a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Remembering Weaving Poles, Flowers, Birds, and What Else Anyway?

Monday, June 08, 2009

Remembering Weaving Poles, Flowers, Birds, and What Else Anyway?

SUMMARY: A little yardwork, a little practice, new neighbors.

Yesterday I didn't go for a hike, didn't go for a walk, didn't even really practice any agility. I did split, plant, and/or repot some hostas, mondo grass, western bleeding heart, redwood sorrel, impatiens, begonias, lobelia...and some other stuff that I've already forgotten.


Also trimmed dead or rangy bits from some lettuce, pothos, ferns, more mondo grass, irises, mint, and those large white daisy things that come back every year. Plus some other stuff that I've already forgotten.


In between, Boost lay next to The Toy, off on the lawn in the shade somewhere, and waited for me to offer to throw it. So I did, sometimes. And sometimes we played the Find The Weavepole Game. Don't recall where I learned it. Basically, you play with the dog like crazy, get her all het up, then take the toy away and say "Weave!" and let the dog find the weave entry.

You start out easy, in a location close to an easy entry with the dog alongside you and you're both facing it. The you move to various distances and various angles away from it, with the dog maybe facing you when you take the toy away.

The idea is that my job is to identify the obstacle. The dog's job is to find the correct obstacle and correct entry and do it. Boost does OK if it's not too hard. I should do more of that; used to do quite a bit of it but it's just one of lots and lots of clever agility training stuff that over time I've already forgotten.

I'm just tired of Tika having pretty dagnabbed good weave entries--and always has--and Boost just dagnabbed doesn't, and she's well over 4 now, what's her excuse? Plus I'm tired of having raggety looking plants lounging around like reprobate rejects from the plant factory. Plus tired of empty or half-empty pots. It's almost summer, fer crying out loud!


Plus I had to avoid the TWO birds who now think that nesting in my potted plants, which I water regularly, are ideal places to raise a family. The mourning dove conveniently took the apartment that I filled with soil but left unplanted specifically for mourning dove nesting; how clever is that bird? How clever am I?


But until I watered the last litter of finch teenagers (see here and here), I didn't realize that finches had moved in down the hall from the dove. Apparently the complaints about the overzealous shower caused mom to move one pot down the hall this time to raise the next litter. Both pots contain plants. Hope they can go a while without water.


What was I talking about? I'm afraid I've already forgotten.

5 comments:

  1. First, the good news. If that finch nest is in the pot housing the Hoya carnosa, it'll be fine for the couple of weeks till fledging.

    I suspect your recurring white daisy thang is a "Margurite Daisy." (not native)

    I forget what the bad news might have been. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. yup, it is your hoya carnosa, and I figured it was the type of plant that would likely be fine. And I've been thinking it is marguerite daisy (wikipedia kept telling me I meant Marguerite Davis when I went looking for photos there).

    ReplyDelete
  3. The *fine* mourning doves in Mom's yard almost always nest in one of her hoyas. On rare occasion, one of the stoopider doves (and *that* is saying somethin') will try to build a nest on top of a light fixture or other relatively 2-dimensional structure.

    And then there's the fool doves in my yard who HAD a fine location and abandoned it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. We had some fledgling mourning doves in our front 'garden' last year, very cute. I kept forgetting to post the pictures. We had a robin nesting on one of our outdoor lights but unfortunately the babies met a grisly end a few weeks after hatching during a terrible windstorm. We've got another robin nest this year in a small backyard tree and I hope these babies fare better.

    I hope the doves come back this year, it was fun watching them grow up.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I wish I had a better view of the nests. They're up under an overhang and I have to clamber around to even get a side view. And the finch flies off at the least little thing--I wonder how long the eggs can go without someone sitting on them and still be OK? I suppose I shouldn't be worrying--birds seem to have done fine in this world even without me there to tend to them.

    ReplyDelete