Good dog, happy woman

Is that a border collie in that picture?

So what if my house is a mess, my garden a disgrace, my love life pathetic, my finances precarious at best? I have a damned fine dog, and that's what really matters. (Two fine dogs, actually, but this post is dedicated to Lyra.)

Saturday I left the house shortly after 5 a.m. to travel to an agility competition at the other end of the country, in Gornja Radgona. Okay, that's not as impressive as it sounds once you realize I live in a country the size of New Jersey, but a three-hour drive one-way by my standards is a long haul.

I very nearly didn't go. As with last year's competition in distant Slovenska Bistrica, I found myself in the (not atypical) situation of having lots of work and little money. A sensible person would have made a serious effort to earn more and spend less. Specifically, she would have stayed home and translated (and cut the grass and cleaned house) instead of taking the whole day off and spending money on entry fees and travel expenses.

Last year I took the sensible option, and regretted it. This year I sensibly decided to act irresponsibly. Good move. No regrets. We had a terrific time, enhanced even further by winning a cup, a bag of dog food, and a dog blanket:

photo by www.agility-slo.net

Thereby breaking the Eukanuba curse that we somehow incurred last season. I had set what I thought was the attainable goal of ranking in the top three in the Eukanuba Cup for our category, but with the exception of the first competition of the 2006 Cup (which was also our first time na stopničkah), our worst performances invariably occurred in the Eukanuba competitions, and we finished the season a mediocre seventh or eighth in the Cup.

Videos of our Saturday runs available here (agility run) and here (jumping run).

Despite taking our sweet time on the teeter-totter, which was even more fearsome than usual, we were second after the agility run, since so few dogs had clean runs (the course was a challenging one; nearly half the competitors were eliminated after the first run). Jumping was clean and relatively fast--we had the best time of the clean jumping runs--but not quite fast enough to make up for our slow agility run and overtake the first-place dog, Kala.

This follows a second-place finish at Ajdovščina on April 7:



(Videos: agility run, jumping run)

Saturday was an upbeat conclusion to an otherwise stressful and generally crappy week, marked by an extraordinarily high pollen count which set my allergies raging, controversy and conflict in village relations over the erection of industrial-sized streetlights along our narrow unpaved rural lane that would illuminate my yard as though it were a shopping mall parking lot (considered by some a sign of progress, by others unnecessary and unacceptable light pollution), major challenges at work, and dissatisfaction in my love life (such as it is). After experiencing a series of mini emotional breakdowns, I'd decided it's time to seek help from a professional therapist. But now I'm thinking--who needs therapy when you have a border collie and agility?*

And music. Check out song #11--my personal favorite.

And speaking of dog therapy--check out what Tina and Chica have been up to, bringing good cheer to residents of a retirement home.

*Sorry, Elizabeth, if this catches on, you may be out of business.

A week in my life: March 11-17

It was a good one, despite me being sick the whole time. It started out with a leisurely Sunday afternoon walk through the Karst landscape in the company of a visiting friend and Lyra, who knew exactly what to do when we came across a kal:



A kal, for those who may not be able to read the Slovene Wikipedia article linked to, is a small Karst pond, a depression in the landscape that fills up with rainwater (and may dry up during a severe drought). In the past they were used as a source of drinking water for human households (before being superseded by wells, which offered a cleaner and more constant source of water for human consumption) and for watering the livestock which were driven to pasture every day:



(The pond pictured above is now a road; for more photos and information about Karst ponds go here and here.)

Typically, every Karst village has a man-made kal; a couple of weeks ago, during a village party held in part by the Kopriva kal, a local woman now in her sixties recalled going there to wash clothes in her childhood.

This particular kal, which Lyra so happily made use of,



is a natural pond, located beside a piece of land (one of about thirty) that belonged to my ex-husband and has now passed to our daughter. It's about half an hour's walk from the village along a track just wide enough for a tractor. About 18 years ago we spent several days cutting wood on that land; as we worked, Miloš mentioned drinking from the pond in his childhood, when he and his mother and grandmother would be out there mowing in the hot summer weather (by hand, using scythes--before the land became overgrown by brush and trees).

On the way back, we stopped to play some tug of war:



The weather was stupendous all week long. My health was notably less than stupendous. I had a nasty head cold, characterized by a very sore throat, long and frequent fits of explosive incontinence-inducing sneezing, and nonstop production of vast loads of thick yellowy snot. Lovely. Tea helped. And being outside—it was actually easier working outside than in, though my physcial stamina and consequently labor productivity were low.

On Monday I finished raking the old dead grass and cleaning up the brush around the property, transplanted strawberries, and sawed, split and stacked some wood cut from my pasture in January and hauled home a few weeks ago. Tuesday (having canceled my Ara EFL classes since I couldn't talk) I dug up the garden bed by the garage, scattered manure pellets, planted black currant and white currant bushes (no red to be had, will add later), and installed tomato poles--at the edge of my yard as a slalom obstacle for now, since tomato-planting won't occur till later in the year. Wednesday I dug up the garden beds by the cottage and the flower bed in front of the house, planted a few flowers, and sowed lettuce and radicchio. Thursday I again tackled the pile of wood, sawing the ca. one-meter-long pieces into shorter lengths with the chainsaw (2-3 cuts), splitting the thicker ones, and stacking the cut and split pieces in the shed under the garage, before heading up to Ljubljana for agility lessons. Where I nearly expired, since I couldn't breathe, run, or call out commands to the dogs for shit.

On Friday I took the day off. I had day care for the dogs, drove to Nova Gorica, took the train up through the lower Soča Valley and Baška Grapa to Bohinjska Bistrica (map here), where I luxuriated in the pool and especially saunas at Vodni park Bohinj. Outstanding. I was practically alone in the saunas (just two other people) and the Turkish (steam) sauna in particular was just what my respiratory system needed. For the first time in a week I could use my partially unclogged nostrils for taking in air. Stopped off in Most na Soči on the way back for a scrumptious dinner with a friend, got home about 10 p.m., exchanged greetings with the dogs, fell into bed.

On Saturday we went to an agility competition in Prestranek. No need for an extremely early start, since it's only about 40 minutes' drive and now that we're in dvojka (level 2), we start later. Oli came along and behaved very well. And we got a delivery of seven dog frisbees and got to try them out. AND...we were second in the competition! We had a clean first run (agility)--she did the teeter without much hesitation or prematurely jumping off and she entered and proceeded through the slalom from our "bad" side without mistakes, a performance good enough for second place after the first run. I got disoriented in mid-course during the second run (jumping), momentarily lost sight of the next obstacle, had a terrible line, and she ran by a jump while I was trying to recover, picking up five faults. After that mistake I wasn't expecting to place but other competitors also made mistakes, and we somehow managed to retain second place overall. A nice end to the week, and a good start to the 2007 season.

photo by www.agility-slo.net