BevLive; EID Classic, Day Three

Interesting day. Started out very cold, windy and wet with some fairly steady rain. By 1:00 it was warm, bright and sunny with no smoke from the British Columbia fires still burning.

We ran two nursery classes in the morning. Meg continued to absolutely delight and impress me by winning the both handily. Her first run was better than most of the open runs, earning an 80. Way to go baby. I can’t believe how much she has learned thus far on our trip. I see a bright future for us if this keeps up.

The double lift final was tricky. The outruns were not long but the second gather was at nearly right angles to the fetch gate along a ridge. If the first group of sheep ran down the field while the dog went back for his second group all went pretty well. But if they stayed at the turn back post it was nearly impossible to get the second fetch gate without the sheep joining the first group and ruining your fetch.

Scott had a good early go with Maid marred only by her losing two cheviots on the back side of the ridge on his second fetch. When they popped up to join their comrades at the turn we were all very surprised. His scored of 125 was high until Hemp turned in quite a credible run, severely damaged by an awful second fetch, but with a good finish that got him a 130. Lee Lumb tied this later. These scores stood until the end of the day when Scott’s young Don had a good run with a bad shed and no pen to score 136, followed immediately by a really good run by George Stambulic and Kate, deservedly winning the day with 148.

Mirk worked really well, especially heroically at the pen when he was tired after a hard shed. He managed to pen his five recalcitrant collared ewes with seconds to spare.

The day finished George first, Scott second, Hemp and I third, and Lee fourth.

Nel and I took the flock of 250 ewes over to the waiting truck and with help from Ian Zoerb and his Sam finally managed to get them loaded. I’m sure all the pushing and fighting must be good for her as long as she doesn’t grip off at our next trial in an over abundance of self confidence.

We were done running by 3:30 and had the course down and stacked by 4:00. All the pens needed to be dismantled and removed by tomorrow but a bunch of people stayed over tonight to give Ian help getting it done.

So the trial is all over for another year. A really good event, very difficult and a lot of fun with great prizes. Joann gets great jackets for all the top placers and Meg won a cookie jar in the nursery.

Tomorrow we all make our way to Shaunavon, Saskatchewan for the next event, which starts on Tuesday. I will again have an opportunity to run all three of my Open dogs as well as Meg. I’m especially anxious to see how Meg and Nel do. I don’t think there will be cell coverage in Shaunavon so there might be no blog for a few days. After Shaunavon I go to Union Center, SD, where I’m told there is for sure no coverage. So wish us luck and I’ll let you all know how it turned out as soon as I can.