Nov 15nd 09

The Albany trial was an interesting one.

I missed all the novice events but apparently the sheep were fairly flighty and difficult to work.

I had my first run with Driftz in the Improver and the sheep were just off shears and keen to cover a fair bit of ground.

Driftz was in a feral mood, but we managed the cast ok, and got to the first obstacle where she uncharacteristically crossed when the sheep raced past the obstacle. This happened to a number of competitors as I think the dogs just wanted to stop them as quickly as possible.

Driftzs second run was better and she penned but one bounced out before we shut the gate. They were very touchy and as I only had a short time left I decided I had to shut the gate quickly but it did not pay off.

Albany trials are run in conjunction with the Albany show and the huge rides, bumper cars and sideshows were right at the back of the casting peg.

Rio does not handle noise well, but we did cast both times and managed two obstacles in her first run before running out of time. In her second she was fairly jumpy but we were going ok until some kids dropped a large wooden pallet onto the cement at the back of the ground just as we headed for the first obstacle. Rio spooked and jumped, hit the winding flag and crossed. Still she did some nice work and I was pleased.

In her first run, Angel stuck on the cast for a fair while but finally brought the sheep down then worked them nicely to the first obstacle where we ran out of time.

In her open run she cast beautifully and for some strange reason ran around in front of the sheep and crossed, I presume she forgot where I was due to the noise.

Leena crossed at my feet in her first run as she did not see the sheep, in her second she almost got them before she crossed, but was given a re-run as it was an ordinary letout.

She finally got her act together then and cast nicely but ran around in front of the sheep and crossed, but I was happy with her. It is really hard to get her revved up, she would rather go to sleep than show a keen interest, but we are getting there.

Leena, relaxing before her run.

The sheep in the open did not suit her anyway. They were very heavy and caused untold problems.

They actually got worse as the day went on and in the open final were extremely difficult indeed.

Check out these photos. Some dogs got chased backward and headbutted. A few dogs were disqualified as they bit a little too hard in self defence. It certainly provided some entertainment.

This is Dave Lacey's Pendalup Blondie. He had a top score of 91 in the first round of the open but in the final the sheep just wanted to stomp her into the ground. The sheep on the left here has all four feet off the ground just before she tried to headbutt poor Blondie.

I think this is Tony Boyle's dog, this sheep was just about to charge.

Not sure which dog this is either but it was trying its best to block the sheep too.

Full results of the trial are in Sam's blog here.

There were a lot of horses at the show, but I admire the fresian the most, magnificant animals.

And while at the trials I picked up my newest member of the family.

She is a full sister to Balto, but very tiny at the moment. So far she has fitted in well and Driftz is looking after her and was quite happy for her to play with her feet and crawl over her, but she did draw the line at the puppy trying to suckle her.

As usual she is unnamed, this can take a while here, I like to choose special names.

Balto had a try on a big mob the other day and after he had a feral for 5 minutes or so, he settled and drove the sheep well.

Balto also enjoyed the trial,here he is relaxing and pushing Sam around.

On the farming front, we managed to get four days shearing last week, but the sheep were wet on Friday which was fine as it allowed me to escape to the trials without feeling guilty about leaving my husband to do all the work.

We still have about 17 days of shearing left, and the weather is getting very warm so I will be glad to finish.

My raised beds are thriving and we will soon be able to eat some of these lovely veges.

In contrast to last months yellow theme, everything around the farm is red this month. It looks rather lovely.

The roses.

The leucoxolyn.

The Calistemon

Well, not really red but close, I just had to photograph this beautiful Tea Tree.

I have found some peacock eggs and put them in the incubator, there are others nesting but who knows where, I will have to hunt around. The peahens are clever and know if you are following them so you have to be sneaky.

Now that the trials are over for the year, perhaps I can get my dogs trained for next year.

Well I can dream anyway.