It’s about time!

Remember those weave poles I was going to make for the Collies?
Then the car broke down and we were stranded for awhile?
(You can refresh your memory here!)
Well… after that the weave poles were kind of forgotten about for a little while.
But then they were remembered about just long enough for me to spend ages and ages at Home Depot with two Collies and my Mom.
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Home Depot, Jan. 22 2013 (yes, I had those PVC pipes lying around for three months, whoops)

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“Gimme that treat.”

Then the weather went back and forth between being snowy, muddy and warm. So the PVC pipes laid around, gathering dust, for a few months.
Until a few weeks ago, when the weather was nice and had been consistently, then my Mom and I finally got around to cutting the PVC pipe into appropriate sizes.

Then it snowed.
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But over this past weekend the weather was lovely and I was ready to finally get these weave poles finished. Completely finished.

Saturday my Dad drilled holes in the PVC pipe caps so I could thread the stakes through them. I wanted to stake these weave poles into the ground rather than making a base for them for two reasons:
1) My first set of weave poles had a base made of PVC pipe and that worked out perfectly at our old home where we had a garage and a basement to stash them in when the wind got insane. However, once we moved to our current location, with no garage and no basement, the weave poles blew away long before Petal even arrived. Hopefully these ones won’t be going anywhere.
2) I think (and, again, hope) this will make them easier to pack up and move with.

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My brother and Mom helped me hammer the stakes + bottom caps into the ground, then we added the poles + another cap on top, and some blue tape for visibility.

Voilà! Finally finished!

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There are a total of 12 poles.

Petal is already practicing (so is Lassie and even Penny, but I don’t have any pictures of them).

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At first I could tell by the look on her face that she thought I had gone completely nutty, but she’s already starting to grasp what’s going on here and I think she’s starting to have fun with it.

Weave pole tutorial can be found here.

Petal and Harriet + Our shopping trip has been put on hold

Let’s address the second half of our blog title first, then you guys can enjoy the video I have of Petal playing with Harriet.

On Tuesday I showed you all my shopping list and had you guess what we were buying. I think everyone— or just about everyone— guessed supplies for weave poles, which is correct! I’m going to be making Petal her first set of weave poles and Lassie’s second set.
A few years ago my Mom and I built Lassie an agility course. He had a adjustable jump, a tire jump, weave poles, and a child’s play tunnel. It was tons of fun, but most of it got lost/broken/blown away when we moved. All we have left of it is the jump, which Lassie, and now Petal, still have fun with.
I think Petal would really enjoy weave poles though, so we’re going to make a new set.

Incase you’re wondering: we’re not going to get into agility competitively (at least not now, but I feel pretty confident in saying probably not ever, but who really knows, right?), for several reasons, we’re just going to have fun with it in our own backyard for the sake of exercise, mental stimulation, and just plain fun.

Anyway, on to the part where our trip to Home Depot for weave pole-making supplies has been put on hold.
Our car, our one and only car, decided it would rather not start on Tuesday morning. We got all ready to go, Collies in the car, Humans bundled up, and the car refused to start.
A family friend came over and confirmed that it wasn’t the battery, as we thought it was, and then he kindly towed it away to his shop to find out what was really going on.
Now I don’t speak car, at all, so bare with me, but I think it’s been said that the timing kit has to be replaced along with something else.
So here we are, on Thursday morning, still without a car. Hopefully we’ll have it back by tonight, because we really need to run a few errands and we have a day trip planned for tomorrow.
We’ll see.

Now onto the video!
I’m pretty sure I’ve shared a video of these two playing together before, but this one shows off the silly sounds Petal makes when she plays with Harriet, plus her pouting at the end when Harriet leaves.

It still makes me smile to see how well these two get along. I’ve never had a dog and a cat that actually enjoyed playing together. We have two other cats and they want mostly nothing to do with the Collies. Harriet, however, has been in love with them since she was a teeny, tiny kitten. She gets along better with the dogs than she does with the cats.

One more thing, ignore my Mom talking to my little sister and my Dad clanking dishes in the kitchen. They can’t keep quiet for nothing, even when recording a video was their idea. Haha.
😉

Enjoy!