Category: barclay

Dogs and the wheelbarrow

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, navi3 Comments

So the other day I heard some barking, looked out the office window, and grabbed my camera – because I saw this…

I had left a wheelbarrow full of planting soil on the front deck after I finished repotting my tomato plants, and Navi was in it, and Barclay wanted in on that action, but she was hogging it! I went to the front door to watch.

Yup, nothing unusual here. No sir-ee, just business as usual.

Barclay tried some barking…

A little bitey-face…

Then he tried his passive stare-down technique…

That did the trick, Navi jumped out and the went back to racing around the yard!

Crazy dogs!

_

Dogs on the bed

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, navi, pets2 Comments

This morning the dogs were hogging the bed, trying to push us off. I got fed up and said in my most stern voice ‘Enough! Both of you OFF the bed right now!’ and Navi sat up real tall, with her ears back, and gave me the most shocked look! Then she squinted and bent over for a good look at me like ‘Are you ok? You never talk like that!’ then both her and Barclay pounced on me with waggy tails and tried to lick me to death! Then they settled right back where they were in the first place! Intimidation FAIL on my part! I’ve told people that alpha-dog BS doesn’t work on Eskimos 🙂

_

Memorial Weekend Camping – Day 2

On By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, dave, navi2 Comments

The next morning we all had a great breakfast together (I brought fresh eggs from our chickens) and afterwards someone had the brilliant idea to bring out a puzzle – which quickly became a community effort! I wasn’t too keen on puzzles, but I found a piece and then it was addictive, I had to hang around and find a few more.

The dogs spent most of the time with us on leash, but occasionally they had to hang out in the yard while we were at meals.

I distracted them by giving them chewies to work on while we were having meals.

After lunch Dave got into a card game.

Eventually the dogs got so comfortable in their yard they started wrestling and playing – it was nice they had enough room to run around a little bit off leash!

Our van, along with several other large tow vehicles, were recruited as ‘wind breaks’ to help shelter the gathering area from the chill winds that were blowing through pretty much all weekend. That actually worked pretty well, and when someone had to move a truck to drive into town, we really missed it!

This was Navi’s first camping trip, and she did great. We gave her dramamine before leaving, but she still threw up on the trip down. She was a bit nervous about all the attention, even though Barclay was setting a great example of how to schmooze people for treats and lovin’, so she went with a ‘bark first, ask questions later’ policy. She did pretty good though, she just needs to get out more. For the trip home we gave her extra dramamine, and she still threw up. Poor pup! But she was such a good sport about the whole thing.


Soon, another great long weekend in our Airstream was over. Everything in the trailer worked fine. It’s so nice that the trailer has finally gotten most of the bugs worked out. Once we got home it gave us a little trouble emptying the black tank, and the last night there we ran out of battery power, but all in all, it did really good, and like always, it was a comfortable place to call home base.

_

Memorial Weekend Camping – Day 1

On By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, dave, navi3 Comments

We arrived in beautiful Trout Lake, WA, at the foot of Mt..hey, where’s the mountain?

This is our annual Memorial Weekend trip to meet our Airstream friends. This time we had about 10 trailers, which is a smaller party than usual. A lot of people had to cancel at the last minute. 

Many of the regulars were there as usual, and brought instruments, because it just isn’t a party until the music starts up.

We got our little trailer setup, along with the new ‘dog yard’! This really worked brilliantly. The dogs enjoyed having space to hang out and watch the goings-on.

When we were just hanging out in the trailer, it made the trailer seem bigger because the dogs could be outside enjoying the sunshine.

The weather was kind of crazy. Storms kept blowing through, and it was one of the coldest visits we’ve had there! It’s been a late spring all over in the NW, and this place felt like it could have snowed at any time!

Dave wanted to snap a picture of me and Barclay in front of the mountain. I tried to smile, I don’t know why it looks like a grimace!

We spent downtime hanging out in the trailer until the storms passed.

When the sun came back out we took the dogs for a walk to see the stream where it crossed the main road. It was really high and roaring!

We got a glimpse of the mountain at last.

 

We cooked potato-dish for the potluck and then hung around the campfire, catching up with friends.

Even though it was cold, the mountain rewarded us with a pretty show at sunset.

_

Flying dogs

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, navi2 Comments

I was out having fun taking pictures of the dogs this afternoon.

I wanted to get a picture of them playing stick-ball.

That’s their ‘flirt pole’, is a ball on a rope on the end of a stick. I swing the stick around, they chase it and jump in the air to grab it.

They do the most amazing, acrobatic high jumps snatching the ball out of the air, but it’s really hard to photograph, partly because it happens so fast, but also because my hands are full with the stick! Barclay particularly does some incredible calculating to guess where the ball will go and is often hanging in the air waiting for it when it arrives!

After that catch Barclay got distracted by Dave coming home, which left Navi a chance to chase it without Barclay the Stick-Ball-Hog getting in the way!

But finally Barclay swept back in to show her how it’s done!

_

Dog Yard for the trailer

On By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, navi1 Comment

We have a camping trip coming up, and I’m planning to take both dogs. I thought having a little ‘yard’ for them would be a lot of help. Our trailer is very small, and space around the door is crowded. So I took our X pens and spent most of the day making this:

I can make it bigger by adding more panels. Most of the time was spent figuring out how to work around the step.

I ended up cutting a panel in half, and then cutting one of the halfs in half again, and made this three piece panel to go under the step. I topped it with some flexible water pipe to protect our hands (you can see the pokey side on the right I have yet to do). This will make it so we can just open the trailer door and let the dogs out into the yard. That will be really nice for morning potty breaks! Also I won’t have to worry about Navi dashing out the door running off to annoy the neighbors.

Barclay’s ready to go camping. He’s waiting in the van!

Kids, Llamas, Alpacas, and Dogs

On By stefrobrtsIn 4H, barclay, jack, llamas, navi, pets2 Comments
I had a fun day today, with a 4H meeting first thing in the morning. We had it at one of our 4H family’s farms, where they have alpacas. Because they recently got in a group of young alpacas they were trying to place in good 4H homes, we got to see kids working with a variety of young animals that were new to all this, which of course made for an interesting morning!
Some were resistant to this ‘jumping over stuff’ idea…
Some did not like the idea of walking on strange surfaces…
And some of them just plain didn’t want to cooperate – even though this llama in particular had years of experience!
Some kids were having much better luck with the obstacles.
Practice and persistence pays off! These kids have a show coming up, so hopefully this little refresher got their animals in the mood to cooperate next weekend!
I took my new camera to the 4H meeting, along with my longest zoom lens (200mm) because that gave me a lot of reach. I was wandering around the field where we were working, and if I saw anything interesting about to happen, I was always close enough to zoom in and get it. Another thing I like about this camera is it takes multiple pictures in quick succession without having to go into a special mode. That definitely helped me get the shot I was looking for more than once.
At home I put one of my shorter lenses (the 28-80) on for taking pictures in the yard with the dogs, because they were seldom more than an arms-length away.
I love this shot of Barclay, but because I was zoomed in, the depth of field is shallow – the result being his nose is in focus, but his eyes are soft! I’d rather have it the other way around! The best solution would have been less zoom, and move closer – but he moves around so much I had to snap it when I could – oh well! So close…
A little bone-chewing action – with the green grass and blue sky.
Then Navi took the bone. I love the way they chew on bones, they’re so concentrated like nothing else exists.
I was so glad I got this shot of Navi! She is such a goofball, but sometimes she’ll hear something and just STOP with this rediculously serious look on her face! She looks so concerned!
 Jack
 I tried to finish off with a nice portrait of Barclay and Navi sitting in the dandelions, but before I could hit the shutter Navi had to sproing away to go do something else! Well, actually, that pretty much captures their personality perfectly!
By the time I was done I’d shot about 150 pictures today. Thank God for digital cameras! This explains why I couldn’t get into photography as a kid when all we had was film!
_