BevLive: Silver Springs SDT

Short one tonight I'm really beat. It was very hot today, mid-90s to 100 at least, with a good strong wind all day. The wind was nice as it made it a bit cooler in the shade but it just sucked the moisture out. I drank at least a gallon of liquids during the day and I'm still thirsty.

We finished the nursery about 6:00 and I finally left Jamie and Lee Spring's ranch for Laura Hicks' Ranch three hours south and east, a goodly portion on tough dirt roads. It was a long day not helped by dismal performances by all of my dogs.

We again started with open. Jack Gault, a universal favorite, won to all of our delights. David Soppe was second with Ash followed by ReneLeBree and Kay Stephens. My dogs were fairly useless. Mirk took too long to gather and I walked off on the drive when he made a wide flank when he was asked for a tight one.Nel failed to get the sheep down the field. Hemp's gather was so far off line I thought he had gotten lost and I walked again. There were a few more scores today in all the classes than yesterday, but still many groups never lifted. We theorized that all those groups that never lifted yesterday had gotten more determined not to leave the set out. Whatever the reason there were many groups that never came down field and many more groups that went around quite reasonably and penned with minimal resistance. Go figure.

I hoped that Meg would end my sorrows but she too failed to lift in the PN. In the nursery she had no intentions of failing again and lifted pretty hard and then chased on the fetch with the sort of disregard for my commands that used to be her normal behavior. The rest of her run was strong but she listened and worked well at the pen. I hope this was a temporary relapse. Tomorrow should tell. At least I now know what she is capable of and we will get there eventually. I was also very pleased to see her really take charge on her second run, although a little stopping would have been nice. I'm pretty sure Dennis Edwards and Boone won PN as they had a great run but by that time we were all so cooked we just lolled in the little shade we had and stopped posting scores.

Did some sheep spotting and got to send Mirk about 500 yards past the set out pen for a runaway group of sheep in an adjacent pasture, which sort of got him back in my good books. Mostly it was a long, very hot day. It's still in the mid-70s at 10:30 but at least I'm camped at the new trial site and who knows what pleasant successes tomorrow might bring.

There were no mosquitoes at this trial. Hordes of grasshoppers eating all the grass and alfalfa, but no mosquitoes.