Superdog

Well, Bonnie has done it again. She has blitzed doggie school and climbed another rank today. Today she reached the highest status any dog in doggie club can reach - 4th grade. This is a red ribbon and a position of awe from other dog owners and their dogs.

To earn this status she had to sit and stay for 1 minute, had to down and stay for TWO minutes, had to stand and stay for 20 seconds, had to come when called and look at me, had to heel around at the end, had to heel off lead perfectly and had to stand for inspection (ie not move from a stand position whilst being handled by a stranger). She did make a few little slip ups and lost 19 (!!) points (you can lose 20 before you fail), but I'm still proud of her.

Anyway, I don't know what we will do from here! We can't go any higher! It's hard being at the top sometimes.

On the home front, the flowers we planted a few months ago have started flowering at last. Tulips and snapdragons I believe (mmm...well, I think!).

The tomatoes are getting close to ready and I think some of the radishes are ripe for the taking. Actually, they are huge- like big tomatoes! But I don't get it - there is only 1 radish per plant and if I pick it there will be no plant left! Seems pretty dumb to me. All that effort for 1 radish. mmmm....am I missing something?

Fruit trees need spraying-was going to do in in the last week but the weather has been too bad -about 50mm of rain and gale force winds and hail and almost snow!!

Les the sprayman came and assessed the paddocks today - a lot of the weeds are dying but a lot more are sprouting through with the recent rain. He is using a poison called something like GD6-apparently within 30 minutes of spraying it stops the vulnerable plants from being able to absorb any moisture or nutrients, and that is how they die. They normally die within 10 days but because it has been so cold everything has almost become dormant. He reckons once the sun comes out it will die off very quickly. You can already see big green patches of kikuyu where the grass is taking hold because they are getting more nutrients.

The calves are getting bigger (and louder!). I am trying to wean them again of the milk - I have been letting them out into the paddock during the day(yes, I did observe the 7 day withholding period for the sprayed paddocks, mum). They like having a little bit of a gallop and Bonnie especially likes help me put them in the pen at the end of the day. She is turning into a real little cow dog. And a chook dog (she puts the chooks in the pen for me twice a day). She actually knows the difference between "cow" and "chook". Ha ha, sometimes she panics when the rooster gets a little bit rough with the lady chooks and goes running over to save them.

Had a pretty lazy day all up today. Started early and got to doggie school and graded etc, but then got so cold that I had to come home and have a hot bath and snuggle into bed for a few hours and watch get rich on the internet dvds in bed :) Few naps in there. Later, staked my tomatoes, rounded up cattle and chooks, pulled paterson's curse and rapeweed, weeded some of the garden and did a bit of chatting on the phone. All up, a good day.

Found out that Rubens first gymnastics presentation went well and he did a perfect ramp leap and forward tumble and earned his first trophy today!! Well done Rubes, so proud of ya!! xxx