a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Foggy Night at the Agility Field

Friday, January 27, 2012

Foggy Night at the Agility Field

SUMMARY: Just some photos and notes.
I was going to post about Boost's training work, but instead, well, I became enchanted with the fog.

According to the newspaper's weather report, last Saturday South San Jose got .70 inches of rain and .25 more on Monday. My rain gauge says different.


In any event, everything around here is now saturated, and top that off with unseasonably warm weather this week. 

As a result, on the drive up to class last night, for the last mile I encountered clouds of fog drifting across and alongside the road, surrounding me in an odd, shifting tunnel of gray. When I alit from MUTT MVR, I admired the softly glowing agility field:

Kinetic the Papillon ponders her first agility lesson and carefully checks out all the dogs. Kinetic hikes with us regularly, many long miles without having to be carried even once.

The Merle Girls would like there to be some kind of action, here.

Our instructor shows us how it's done. At least, we think that's Ace and his handler out in the fog.

Boost's full sister (but not littermate) TCam also shows us how it's done, as the fog tries to take the field.

They can both really hustle!

And here, for your enjoyment, is the current #1 Mixed Breed AKC (I never dreamed I'd ever be saying that phrase!) agility dog, Roo. Is she good-looking or WHAT?

"Can haz photo?" ---or--- "Use the Force, Luka!"

But one of the best parts of the evening was The Owl's Song: From a Great Horned Owl, high in a dark tree, and I ran my video--you can admire the drifting fog, but then just listen--the perfect sound for a night like this:

On the way home, the fog had thickened enough that I drove that first mile--which I've driven hundreds of times at 40 MPH--at around 20, and at times on that curvy foggy road, 20 was a bit much as the road vanished and it wasn't entirely obvious whether it was vanishing into the fog or over the side of the mountain. Glad the fog cleared away as I descended the hill.

6 comments:

  1. great photos! The amount of fog this morning was pretty intense too. Made driving rather difficult.

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  2. They always say not to drive in the fog with your brights on. Last night, because no one else was around, I tried it to see what happened--wham! The fog closed in around me, as the light reflected off of every little droplet of water in the air! Pretty cool, but definitely one wants to drive in the fog at night with just regular headlights, not brights.

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  3. Beautiful! I was coming back from a delivery to Aptos Thursday afternoon, around 2pm, and almost stopped to take a picture of the smokestacks of Moss Landing Power plant. All that was visible sticking out of the fog was about the top third, and even that vanished as I hit one curve. Probably had something to do with the warmer air around the plant, because it stopped a little way after it, but there were lovely wisps drifting across the flats exposed by low tide too. Always loved fog, except when I have to navigate the tule fog over Pacheco Pass.Maggie Guthrie

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  4. There is something cool about structures emerging from the mist, isn't there!

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  5. I guess you guys don't get much fog, huh? We get it all the time so it's not really that interesting although it is very eerie. And did you know that if you hoot out "who cooks for you?" the owls will hoot back quite happily? They're searching for mates so they're doing their version of online dating.

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  6. Lots of fog further up the peninsula, along the coast, and oftentimes out in the central valley. But not so much right in this area. I haven't tried hooting at the owls. I like the phrase and will try it next time, altough they (he/she) were hooting at fairly regular intervals already.

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