Well Dear Reader, as much as I tried to get all my Rally adventures and the life that happened inbetween down on paper by Dec 31, 2024 it obviously didn’t happen. I could just forget about it and move on, but you would be missing out on some head shaking content, so I figured I better shake my tail feathers and get the last three 2024 Rally posts done before our 2025 Rally season begins. Here is a flash back to late June/early July 2024.
I arrived at my parent’s house a wounded Rally Warrior. I needed a cane to move around and my knee still remained double its size. One would think that my state of disrepair would have bought me at least one day of R N R, but you would be wrong. It afforded me exactly 12 hours of grace, 8 of which I frittered away sleeping.
The next morning, my Mother was out partaking in her favourite summer past time, digging in her garden. I went out to sit on the step to keep her company. She was having none of it. If she was working, I could be working. Heaven forbid… I still had two perfectly good arms and one functional leg, all of which could be used to butt scoot down the side walk, while pulling the withering leaves off of all her tulips. Ohh yeah, and since I was down there already, could I weed the mulch as well!!!I may be injured but that didn’t mean that I could rest on my laurels and feel sorry for myself. It was time to woman up and partake in useful occupations during my convalescent period.
What it all boiled down to is my Mom was not ready to give up on her “Max Do” list that she had spent a year curating to perfection. Yes, my Mother doesn’t have a “Honey Do list”, she has a “Max Do list”. I think this would be a good time to point out that none of my other three siblings, all of who live in the same province, have a list. This is a “special” treat Mummy reserves specifically for me… the one who shares her vision and who is the easiest to guilt into helping. She spends all year adding to this list and my goal when I visit, is to knock as much off of the list as possible. In compensation I receive lodging, minimal complaints about dirty dog paw prints in her house and deluxe breakfasts like waffles, pancakes or toads in the hole!
Now before you start thinking my Mother is the hard a$$ parent, I should share my Dad’s favourite go to saying whenever we belly ache or look for some understanding. It goes something like this… “You know where sympathy falls in the dictionary… between $hit and syphillis!” It may sound harsh but it has the desired effect. We pull up our socks and stop dwelling on what is holding us back and just get on with life. In my family, you can feel sorry for yourself but that sorry state has a short shelf-life! Forged in fires of childhood, I can’t seem to shake the “Just Get Over It” pattern in adulthood.
Garden weeded and tulips de-leaved I scooted my way back to the steps, so that I could leverage my way up into standing and make it into the house to make a Physio appointment for my knee. I had a week and change, to try and get it functional for the next Rally competition… no time to loose.
Tuesday evening, Dad invited us to the Lodge for a pizza party. Who would turn up an evening of not needing to cook.. not these chicks! My Dad, also having impacted mobility, was very worried about my knee. He started pontificating about his tried and true remedies for making his joints feel better and insisted that I needed to apply A535 to my knee. The way he talked about it, one would think I would be ready to jig around the room within seconds of applying the cream.
Knowing him, resistance would have been futile and the only sure way to move on to another topic was to cave and start A535ing. As I was applying a dollup of “magic cream” onto my knee, Dad decided he also needed some and asked my Mother to apply it to his knee. Now Mom could have gone for the nearly full tube of A535, but she was on a mission to show us just how much cream remains in an empty tube!
“You would be SURPRISED to see how much cream is still in that tube… don’t you dare think of throwing it out!!!! That’s wasteful!”.
She worked that tube over like a mob enforcer and sure enough out shot a huge glob of cream… TOO MUCH CREAM!!!! She applied some to Dad’s Leftie while he applied some to the base of his neck. There was still an abundance of cream in her palm. She applied some to Dad’s Rightie, but there was still too much cream. A moment of panic ensued as Mom sized up her options. There is no way to put the cream back in tube, as the opening is too small. There were no other containers to store the surplus and heaven forbid she just wash or wipe it off, after her “Don’t be wasteful” spiel. That left the only feasible alternative… she started applying A535 to her knees.
Yes Dear Reader I have reached an age where instead of going out to bars and trendy restaurants I spend my evenings having Pizza Parties in nursing homes and participating in group A535ing. As the realization of how my social standing had fallen I started laughing and commented to my parents “The family that pizza’s and A535 together, stays together!” We all burst out laughing and couldn’t quit. The abs definitely got a work out that night, it’s a good thing we still had plenty of A535 to apply to our aching abs. 😁
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| Hopefully the raw sex appeal of this picture does not overcome you! |
The Physio gods were on my side and I scored an appointment on Wednesday and thank goodness I did, as the A535 and Aleve had done sweet twit all at reducing the pain, swelling and improving my mobility. The verdict was the fibula, which had been dislocating prior to this, was in place, but I tweaked my MCL in Pukaskwa. The Physio taped it and gave me a daily exercise routine to complete… more things to add to the Max Do List and trust me with my Mother around there was no way I would be able to skip the exercises. My Dad can attest, she is an Exercise Over Lord!. See, Mom abhors wasted potential and like the Army she wants us to be all that we can be. If exercise or diet can improve a situation or outcome, than no ands ifs or buts about it, you will be exercising and eating appropriately under her watch.
The Diarrhea Saga Continues
As mentioned in Up Schitts Creek, But Rallying on to Kenora, Lyndy had gastrointestinal upset. Prior to crossing the MB border she had two days of formed stool, but the pit stop in Winnipeg resulted in the grand unleashing of another wave of diarrhea. I was very thankful that she managed to wait to until she was outside before letting the sugar fly, as I don’t think I could have handled having to deep clean the back seat again. I was hopeful that Mom had rice and pumpkin on hand and that the bland food would firm everything back up for Lyndy.
It was a negatory on the pumpkin front, but Mom did have rice… in fact two kinds of rice. Mom was willing to share some with Lyndy, but “NOT her expensive/good rice with the red character on the bag.” If Lyndy needed rice she could have some of the econo bag rice. Mom got it all ready in the rice cooker, as we unloaded the essentials out of the truck.
About 15 minutes later, Mom has her nose up in the air sniffing. “I smell poo!” With her nose still pointed up in the area she starts following the scent, bound and determined to find the “evidence”!!! A second later she blurts out “Ohhh, maybe that is just the rice!!!!”. Yup, Lyndy I hope you like poo smelling econo rice, as you will be on it until we can clear up the diarrhea!.
Update: In case you were hanging on the edge of your seat wondering what the outcome was… the rice and pumpkin worked its magic and Lyndy was back to firm stools four days later. I bet she would have had firm stool in two days if Mom would have shared her expensive rice! 🙂
The Breach
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| 2024 Border Control |
My mother is a gardener and is very particular about how her garden looks. The problem is my dogs like to help with gardening. One would think Mom would be happy with the digging assistance. Unfortunately the Ladies vision for her gardens does not match my Mom’s and my Mom gets testy when her vision is thwarted.
Prior to our arrival, she spent two and a half weeks “dog proofing” her backyard. Learning from her failed 2023 attempt to protect her precious plants, she upped her 2024 game and installed fencing using rebar, chicken wire and tomato cages. She stood sentry in the dining room window watching the Ladies check out her work and positively vibrated with excitement when their attempts to gain entry into Dog Disneyland were thwarted.
“Look they tried to get into the large garden but… Hee Hee… they couldn’t get in!. Oooooooh they are trying again… they FAILED!!!!!”
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| Dirty Dastardly Dogs! |
What she did not count on is how perseverant Lyndy is. Lyndy scouted the yards and yards of fence line looking for a weakness she could exploit. It was so Lyndyesque!!! Lulling Mom into a false sense of security before upping the ante!
Mom was feeling pretty confident that she had stymied the Ladies and decided she could give up her vigil at the window, to move on to other things. Well that is when Lyndy decided to strike. Lyndy had found a weak spot in the chicken wire and pulled it back so she and Hazel could frolic and dig in the dirt piles. Mom was not happy. I spent the next two days getting to hear about how Lyndy is an instigator, who looks for trouble and tempts Hazel to follow her into naughtiness!
Hazel had to prove the Lyndy isn’t the only clever one, and somehow managed to get trapped in with my Mom’s caged in lilies and irises. We still don’t know how she managed it, but there she was amongst the flattened iris and lillies when we opened the back door. Lyndy was on the other side of the fence and if she could talk she would be saying “It’s not just me!!!”
Hazel’s other goal for the duration of the trip was to “weed “ around the corners of pavers. Now if she just left it as edging I’m sure Mom would have appreciated her efforts, but she took it a step farther and dug deep… you know to make sure she got all the roots! Mom’s “fix” was filling in the hole and then dropping a large rocks from the front yard on the top of the freshly excavated corners. By the time we left, there were rocks at the corner of every paver and very little decorative rocks in the front yard. Hazel appears to have inherited Great Grandma’s love of digging!
The Thief
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| Lyndy’s frame job! |
Lyndy has a shoe fetish that causes me no end of aggravation. The only constant that I can rely on in my house is that my shoes will never be where I left them. I can wake up to shoes on the pillow beside me. I might find one under the couch and the other in the kitchen. Sometimes they even get hoarded in crates. Well just because she was on vacation doesn’t mean she was willing to give up on her favorite game, but instead of my shoes she chose Grandma’s.
Knowing she was already in hot water with Grandma, and not wanting to risk Grandma’s wrath she decided the only way to play her favourite game was to frame Hazel. Every day I would wake-up to find Grandma’s shoes beside Hazel on the bed she used. Lyndy would be looking all innocent on my bed. If she had a thought bubble above her head it would have said, “Oh that Hazel! I hope Grandma won’t skin her alive!”. Nice try Lyndy! Mom already figured out that you are the instigator of the herd.
Chutes and Ladders the Dad Version…
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| Prairie Sky Drama |
Mom and I went out to the pasture to start purging the sea can. My sibling’s ex had left a lot of stuff behind after his final trip to remove his belongings. There was tons of bulk purchased food that was long past its expiry date, old clothing and for some reason his night guard and toothbrush. We went to town purging everything that was no longer needed and removing items that were broken and left behind. Bags and bags of trash were removed that day and it felt like a minor victory. We removed all the bedding, to bring it home to wash and made a list of all the supplies we needed to purchase to start the process of deep cleaning both the sea can and the storage can.
We decided to bring my Dad when we went back to deep clean, figuring he would enjoy a road trip and getting to see how we rearranged the inside of the Can to maximize the room and reduce the tripping barriers for him. I don’t think he even registered all the improvements we made; as he only had eyes for the gun safe. He wanted to know what was in it and needed it open… tout suite. We told him that there was only gun cleaner, targets and some bits and bobs to fix sights, etc, but being told is not seeing with one’s own eyes. I opened the safe and held up the contents one by one for his examination. Satisfied he asked me to put everything away and to relock the safe.
Dad’s needs taken care of, Mom and I began our deep cleaning mission. There was no wall or surface that would not be washed before we left. We also planned on making the beds with the fresh laundry. That was our plan, but not my Dad’s!!!!
One of us would just begin a cleaning project and my Dad would make a “request”. Everything had to be dropped to take care of the ask. Ask taken care the helper would return to what they were working on only to have another interruption. My Mom was the smart one and started a project he would not want interrupted… making the bed so that he could lay down and have a nap. Given he really wanted to lay down, that meant she was kicked off the “ask train”. I on the other hand, was fair game. The asks kept coming and it didn’t take long for it to become irritating, as each one meant more walking, which exponentially added to my knee pain. The asks became downright frustrating when he continued to make them once I started cleaning the upper bunk area. I would just climb the ladder and get positioned on the upper bunk to wash the walls…
“Max where is the key to the gun safe????” I told him where it was but that was not good enough, I had to show him. Down the ladder I would go to show him the key. Then back up the ladder to start washing the walls. I would just have a chance to dip the rag in the water and…
“Max…I need you to open the gun safe”. I asked “Why?” as he had already looked inside it, but that did not matter, he needed it open again. Down the ladder to open the safe and remove everything from the safe for him to look at again. Back up the ladder, dip the rag and…
“Max… I need you to put this all back now!!!!” I asked if it could wait and the answer was a resounding “No!”. Down the ladder to hobble over to put everything back and lock the safe. I headed back up the ladder only to be called back within a few minutes to “show him that the safe was locked.” I get up the ladder and just start wiping down the walls and….
“Max… I need to see what is in the safe again!!”
SERIOUSLY!!!!!
My query… could this wait a few more minutes, was met with another “No, hurry up!!!” My patience was wearing thin and there were some choice words being said in my head, but I went back down the ladder like the sucker I am.
Thank goodness, my mother had finished making the bed. Dad was off for a nap, which meant I could finish up all my “top bunk” chores with no further interruption. With all the start/stops my 10 minute job took over 40 minutes to complete and resulted in a lot more ladder climbing than I planned on doing.
I had just finished making the bed and started back down the ladder when there as a loud crack and I found myself hurtling toward the floor. There was a searing pain in my left leg. The top step of the ladder had broken and I shot through the rails. Luckily I was able to grab the sides of the ladder and to get my feet down to stabilize myself before I hit the floor. The unlucky part was the screws from the broken steps were now jammed into the side of my leg and I was stuck in mid-limbo position.
While I’m trying to figure out how I am going to extricate myself from between the rails without jamming the screws further into my thigh, my Dad is freaking out, wanting to know what happened and my Mom was offering helpful advice after the fact…. “Ohh you stepped on the top step??? Didn’t you see that it was cracked?”. Information that would have been handy to have before I repetitively went up and down the stairs meeting Dad’s “urgent” needs!.
Fantastic! Now I had a frigged up knee and bleeding gouges in my upper thigh. There was no first aid kit (something to add to the need to purchase list) so I continued to clean while blood trickled down my leg. If you think this stopped the Dad Request Line, you would be wrong. I did a fair bit of extra bidding before we left to head home.
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| Rightie post boom! |
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| Screw That! Leftie |
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| Not dirt.. A Honking Bruise |
Clear Lake Bound
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| Clear Lake |
I had made plans earlier in the week to head to Clear Lake with my brother and his children, which happened the day after my “timber in the can”. I had been gone about an hour and a half when I got a call from my Mom sheepishly asking if it was a bad thing if Lyndy ate cherry pits. She wasn’t sure how many she had, but she definitely got into the garbage and ate pits. Now Lyndy is my Pica dog, who had a very expensive surgery before she was 1 year old, to remove all the foreign things she decided would make a great snack. I had flashbacks to how tight money was after her last surgery and I swore (in my head, as there were children present). I gave my Mom instructions on how to induce vomiting and hoped that this was not going to end in another huge vet bill and that the expectorant didn’t bring on round three of the diarrhea.
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| OMG! So Embarassing! |
With my fresh leg wound, I couldn’t go in the water when we arrived, but that worked to my families advantage as it meant I would watch their stuff while they all waded around marvelling at how clear, Clear Lake actually is. I got a little bored sitting around so I decided to amuse myself by taking random pictures of “stuff” with my niece’s phone. I giggled away, picturing her perplexed face when flipping through her phone… “When and why would I have taken pictures of that????” Why indeed would she take a picture of an inch worm that looked like it was floating in the air or of random shapes in the clouds?
We all voted for ice cream after swimming and to my delight they had black licorice ice cream. None of that mambie pambie Tiger Tiger that has the hint o’ licorice. It was full on black licorice and it was charcoal black not blue!!! I enjoyed every spoonful and seriously contemplated going back for more.
As we walked around town we kept seeing four and six seater bikes and we started toying with the idea of riding one… well Mr H and I did. Mdme H and my brother were less than thrilled but the idea. Mr H and I worked on convincing the other two to give the bike a try, while we feasted on a smorgasbord of cinnamon rolls and other delectable treats at the White House Bakery. I don’t know what won them over, but they relented and agreed to give the bike a go.
Within 1 minute of being on the bike we had our first OMG moment. There is a hill that you have to go down to leave the property. The hill is steep, there is a stop sign at the bottom and it is adjacent to a very busy road. We start going down the hill, I apply the brake, the brake is not working, I pull harder on the brake, but my action barely made a dent in our speed. I considered bailing for a millisecond, but there was no way my leg could handle jumping from a fast moving bike. I give it one last try as we speed toward the road and pulled on the brake with every ounce of strength I had and in a “Thanks be to Jesus” moment the bike finally stopped.
Hurdle 1 overcome, we start cruising down Main Street. The ride out was quite enjoyable, there was a a light breeze and we were moving slow enough that we could gawk at some of the big cabins that had been built. It didn’t take long to reach the point where going further would take us back out to the highway. Although we were moving at a pretty good clip, there was no way we could reach highway cruising speeds, so we decided to turn down a side street to head back. That was the precise moment that we all realized that our speed had nothing to do with our powerful leg muscles. We had been travelling on a slight down grade since turning onto the main drag. Now, all the options were uphill and the street we turned down had a mother of a hill. Through grit and determination we made it up the hill… barely. Thankfully the road levelled off for a short while to allow us to recuperate before the next hill was upon us.
The two jabronies in the back thought they were hilarious and would randomly stop peddling to see if Mr. H and I noticed a difference. Trust me we noticed!!!! Mdme H also found out that Birkenstocks are not the best footwear for biking and her feet would “slip” off the pedals… frequently. Sharing the same chain as her, I inwardly cursed every time it happened, as her attempts to get her feet back on the pedals messed with my ability to pedal smoothly. We couldn’t stop to let her reposition her feet on the pedals, as we could not afford to give up any momentum if we wanted to get up the hills. The pleasure factor was dying fast and the cranky meter was starting rise.
It was around this time that Mr. H decided to spice things up and started waving at everyone that we passed. Mdme H had a typical teenager reaction… OMG!!!! Tres embarrassing!!! At one point she threaten to do bodily harm to Mr H with her newly manicured nails. Mr. H didn’t miss a beat and retorted with “I think you need therapy!” We all laughed even Mdme H, but the laughter was short lived as another hill loomed in front of us. UGH!
The one thing that amazed us was the number of swimming pools that we saw on our jaunt around town. We must have passed at least three pools in a short distance which was weird given each of the houses/complexes that had pools were within a 5-10 minute walk to the beach. There has to be a reason, we just couldn’t figure out what that was.
We ran out of town to tour by minute 20 of our 30 minute rental. We decided to kill the remaining 10 minutes touring around the flat parking lot. Yes, we could have returned early but then we would have paid for time we did not use and that is not how my family roles. Even if our legs were screaming and the fun factor was long gone, we were getting the full time out of our rental.
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| Seriously… Soooooo Embarasssing!!! |
Our last action on the bike was to “race” another family of four who had just their “OMG” moment coming down the hill at the rental property. We were across the parking lot when Mr H spotted them and said “Quick, let’s catch up to them… they are our people!” We started pedalling hard to get close to the other group. Mr. H waved and shouted a friendly “Hello!” They waved back and a millisecond later the energy level changed on our bike to one of a competition frenzy.
Who would be the first to reach the stop sign at the end of the road… us or them???
Game faces on we doubled our effort and were neck and neck with the other bike within a few seconds. We were running out of parking lot, but the need to win was strong. We collectively found another level of endurance and started to pull ahead and by the time we reached the end of the parking lot we had totally left the other family in our dust! VICTORY!!!!
Bon Voyage ‘70’s
My Mom casually let it drop that my Dad had finally agreed to removing an overhang in their kitchen. Stuff like this doesn’t happen often and I jumped on the chance to get that project done, regardless to how sore my knee and leg was. That’s the reason pain relievers were invented… RIGHT?
Before I could proceed, I had to promise to salvage as much of the mahogany veneer as I could, as it is really hard to find such quality veneer now days. Well here is how it went from start to finish.
Dad of course changed his mind, mid-way through the “project”, but by that time I already had the shelving down, so it was too late to stop. It made it all the more amusing that it took him close to 10 minutes to realize the overhang was gone when he came home for a visit.
The hardest part of the Reno was the ceiling repair, as I was too tall to stand on the counter to plaster the ceiling and the ladder could not be placed close enough to the counter. It meant a lot of kneeling on my sore knee, but it was worth every bit of pain to see it all cleaned up.
If you are wondering what happened to the orange plexiglass, I am happy to report that we gifted it to my brother as an Anniversary present. It was wrapped up in space ship wall paper that was salvaged from his room, during another remodel project that got started when I visited several years ago.
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Happy Anniversary!
Mdme’s H graduated from Grade School on the same day as her parents’ Anniversary, so it was double the celebration at Montana’s that evening. The best laugh of the day had to go to my Mom. She has a bad habit of misplacing things. We get in the car and she pushes the start button. Next thing we know she is patting the top of her head, then frantically going through her purse. She finishes with another pat on the top of her head. Mr H and I were exchanging quizzical looks while she completed this bizarre ritual. Mom turns off the car and is opening her door. I asked her what was wrong. She says in an exasperated tone “I forgot my sunglasses in the restaurant, I need to go and get them!!!!”. Mr H and I turn and look at each other and burst out laughing as she was wearing her sunglasses. She had to listen to our mirth the whole way back to my brother’s house. |
Rally Woes!
Dad surprised me and wanted to come and watch me, Ferg and the Ladies compete. Dogs really aren’t my Dad’s cup of tea, let alone a show that is dedicated to them. I didn’t think he would last long, but he ended up enjoying himself and stayed until the end. The Portage show ended up being a hard one for the Herd and not the most excellent example of our team work for my Dad to watch. By the time the show arrived Ferg was done with Rallying and was the pokiest of pokey puppies. Everything about him was extremely slow… jumps, sits, heels, everything had a time lag. I had to adjust my speed from rocket speed with Hazel to putt, putt, putt with Ferg. That worked until we hit the slow pace signs on the course. Slow pace has to be slower than normal pace. When normal is slow, slow becomes sloth pace and it feels like you are stationary. Torturous when you can see the finish line, but have to proceed at a snail’s pace until you cross the line.
The Portage show wasn’t just hard for the dogs. I apparently lost my ability to count when walking backward and messed up the 1, 2, 3 backward sign time after time. So much so the Judge couldn’t watch it anymore and provided me with a quick tutorial at the end of yet another run that I messed up the sign.
Ferg managed to complete one out of three Master’s run, no thanks to me and also managed to earn his RAE title.
Lyndy was undone by her FOMO. There was a hyper Lab that decided playing with the toys in the ring was way more entertaining than competing and ran around with reckless abandon. Lyndy was not happy that he was having so much fun and she was relegated to her crate and started barking up a storm. She held it together for Day One and earned one leg toward her RAE but didn’t pass her Master’s level run. The next day she managed to eke out a pass in her Master’s run, earning her first leg, but decided to run away from me and give to the same hyped up Lab a piece of her mind during the middle of our Advanced run. If she can’t have fun and frolic, no one should be frolicking around her!!! I decided to pull her from the Monday run, so she could decompress and recover from her FOMO!
Hazel was undone by a small little red and white bear. She was not the only one. Over 3/4’s of the teams ended up with a non-qualifying score in their Master and Excellent run on Day One thanks to that tempting little toy. As soon as she would spot it, she would make a bee-line for it and start playing. As the course was set up almost the same for Master’s, Excellent and Advanced. She did the first few signs in her Master’s run, went over the jump, spotted the toy that was directly in front of the jump and ran over to play with it. During the Excellent run she knew where the toy was and wanted to make sure I knew that she knew. As soon as we started walking forward she ran over to retrieve the toy. She was happy… me not so much! In Advance, the toy was removed and replaced by a cone, but that didn’t stop Hazel from running to where the toy had been and then looking for where it got moved. Her highest score over the weekend was 96 out of 100 in Advanced, as there were no toys. She NQ’d all of her Master’s runs.
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| We Survived Rally Dinner! |
There was one moment in our last run when I thought for sure I was going to take Hazel out. The sign required us to simultaneously spin to the right. I cued her to start her spin to the righ and then I started spinning, but I lost my balance and she bumped into my leg at the exact same time. It felt like I was doing a Matrix slow motion move as I tried to right myself and not fall on her. We made it out and no one was flattened! Whew!
A huge shout out to the Portage District Kennel Club for hosting a great show, especially given the unexpected loss of a key member of their organizing committee several days before. The ring stewards and helpers were amazing as always and made sure everything ran efficiently, which was appreciated. Another huge thank-you to the Judges, David Denis and Stephen Hazelwood, for the very challenging courses and for helping to reteach me how to count when walking backward.
Mom, my sister and I celebrated with dinner from Chicken Chef, the best chicken joint around. My sister wanted to treat us to ice cream for desert. I was told that I could order whatever I wanted, so I decided to get two scoops of Unicorn Toots… only because it was funny to hear her order it! Who knew toots tasted so delicious! It turned out to be a new favourite flavour, so a win for me!!!
I leave you with some pictures of dramatic prairie skies… just cause they make me smile.
