Time is Slipping By

Well a few changes around Dogpound North, not the least of which is a new computer for me. I finally slid into the abyss and broke down and bought a MAC so this is my first visit back to the Blogger software in many years. I alway wrote my journal on LiveWriter in the past and only after I am finished this entry will I know whether things have improved here on the Blogger site or not. It has been over a month since my last journal entry and although we have been doing lots, not much of it is very exciting.

Last year we started moving all our medical stuff earlier in the summer so we can get that out of the way and jump through the hoops that allow us to travel south in the winters a little earlier. Other than a few final visits with our various docs we are getting close to the end of that process, so barring any late breaking news we should be good to go for next winter.

Our windmill and some interesting cloud formations off of our front porch last night.

One thing I do enjoy about being home is the Sundre Aquaplex, I swim there almost every weekday morning and unlike the pools in Arizona this one is a lot less crowded, in fact sometimes towards the end of my daily swim I get the whole thing to myself. Down in Arizona you are lucky if you get a lane to yourself at some point in the swim and it is unheard of to get an empty pool to swim in. I usually swim about 2500 metres each day but a few weeks ago the pool complex started tracking our swims and gave the lane swimmers as a group the goal of swimming from Victoria to Panama. Probably for some Pan-American Games or something. Well I figured if I was going to get out of here for winter I should kick up my contribution so at least the rest of them would be swimming in warm water once I headed south so I am now logging 3250 metres a day, or just a smidge over 2 miles. Takes me about an hour and twenty minutes to complete it so if I was really headed for Panama I think I would walk, bad knee and all, it would be quicker. But it is a good motivator anyway.

Sunrise in the morning on the way swimming

One more bit of exciting news that is being worked on here at Dogpound North is that my son, Matt, and his longtime girlfriend Michelle have decided to take the next step and tie the knot. Actually he proposed way back last winter while they were on a vacation in Cuba but just last week they set a date, so we are heading towards the Mexican Riviera next April to see them take their vows.

Michelle, Matt and Family

Yet another reason to keep swimming, so I don't embarrass everyone on the beach down there!

In our last couple of entries we showed you lots of pictures with the Anderson girls and since then we have actually had a visit with our grandson Kashton and his mother Rebecca, as well as our granddaughter Claire who was out to visit her Dad and sister Madison a couple of weekends ago. Both Kashton and Claire got the mandatory visit with the horses while they were here

Wink, Brenda, Kash, Becky, Claire and of course Mack

and Kash took one of our John Deere's for spin around the yard too.

Little Boys do Love Tractors

Of course those who have been here know that Dogpound North is an actual farm and we raise, or try to raise a crop here every year. Some years we are a lot more successful than others but most years we do manage to get something back from the land. We had a good spell of dry weather here during the last month and other than a few acres that will be sown to oats, for silage, and underseeded with timothy hay, the rest of the unseeded acreage is barley and we did manage to get that all seeded a few days ago.

Big Boys love Tractors too.

I have managed to give the fellow who farms here for us a hand from time to time this spring and at least run a set of harrows over what he has seeded.

Another couple of projects we have going on here include a little reno work in the house, kind of a makeover for the bathrooms and putting a new cooktop in the kitchen so Brenda has been busy picking out tiles and and countertops for that endeavour. We dragged our daughter Becky into that mix as she has a real good sense of what goes with what.

Rebecca and Brenda

So for the most part I was overruled and we will not be having a mauve bathroom, but they did let me pay!

The other project consists of a little rural renewal going on, we, like most old farmsteads, have a plethora of old buildings around, and it time to tear them down and reconvert them into greenhouse gases. Matt and I spent a couple of days hauling some old junk to the dump and sorting some other old junk into other spots where it will probably be stored untouched until the next generation discovers it all over again. So with all that and a few fencing projects around the yard we have been keeping busy here at Dogpound North.

As for the Blogger experience, all in all, not to bad, although some of the great functions of LiveWriter that I used a lot have escaped me here so I am, at least for now, having to resize each and every picture and was not able to subject you to an album full of pictures of the junk we removed from our buildings, but I will work on that for next time. Sure wish Rick over there on Vancouver Island would get a Mac so he could figure out some things for me. :)

Calgary Western Riders Gymkhana

I almost forgot that I write a blog from time to time. I am not sure what excuse to use but it just seems that there is always something going on here down the road from Dogpound that keeps me busy, well busy enough that I get no writing done. But I have remembered to take my camera along with me so I will dig around and see what pictures might motivate me to write.

The last Sunday of the month here in the summer is the Calgary Western Riders gymkhana at the Springbank Equestrian Centre. Long time readers will know that I have often attended that event and cheered on my niece Caron. Well after making a fool of myself at the TACC gymkhana’s down at Dogpound South I finally got up the nerve to enter here at Springbank. Now this might not seem like much but the organisation had to acquire all new equipment for the timers because of my entry. Their clocks like many time things down to the hundredth of a second but they had no settings that could deal with an actual change of date. And after my inaugural runs I am sure they are thinking about lights for the arena or maybe just an earlier start so that I can actually finish in the daylight.

The photo above has the Dogpound North team making their way to the arena on May 27th, granddaughter Madison and her pony Spanky, of course Willow and I and behind us is our ringer my niece Caron and her new pony Quiz. Below you can see this is serious business and just like at the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness the jocks get thrown into the saddle before their runs. Well at least the little ones do I had to drag myself up there.

And below are pictures of the girls runs

 

The Real Riders VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

And they set up these stakes just to see if I was actually moving.

Now here I am working the flags and I am not sure if that is the second or third girl to run, while I was completing my run, there in the background. Unlike TACC all the events here except for the barrels are run as races so there are actually two horses competing in the arena at the same time, makes it a little more exciting WHEN you actually get a horse race going.

and here we are actually in the saddle and waiting for our runs. These events are western dress also so if you are not wearing a helmet you need to have a cowboy hat on at least when you start your run.

I am not sure how we fared in the placing's but that is not what we were there for anyway. We all had a blast and it was good to see the girls having fun.

Now that is probably enough for now and I will try to be a more regular writer.