BevLive: At Joni Swanke’s Ranch

I got up at 6:00 this morning to find that Herbert and Alison had pulled in at about 1:00 in the morning. I had my dogs walked and was on the road by 7:00. Long drive. The west has been getting a lot of moisture this year. Wyoming was the greenest I have ever seen it and even more beautiful for it to my eastern eyes. I drove through the Black Hills, always gorgeous, then up the whole of SD. I got to Bowman, ND at about 1:30 in the afternoon.

View of the North Dakota plains from the camper

Bowman is in the southwestern corner of ND. Joni's place is about 3-4 miles down a gravel road off RT 85. The trial field is huge. The outrun is 550 yards. The field must be at least 800 yards wide. It has a few small rolling hills all through it and slopes from right to left. There are no simple 550 yard outruns and this one is no exception.

The Slash J trial field

Joni Swanke is taking 3rd dogs in the Open so I have moved Nel into Open. I'm very eager to run her and I'm tired of messing about in Ranch with her. I want to see how she handles the big time stuff. I think I have picked a very tough trial to start her out in.

This trial and the next one, which happily is only 20 miles away, are giving a beautiful pottery plate for the dog with the highest combined score from both trials. So whichever two dogs run the best here I will run at The Big One (the next trial).

Dinner/Handlers Meeting

Joni had us all up to her house for dinner prepared by a neighbor who is doing all the cooking for both events. The neighbors slaughtered a steer for the cooking so we are having all this spectacular beef all week. If tonight's great hamburgers were anything to go by we are indeed in luck.

Amanda arrives for some friendly competition

68 dogs to run tomorrow so we are starting at 6:00. Only running on three sheep, which is pretty rare out here where 5 is the norm. But to have fresh sheep for each dog they cut us back to three. It will be interesting to see how they go. Herbert's up first. I'm up tenth with Nel.

By the way, cause for confusion, Nel was bred in Wales and named Awel, Welsh for breeze. However, I bought her from a Scotsman who called her Nel. So I call her Nel but her registered name is Awel.