Amanda: Get the Urge for Going (Or Not)

(Editor’s note: Nothing beats a young Joni Mitchell!)

I am trying to organize for west. I spent Saturday toiling in my garden to catch up for time lost during Kingston. I do not have to imagine what the weeds will be like in five weeks when I come back. I know they will be fantastic. But I seeded new arugula, lettuce, peas , beets, spinach, bok choy, anything with a taste for frost. I slow roasted a few trays of tomatoes and froze them. All the usual rushed things I could spend a month doing if I just stayed home. So many details commanding attention when you leave a busy farm.

But this is my sport. I have to be in it. Someone wrote today, describing Kingston Sheep Dog Trials as “summer theater”. We are all the players. Good one.

I will start off on Wednesday night, passing Toronto in the comfort of late evening, with four dogs. Clive and Roz are my main runners. Monty has gone to Barbara Ray for the fall, to have a crack at the big ticket dog items before us. Dorey is my Nursery runner. I will be challenged to keep her happy and occupied for a full month on the road. She just turned two. There isn’t much for Nursery dogs to do at Meeker or Soldier Hollow. At home she can hang, garden, chew, dig, and be a dog. The road is full of constraints for a youngster, even if they have done it before. I will bring my bicycle and try to give them a good run each day but some how, it doesn’t change the wearisome quality of road life. Feist, my twelve week old, is coming , to charm me and to help the pup become a road warrior. Sheep dog handling makes road riders of us.


If I don’t sound enthusiastic, it’s because I am not. The driving. And my home is loved. Beverly Lambert is a week ahead of me. I see she is not blogging so I will have to take over reporting for her. Maybe my writing for her will make her so anxious she will take over for herself.