BevLive: Castle Rock, Day 1

Hung around Lise Anderson’s for a while in the morning and then drove twenty five miles to the next trial in Castle Rock. Turns out the town is named for this really neat pile of exposed rock on top of a very tall mesa. It rather dominates the local skyline.

Anyway the trial field was quite small. This trial appears to be part of some larger event whose nature I never really determined. The outrun is perhaps a hundred and fifty yards, very flat and directly into the prevailing winds as it happened. The wind started at fifty miles an hour and by lunch was up to sixty five. Not very good conditions for working four very reluctant, ignorant range ewes around a course.

Hemp was up fourth and had a fairly poor run. We got everything but I laid Hemp into the ewes at the top end and kept them hustling all the way around trying to avoid the sort of face off that had already sent more then one handler walking up the field to retrieve their dog. The speed had its desired result and we finished but it was very cowboy.

The running never got any better and Hemp ended up winning with Lise Anderson and Mack second out of about sixteen dogs. Joe’s run came to grief with a face off that ended with a hanging on grip. He’s gotten pretty good about not gripping but the nature of his grips hasn’t improved at all. When he bites it’s for keeps.

I missed the young dog classes in the afternoon as I needed to run some errands in town and get out of the wind for a few hours. It did warm up. Was 88 degrees when I drove to town and we were all in shirt sleeves again which would have been nice had there been a bit less wind. I’m sorry if I sound like I’m complaining about the weather all the time, don’t mean to, but you sure do notice it when you’re sitting outside all day.

Tomorrow is young dogs and nursery. I doubt if it’s going to be very pretty the way the sheep were working for the open dogs. At least the wind is supposed to let up after tonight.