I lost a Weekend

As I look back on my calendar to trigger my brain into remembering what we've been up to, I realize that 12 days ago I absolutely cannot recall what we did on that Saturday or Sunday!  I know it was something, or maybe it wasnt..  Not good when your memory is this bad already.

But I do know what we did this past weekend!  Fathers Day...  We celebrated on Saturday instead of Sunday so that Andrea could spend time with her family too.  Had a really nice BBQ at my parents, but the evening ended a bit oddly with the information that my mom had decided to share with us all about the tablecloth used for our outdoor dining that evening.  Not sure why she decided to share such disturbing information with us all or why she used that blanket to eat on, but it's an evening/moment I'll never forget..  good or bad, its a memory that causes me a lot of laughter and confusion in recap!!  :)

Sunday we had plans to hike the Snoqualmie Tunnel, part of the John Wayne Pioneers Trail.  The tunnel is the longest tunnel in the country for recreational use at 2.3 miles long!!  It was pretty cool though to hike it, but it does feel like your never going to get through it as you can see the other end of the tunnel as you hike along, its just a big bright light that takes forever for that light to start to grow.  The tunnel was built from 1912-1914 and it was maybe 36 degrees inside with a good wind running through.  Overall I think we hiked about 5 miles that day and I really enjoyed it.

The entrance heading Eastward

The entrance we used heading Westward

Hunt Test Weekend

It was a long, hot, fun, successful weekend!  Our retriever club hosted a Hunt Test on our training grounds in Monroe.  Another club, the Olympic Rainshadow HRC was the official club running the test, but our club did 1/2 the work and in the end, got a HUGE payoff because of it.  And I dont mean $ in the bank..  I mean that this test weekend was the largest Hunt Test attended this side of the Rocky Mountains!  We had 148 dogs entered over 2 days  :)  This awesome support of our grounds and hard work of those involved with our club and supporters, helped push the HRC in the direction of FINALLY accepting our clubs application for affiliation a week later..  It was a 4 year battle and it just feels Amazing!  There were many others involved in running this event than the ones pictured, but we were the last ones still hanging around at the end of the day on Sunday. 

Our club president Boyd & his wife Pam

 

Don & Anne West

Pete & Kate

Elroy & Lorri (Owners of Earl - Cooper's daddy)

I guess we had to get our pictures taken too!

Although we did not take Cooper to the event, we were too busy working, Derek did run home to get him Sunday afternoon to take advantage of another opportunity to get a picture with some other NW Boykineers!  Cooper sat patiently in the truck, just waiting to head back home.  Is he cute or what!  :)

6 of the 8 Boykins that were on the Test Grounds!

Cooper's brother Mace ran in his first 2 tests over the weekend.  Saturday was not a great day for Mace.. he struggled to bring the birds back and was probably quite confused on what this was all about.  Mace had never been to a test, or to any type of practices, just had real life field work.  We really had to encourage Jim to stay with us Saturday night and come back the next day, he felt a bit deflated I think.  But he was really glad he came back as Mace started to get the hang of what was expected and received a Started Pass on Sunday!  We were very proud of them both, as was Landon, Mace's real owner..  :)

I didnt realize just how exhausted and worn out I was until Monday afternoon at work.. I started to feel sick, my throat hurt pretty bad and I was becoming lethargic.  That evening I went to bed pretty early and didnt end up getting back out of bed until 5pm Tuesday afternoon!  19 hours was FAR too long to lay in bed sleeping the entire time as it took another 4 or so days for my back to recover!  lol

The positive was I lost 6.6 pounds that week at weigh in, then gained 2.6 the following week and now this week am back down 2.2   So its been a real WW rollercoaster, but overall now down 39lbs.  We had a sub last night at our Mtg and she helped me think more positive about weight gain..  Said we have about a 5lb bubble that surrounds us, because our bodies fluctuate from hour to hour on our weight, so as long as the bubble is gradually moving down, then dont sweat the small gains here/there!  I now have 31 pounds to loose in 4 months..  thats my short term goal I'm working towards.

Memorial Weekend

Once again, we ended up at Beavercreek for Memorial Weekend, in Twisp.  3 of the last 4 years have been here, but we really like it and since we were going horseless, we knew there would be some good hiking.

We had invited a few different sets of friends to come along, but none of them could make it, but we had a great time with our horse club friends that did go.  We struggled getting ready to go the week prior..  as we realized our camper was too small for our truck!  Didnt think that would be an issue until we put it on the truck, and saw that the cabover section was touching the roof of our truck!  After some creative thinking, we got it squared away.  But FYI, an upgrade in campers is now on our short-term list.  Which means we will most likely sell our camper this summer and have to be without for a few camping trips  :(  Oh well, we are perfectly capable of "roughin" it!

Our goal for Memorial was to hike the Pipestone.  We had ridden it 3 years prior and knew it would be a great hike.  I was feeling some apprehension about it though as I was fully aware it would be a 4+ hour venture.  Friday I was just not feeling in the mood to get out, legs felt tired and weak.. probably because I was up until 2am Wed night preparing for our trip on Thursday..  Things just were not coming together on Wed, had my WW meeting, my phone died, camper had issues.. so what was I to do?  I still had all that food to prep and clothes to finish washing before heading out the next morning.  :)

Derek went off hiking on his own for a while on Friday.  I dont know how long he was gone, I was lazy and hung out in the camper, nodded off for a while with Cooper!  It was nice having some down time, just me and the dog.  I was sad to have left Ellie behind that weekend but it would not have been right to leave Russell home alone.. poor guy is getting blinder and deafer by the day!  :(

Saturday morning was the day.  We were going to hike out to the Pipestone.  We got directions on which trails to take to get there and headed out.  We dropped down into Death Valley, a completely different vibe walking through there vs riding a horse through.  We had Cooper with us and decided to teach him a new command "follow" as we wanted him to learn to walk on the trail behind us and not running off into the snake filled bushes!  Coming back up out of D.V. was a steady climb, we stopped often for mini-breather sessions and at the end of that climb, realized we had just hiked the backside of Pipestone and missed it completely!  We were at the far West end of it, so we hiked up another section to get to the top of Pipestone which gave us a great view of the entire area.  So we did still hike to the Pipestone, we just didnt end up following the trail ALONG the Pipestone.  But thats OK as we had done the trail horseback and this route we took was one we had not seen before and the lookout where we stopped for lunch, was not an area we had explored on horseback either.

These are some horses that came from a barn around the other side of this hill.  They are on a trail that connects into the top ridge of the Pipestone trail.  They actually took a right and headed down to the intersection of the trail on the backside, which is the same way we had walked up.

Overlooking the Pipestone.  That big hill in the background is the one the horses had come around.  It was really windy up here, but it felt nice and we had an amazing view.

After a nice break and some great pictures, we headed back to camp.  We followed the old ditch-line above camp on the way back and then had to drop down to the campers, so we did a big circle hike, took us 4.5 hours!  Again, AMAZINGLY my back was NOT at all sore the entire hike!  I'm sure the 4 Ibuprofen I took was part of the reason, but that was a very long difficult hike and I was pretty proud of myself.  :)  The weather was not as hot as Burke Lake, it was perfect.

I think we wore Cooper out more than ourselves.  Poor dog tried to jump off the tailgate step that evening and his legs buckled and he fell on his face!  Overall we had a really great weekend.  Cooper still has a major infatuation with fires and at times have to really watch him because he has almost gone in!

At the time of that weekend, I think I was down almost 35 pounds.  Today I am down 37.  Not a lot of change lately, its been an up/down rollercoaster for me.  Good decisions, bad decisions...  But I continue to work on it and am proud that I've lost that much so far.  I continue to work on re-training myself, its a daily battle.

Duck Dog Challenge

A friend took this picture of Derek Cooper & I.  I really like the picture!!

Our retriever club put on a Duck Dog Challenge back in May.  It was a 1-day event and 95% of us had never been to one, nor seen it in person.. so there was a lot of stress involved with getting all the details sorted and how it was going to come together.  I think a few of us were quite worried we wouldnt have anyone show up as its not a cheap sport to do.

There were 2 options.. a Team challenge consisting of 2 shooters, 1 dog handler and 1 dog for $150.  Then the 2nd option was 1 dog, 1 handler for $50.

Derek and I each ran Cooper in the Single Series.  It was interesting.  As the Bumper gets tossed into the sky, you have to 'attempt' to shoot/hit the target, then your dog retrieves it.  It is all timed and scored based on whether you hit the target or not and if your dog retrieves it or not.  Basically of all the teams, all the dogs scored 100% which leaves the deciding factor on points up to the shooters.  And if there was a tie for points, then winner is based on fastest time.

Basically..  we had NO chance in winning!  LOL   We couldnt hit the target very well and our dog is not that fast...  So I am proud to say that I took last place and Derek took 2nd to last..  Shouldn't there be a prize for that?  :)  Overall, it was a financial success, we had enough teams to atleast break even, maybe even made a couple hundred but it was definately a lot of fun..  cant wait to put on another one maybe next year!!

Cooper retrieving a water mark bumper

 This is Molly, Cooper's 1/2 sister

 This is Earl, Cooper's Daddy with Elroy.  Earl was attacked by coyotes in his back yard a few months ago and this was the first time he was able to do any retrieves, so Elroy threw 2 water retrieves for him.  It was really a special moment for us to be there and be a part of it and many of us had tears in our eyes.  Earl is a very special dog and has overcome a lot to even be walking, let alone retrieving again!!

 Derek handing over a Handler's Jacket to the founders of the Duck Dog Challenge, Thanking them for coming out to Monroe and helping us put on a fun event

Willie's Final Post

A few weeks ago, I took Willie to our horse club Breakfast ride for the day, wanted to get out for a nice ride, see how he would do with his new shoes and our first real trail ride.  I invited Suzi to ride Edgar, thought she would enjoy it.  We loaded up the horses and just as I was about to put the truck in gear, I hear and feel BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.. I probably turned immediately red and full of rage, I was flustered as I tried to put the truck into park (because it already was in park!), flew open the truck door yelling WILLIE KNOCK IT OFF, flew open the horse trailer door and proceeded to kick Willie a few times as he stood tied in the trailer!!  Gave myself a few seconds, opened the divider gate, spanked him as I backed him out of the trailer, spanked him some more outside the trailer and then stood there again to calm myself as Derek came flying out of the house and Suzi's dad ran over from across the street to ensure all was OK at the Fecht's house!

I was sooo flippin angry at that horse.  OMG!  I closed the divider wall, put Willie in the far back section, noticed a couple of new huge dents in the trailer, got in the truck, turned the cool air on and drove off.  Not a great way to start my day!  :)  My internal body temp did not cool down until we got to I5.  Poor Suzi didnt even get out of the truck during all the commotion, she knew it was best to stay quiet and out of the way.  lol

I was still angry at Willie as I watched him stand tied to the trailer while we socialized and ate breakfast at the tree farm.  He was pawing and then trying to kick Edgar..  I got on finally and he was antsy, acting up a little but after about 10-15 minutes, he was his normal laid back quiet trail self.  We had a nice ride, he didnt limp at all and the day ended well.  The next day, Willie was a tiny bit "off" but not lame, so I was pretty happy about that.

I finally got him listed online for $900, had some interest but nothing serious.  I had been waiting to take new pictures and to get video, but decided I was tired of waiting and what I had would have to work!  After a couple weeks of stressing about him and just realizing that it was not likely I would recover much money, I decided to give him away.  I had already lost over $5k in cash this past year, so what was a few hundred more.. wasnt worth the stress of trying to make a few bucks.  There was one gal in Kennewick that had already been emailing with me about him, and when I decided Free was the new price tag, she thought on it for 24hrs and decided to give it a go.  With my schedule and hers, I ended up bringing Willie to work with me a week ago and left him untied in the trailer while he waited.  She showed up mid day, took him home, her name is Heather and she just LOVES LOVES LOVES Willie!!   :)  He is fitting in well with her mares, she has ridden him, he is sweet and lovey and she is very happy.  Which makes me happy and the weight has been lifted.  I know I did the right thing for him and for me and I hope she continues to enjoy him for the many many years to come.

I finally just within the past day or so, have started to feel the itch to ride.  I am not 100% ready to jump into a new horse, I still have some major reservations about buying again, but I want a horse.  I want to ride.  I also want to enjoy this time while I am horseless to get a few things done around the place that desperately need doing!  I think Derek thinks we are taking the entire year off from horses, and who knows.. maybe it will be the year.  But if the right horse comes along, I cant see myself turning it down.  ;)