working quickly and accurately in high distraction settings with her giving good, consistant focus. The class we were promptly promoted to for being overskilled is a slightly faster pace which means there's less wiggle room to work on what I want to without obviously doing something different from the rest of the class.

I was also debating if I was right about Croyden being the place for us as well. There were several rather unexpected negatives and while I did feel the instructor had a clear idea of what is desirable for the ring (IE what will cost/gain us points and placements) I was debating if getting that knowledge here was worth the affect of coming out of class feeling distressed and upset. However since this was a substitute instructor (albeit the CHIEF instructor subbing...) I figured I'd wait and see.

As it happens, we had another substitute but this one ended up being much nicer. She still dismissed the clicker as an inferior marker to a word (*biting tongue FIRMLY*) but she was very nice and seemed to have a a good idea of training, so overall it was leaps and bounds better!

You know, thinking about this in print, it sounds like I think I know better than everyone else and am really arrogant, which totally isn't the case. I do have plenty to learn, heaps in fact and I adore getting the chance dig into new information. My mind is just too curious... I love learning and understanding... my mind chews away at challenges, turning them over, looking at them this way and that trying to figure out what I'm looking at and anything I don't know is a challenge. When I "get" a new concept, I feel it must be a little bit like Helen Keller felt at the moment she understood the sign for 'water' and "got" the concept of language, thirsty for more and more words to paint her world. It's the same thing really, both moments were learning to hear, to understand, to communicate, to relate. So that was Sunday.

Monday, instead of our normal freestyle class, I had a seminar hosted by Melbourne Canine Freestyle, on identifying and managing stress in dogs by Dr Debbie Calnon which was nicely put together. It wasn't anything new but she was a good speaker and it was interesting to see a couple things I didn't think I would. Steven Lindsey recomending something that sounds remarkably like reiki for one! ;-) Hadn't heard about the left side massage stimming the right side of the brain, which was interesting and will have to do an experiment some day to see if it makes a difference. IMO the rest of his method sounded very much like Shirley Chong's conditioned relaxer. Would have liked her to go further into the remark on poisoning the cue seminar she went to as well, since I haven't been able to get to the US for those seminars! *G*

Tuesday morning, bright and early we packed the car, hitched up the dog trailer (new, second time driving it!) and took off for Toora, which is just past Foster in South Gippsland.

Me, bubs and my hooligans, joining some friends with their kids. Easy drive, if a long one and heavens that's some beautiful country! I spotted several big hills I'd love to live on but if Nic thinks Woodend is too out in the sticks and small-town, no way he'd go for anything here either.

Did get to see lots of cows and calves, sheep, an echidna , dozens of butcher birds, gallahs, cockatoos and a wombat. We actually had some yearling heifers in the paddock next to the camp site, which Hope saw early in the morning. At first she wasn't so sure (what the #*$%# is THAT!?!) but then she figured she'd have a go at herding it. O_O She only got as far as the fenceline though and the cows were totally unimpressed!

We had a great time with everyone, I think Laurent had an absolute ball with
all the other kids around and general atmosphere. He is SO much happier
when he's got other people and kids around, I am SO ready to move to a big
Attachment Parenting community yk!

Even with a few little upsets it was one
of the most relaxing days I've had in recent memory! I wish it could have
lasted a week or so! ;-) Although I'm guessing a few of the other mums
whose littlies came down with gastro are quite happy to be home now... poor
mites got a bit of gastro and weren't feeling so well for the trip home!
The dogs had a great time of it as well, though it was quite busy for me as
I was trying to watch Laurent as well as all three (off-lead) dogs as they
mingled! They got plenty of attention from the kids (yay for knee-high
puppy socializers!) who were gorgeous with them. Cade in particular was
soaking up the attention, the sookie-sookie mook! *G* All 3 were a bit
scatterbrained though, as everything was so whirlwind, I didn't really have
time to settle them into their new environement like I normally do. Still
they did pretty well, although I won't mind next time being just L and I.
We had to leave the next morning but I saw so many pretty spots on the way
there I wanted to stop and photograph but didn't due to trying to hurry and
get there, so I figured I'd have a bit of a meandering trip back. Initially
was planning to go with Jayne to Wilsons Prom but as I had the dogs the park
couldn't let me any further than the gate.

Yes, that's a photo of the gate.

Bummer! I really wanted to see it! Even though they were trailered and I asked about parking the trailer at the rangers station. No deal. Only acceptable thing was to leave the trailer outside the boundry of the park, which was a ways back from the rangers station and no way was I going to leave 3 dogs in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. A farmer down the road said he'd keep an eye on it but with the trailer fully loaded it was just to heavy for me to unhitch on uneven ground. Ah well, just means I have an excuse to go back again! *VBG* Plus I'd like to see that alpaca farm/weaving studio Beck found and try some of that jam. I'd dearly love the chance to go through the area on bike or hiking even, so I could take as many photos as I wanted! Pity there's not a hiking-camping trip for dog people! Anyhow, on the way back we meandered around wherever looked interesting and stopped at a few small towns to look at the little shops and such. L and I had a bite to eat for lunch before getting underway
again and getting back at 3:00.

(Where we stopped for lunch.)

Today was pretty boring, until Nic came bursting back in, told me RE Agent Dude called him regarding the showing that was going on this afternoon. This was the first I'd heard of Thursday showings. The sign outside our house only says showings on Saturdays and we were told nothing about Thursday showings, let alone THIS Thurdsay! Thankfully everything was tidy but sheeeee-yyyiiiiiiiitttt, talk about your communication FAILURES... we TOLD him before the first showing we wanted a list of dates/times! He says he sent out a list before that which we should've got by now... well ain't that interesting because we asked all communications to be e-mailed because I can't use the phone and can respond to the matter asap. So it shouldn't have been posted. Either way, we didn't get the letter so had no idea.

And just to show how little miss is growing... here she is at 11 weeks.

Okay, so it's not the greatest version of a stack but to be fair I'm only up to
teaching her to accept a hand under the chin and relax into her head being
moved in prep for planting those front feet. So the rest of it is a natural
stand rather than posed.