Most people want maple syrup of a Canadian, visiting a  foreign country, particularly, a Canadian like me who makes her own.  But Maree Cashen has a list: three chains for her Stihl ms211 and a sixteen inch bar, a chain for her Stihl m390, and helmut with a protective visor so that she won’t repeat the injury to her face like she a had several years ago.  Not the regular answer to the question “Can I bring you anything from Canada?”  I mention this, to indicate the kind of trip I am expecting.  A practical sort of a trip, where I will weed gardens, saw up trees, look at dogs, try out dogs, admire dogs and sniff around Ireland.  I am bringing over a couple of extra crates just in case I see a canine  someone cannot live without.  But I have lots of nice dogs at home, so I feel no overwhelming need.  Just the luxury of desire.

I leave from Kingston on Friday, arriving in Dublin on Saturday morning.  On Saturday night the Cashens and I will be in Northern Ireland, at a  dinner-dance celebrating the most recent Irishmen to win the International, Michael Gallagher and his now famous Cap.  In a small world story aside, his uncle Neil lives here in Kingston, working at Queen’s University.  We will spend the night there and go south to Wexford the next morning .

I have only been in Ireland a couple of days.  Now I am really going.  I have Leslie Norris taking over at home.  Things are wintering down to minimal chores.  Hay every few days.  The sheep are with the new North Country rams.  My mother says I’m crazy but that is a constant in a sea of change.

So another blog comes to an end. I’m sitting in a Cabela’s in eastern Pennsylvania thinking back on my trip. Needless to say I’m disappointed that my dogs and I didn’t do better. On the other hand I feel like Nel and Meg got an enormous amount out of the trip. Meg certainly exceeded my wildest expectations, although she bombed big times at the finals she showed me that she was capable of some real nice stuff. Nel showed she had tons of heart and the determination to move mountains. Clearly we need to help her find some way to move these mountains besides nibbling away at their legs, but that’s what winters are for.

Mirk is a tougher question. I was disappointed by some of his performances especially at Soldier Hollow, however, in the semi finals on Saturday he blew me away with one of the best performances of our partnership. So we’ll see.

I certainly need to change my travel arrangements. I just stopped to tie a piece of my fender to my trailer with a piece of baling twine. This is ridiculous. I feel a horse trailer in my future. I will need to do some house cleaning to get my junk pared down, but what else are winters good for?

Was a fun trip as always. Tiring, disappointing and exhilarating–the perfect definition of dog trailing. Thanks to all my patient readers who have slogged their way through yet another travelog.

Oh well. Being philosophical is getting to be a bit easier with so much practice. Mirk and I had an unfortunate draw and we just didn’t get done what needed doing. So no double lift for us. I was very proud of my boy though. He did some tremendous work, everything he could for me, not much more i could have asked for.

Amanda and Clive too ran into a little trouble and won’t run tomorrow.

Roz on the other had covered herself with glory. She had a smoking run and ended up 2nd in the go around. We all went out for sushi tonight to celebrate.

Looks like a nice course for the big day. The turn back is going to be tricky with the pressure to the exhaust on the dropped group and the second group behind one hill and up another out of sight to the dogs. Should be a good test. We’ll see in the morning.

The streaming video has by all accounts been a big hit. It’s going to put bloggers out of business.

Supposedly this was the hottest day of the week. It will take a statistician to tell for sure but I think we had our fewest qualifying runs today. Some nice work by Tom and Sly, as ever, got the day’s high score of 183. The biggest disappointment was Aladair’s Star taking a miscue and running too wide, off the field, to DQ. It’s always a lesson to see them perform and we were sorry to miss seeing them do their magic.

At the end of the day Amanda and Roz’s 151 was the 40th place and the last dog to make the cut.

We reset the course. Very similar as the field doesn’t allow much flexibility. A dogleg fetch to avoid the big tree that gave many handlers trouble in the fetch. We are starting at 7:30 to give us time for the 40 runs. I drew up 14th with Mirk. Amanda is 17th with Clive and 24th I think with Roz. Wish us luck and watch the streaming video. You can find the link at www.nationalsheepdogfinals.com/webcast/

A really hot day. We thought yesterday was hot, but this was even hotter. Last night was hot so we didn’t even get the cool morning. Word was that we were at 97 degrees in the afternoon.

As has been the case this week the running started out very nice and then got quite rough. All day there were dogs that showed they could handle any sheep. The running smoothed in the hottest part of the day which as it turned out was fortunate for me since that was when Mirk ran. When the running smooths the sheep are still tricky but less determined in their obtuseness.

Mirk and I had a good go with a tough time getting our single as our singled ewe kept cutting back around a very hot Mirk. We finally got it and ended up with a 160. Amanda and Roz ran just before us and had a hard go on her fetch. She got things going better on the drive and finished with a 152. The high score of the day was again Robin French who scored a beautiful 185.

Tomorrow is the last day of the preliminary. The top 40 scores from the four days will run off for the 17 spots available on the final, double lift day. Currently 144 is 40th I think. It looks as if many of the 150s will end up in the semi final after we finish tomorrow.

Tonight was the ABCA meeting. Tom Wilson was inducted into the Hall of Fame amidst the heartfelt congratulations of his very many friends. The chairs of the local committee pled their case to the ABCA for some financial support for local Finals committees beyond the registry’s current donation toward the prize money. Only time will tell if they have heard the plea of the handlers to invest some of our registration fees in our Finals.

I’m sorry I haven’t been as faithful to you all as you are to the blog. This is the time at the Finals when the meetings seem to come fast and furious.

The northeast didn’t have much luck on the first day of the finals. Sue ran Brook early and had a pretty hopeless draw. Brook was a good girl and tried her hardest but the sheep kept running. They had a good shed but by the time the judges called it the two discarded sheep were half way to the exhaust. Brook was tired and grabbed one for a DQ.

I ran Hemp the middle of the day. He was short on his outrun but had a good fetch and started a good drive. For some bizarre reason he decided to grab the sheep that faced him at the first panel. Bad dog, no biscuit and a DQ.

Amanda and Clive got off to a rocky start when he over ran on the outrun and had a very poor fetch. Like a professional Amanda got Clive straight and had a very good drive and finish. I don’t recall her exact score but it should get through to the semi final no problem.

Nel and I did some background sheep work, providing local color for a Fox news spot. No doubt the beginning of her film career once the producers see how beautiful she is.

Last night was the annual board of directors meeting for the USBCHA. That coupled with a reception in the mansion for the committees and judges filled my day. Doug, my husband, arrived in the morning to watch his dog, Hemp, grip off. So now I have a little company in the camper.

We are all (Sue, Amanda, Doug and I) driving to Wilson’s to tune up our dogs before we all run tomorrow. Might get a nice lunch in Charlottesville fitted in there too. Be sure and check out “sheepdog news” on Twitter. Heather is doing a blow by blow of all the runs. The streaming video starts on Saturday for the semi final.

My blog is going to be even more personal from now on as Heather is on Twitter with a blow by blow of the actual trial that I can’t hope to compete with for accuracy.

The weather was hotter today and as I understand, this will be the hottest day except for Wednesday. So we can handle that. The sheep didn’t seem any better or worse then yesterday, not unsurprisingly. We have over 650 of them and they will all run once during the nursery. So every preliminary and final run of the nursery will be on fresh sheep.

I ran 20th this morning and had a wreck. Meg didn’t run out with her usual confidence, perhaps put off by the carnival atmosphere so unlike most low key events. Whatever her excuse once she lifted her sheep she was pretty awful over flanking and slow to stop. It was apparent we weren’t going to have any success and I walked at the first drive gate. Very disappointing as she has had some great runs this year. Happily she is young and eligible for next year.

Amanda and Monty had a poor fetch and missed the second drive with fast running sheep. A really good pen got her a score in the 130s. Monty looked really good. Very obedient and full of authority on the sheep. I like him better every time I see him.

We reversed the drive and moved the set out enough to give the sheep fresh grass at the hold out spot. The time remains the same. I’m not sure if the reversed drive (first driving toward the exhaust and cross drive away from it) is going to be easier or harder. Tomorrow will tell.

It’s late. Sue and I have been over in Amanda’s camper celebrating her arrival. Finally, she and Bill have made it at about 10:00 tonight. Except for a brief stop at Whole Foods to stock up on more delicious treats they have been driving almost nonstop since 5:30 Thursday night.

Trial got off to a very good start right on time at 8:00 this morning. We ran the 54th dog just before 7:00. This was our longest day until the semifinal of the open next Saturday and it went fairly well. Alasdair is currently leading with a 151. Sue and Peat had a very nice run late in the day to tie for 6th with a 126.

The sheep are very good. They run, they stop, they check out the dogs and depending upon what they perceive they either run or walk. I think they were more inclined to run in the middle of the day but it’s hard to tell. It appeared that with careful management they could be kept walking but it’s hard to tell how much is luck of the draw, how much dog and how much time of day, especially with young dogs.

I run Meg tomorrow morning. The sheep look very hard. I have no idea how we will do.

What a fun day. The Texans arrived at Edgeworth. I have found that how ever much fun you are having it can be increased with the addition of the right Texans. Ron Burkey, Ron Enzeroth and Alan Mills arrived in the morning and we all worked sheep. I had to leave early to get to the trial for a 1:00 committee meeting so they kindly let me go first. I hated to leave so much good humor but at 10:00 I bid all a regretful farewell and headed down another road. Happily this was a short drive to Belle Grove.

It was so nice to get here and find out so many people had been working so hard to make a Finals for us all. The place looked beautiful. Miles of fencing repaired and covered with black screening, tents erected, flowers everywhere. A really organized Finals. We are so lucky that each year a group volunteers for this horrendous task.

The Trials Committee that I’m on is the one appointed by the HA (USBCHA) to run the actual trial as opposed to the event. It’s a little murky but the host committee provides the venue and makes it all possible and the HA makes sure that the course is set up right and that everything on the actual trial field runs smoothly. A lot of cooperation is the main thing but since the local committee and the HA want a great trial it usually works pretty smoothly and this year looks like being no exception.

Cooler day today and overcast so we could do a lot more dog work.Bud Boudreau arrived last night.

Dennis, Bud and Jean and I worked our dogs for about three hours in the morning with Tom spotting sheep for us. Mostly we concentrated on our youngsters. So much more interesting to watch and they gained more from the experience than the Open dogs would.

I got to see the three litter mates to my Joe off Dennis's Jan. Dennis and Jean sure have got a lot more on theirs then I have on mine. But I think my Joe is the prettiest.

Bud showed off his two nursery dogs and young Gyp. They all looked very nice. I tried showing off Meg and occasionally she cooperated.

This evening we had a puppy show and got to see all the pups off Tom's Sly and old Roy. They are all very keen. Tom is going to have a hard time picking one they all look very promising.

Bruce Fogt and Dee Pentzer just arrived. I'm sorry to have to leave tomorrow. I need to be at Belle Grove at 1:00 to help set up the nursery course. I feel like I could give the whole trial a pass and just stay here and train my youngster.

Looked at Florence's horse trailer with living quarters. It's really nice. I think it might be the right size, especially with a slide. Now I just need to sell mine. Anyone want a slightly used camper?