Spring

It’s starting to feel like spring has really sprung around here.

The weather is lovely, and everything is turning green again. The dogs spend all day in the garden, which apparently is much harder work than spending all day in the kitchen. And also more exciting; Dylan was the most annoying dog ever yesterday.

And the bee-holes are back! That’s as sure a sign of spring as anything. The bee-holes, for those who don’t know, are little piles of dirt a couple of cms high with a perfect hole in the middle. They’re made when the bees climb out of wherever they’ve been hiding all winter; I assume when the soil reaches a certain temperature or something. There aren’t that many right now but they’re appearing between the tree roots and the hard packed soil next to and on the paths. I haven’t actually seen any bees emerging yet, they clearly all get up earlier than I do, but I have seen lots of bees out doing the rounds.

We’re starting to work on getting the dogs fitter for the summer season too, as we’ve been a bit lax over the past couple of months. Kim is carrying a bit of extra weight that I’d like her to lose, and Dylan’s recovery time after a hard walk is pretty appalling really. Both the girls have usually come in and fallen asleep by the time he’s starting to stop panting, although I suppose he does do more running than they do.

Lots of hill reps anyway, and now it’s lighter we can extend their walks to loop around the edge of the res. Hopefully that will improve their general stamina, endurance and fitness, and we’ll probably do some sprints to make sure they’re keeping those acceleration muscles trim.

Off to EMDAC this weekend, the forecast isn’t so good but fingers crossed. I’m really hoping Kim will be feeling her crazy a little more, and I’m actually pretty excited about running Dylan. There are some interesting games classes that I haven’t done before, and Kim is in her first proper Novice classes so I’m looking forward to having courses that we can actually do again!