The end is in sight

Second to last day of the shooting season. Not many in the bag as the remaining pheasants have become very gun wise!
Beautiful day ending with a beautiful sunset

Christmas 2010

Christmas is once again upon us.

Christmas eve was a flurry of wrapping presents, visiting neighbours, cooking pheasant, and christmas traditions of stories and Polar Express.

Christmas day was a day of presents, laughing at the dog helping us unwrap presents, eating, family, relaxing, eating, coffee, walking, snow, movies; and remembering that above all the reason we celebrate Christmas is because Jesus basically was born so that He could die. And die for us to have freedom. Pretty awesome reason to be celebrating if you ask me.

Merry christmas to all, to family and friends near and far - wish I could be with every one of you!

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree

In Stratford with mom and Dylan before Christmas

Winter icicles

Christmas Eve walk with Dylan

Christmas Eve walk

Skye

Christmas Day tea

Opening presents

Christmas dinner - Turkey, Gammon, Duck, and all the other bits and pieces!

Christmas day walk

CaniX

This post is about a week late, I do realise this, but better late than never, right?

CaniX is my new hobby. It's basically cross country running with your dog. You wear a harness, and your dog wears a harness, and you're both connected with a bungee line. Then you run, and your dog pulls, a bit like sledding but without the sled.

It's a growing sport within the UK and certain European countries; and races in the UK are held in different forests around the country. They are beautiful locations, but often involve travelling great distances.

Our first race was at Cannock Chase, a wonderful Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty located in Stafford. Mom and I headed over there with the dog in a world of white, as snow continued to cover the UK.

Once there I was immediately bitten by the CaniX bug and look forward to the next race.

It snowed the whole time we were there, which was such fun I thought.

The race went a lot better than I thought. My dog was an absolute superstar and ran (and pulled) her heart out. I was so proud of her!

Had a good chat with a lady and her daughter, and their little brown Cocker Spaniel after the race as we cooled down and had a coffee. Something that Skye did that made us laugh was that she was sitting in the car with her jumper on drying off and keeping warm, and she refused to get out of the car. She just sat there watching us have coffee in the snow lol.

Looking forward to the next race!

Snow dusting.

Whilst the rest of the UK has been having a fairly decent amount of snow (decent by our standards. My Americans, don't laugh!), here in the West Midlands we have had hardly anything!! I'm really not happy. All we've had are the abnormally freezing cold temperatures and a cold house. Yay.

This morning we did wake up to a light dusting of snow (still not too happy with that). I took the pup for a walk at the canal. It was really beautiful, with the water frozen over, and the canal boats seemingly trapped in the ice.

Here are some pics.

Ducks on the frozen water

Skye

Locks

Frozen water

Maybe...

...I should become a snowboard instructor. Just a thought.

Trees, chainsaws, and firemen....

Last night we looked out of the window to see a police car and a fire engine in the road right outside our house. The police and firemen are walking all over the place.

A policewoman starts walking up our drive, so we ask is everything ok?

Turns out a pretty big tree has fallen across the road (oh, did I mention that there are gale force winds racing around?).

My puppy and I sat for ages watching the activity through the window (disappointed to say that we couldn't see much!). She was so funny, woofing and 'talking' in protest of the firemen walking around, the fire engine, and the blue flashing lights.

Just before midnight, we lost power. Great.

Went to bed and woke up at 3am to the sound of the fire engine driving away.

Woke up again at 4am, and noticed that there were still flashing blue lights. The firemen were still outside trying to defeat the mighty tree! Went to bed to the sweet sound of chainsaws, and then woke again to hear the firemen driving off just after 4.

In the morning (still no power!), mom and I went and looked at the (remainder of) tree. It was BIG. And there were branches everywhere. And red and white Fire and Rescue tape fluttering from trees where it had been tied to section off the road. Then the 'wood people' came along and shredded all the unwanted branches.

I must say, the firemen stayed until after 4am to clear our road, but you don't see the electricity people around trying to get our power back (then found out later from the guys who came to fix our power at the end of the day, that they had been working since 5am because the winds had caused so much destruction!)

Very interesting night and day! Most excitement that we've seen around this village in a long time! I did enjoy it all though. It was very cool.

This whole thing has really made me appreciate firemen a whole lot more! Most of the time we associate firemen with putting out fires or cutting people out of cars, not jobs like this. Jobs that last until 4am in the morning, in blustery conditions, whilst trying to remove a fallen tree.

While we all slept, they worked to make our road safe. In the morning there were many people who didn't know what had gone on.

I really appreciate what they did while I was in my warm bed. So thank you!!

First pheasant day, as told by Skye

Today was the first pheasant day.

I was very excited because mom took with me with her again! It was fun to spend the day with her. She was very proud of me because I wasn't that scared of the other dogs, and I didn't run away from them.

It was very exciting going new places, and sniffing all the new smells. I didn't really like being on the lead, and loved it when she let me off so I could run.

On one of the drives we went through game cover, which was really just a tangle of beans (which mom got in her wellies! I thought it was funny), and it was really hard to get through. So because mom was already walking through it in front of me, I just decided to follow in her footsteps and follow the path she was making.

She told me that she didn't think that's what a gun dog was meant to do, but that she thought I was very smart anyway. I think she was secretly impressed with my cleverness (and to be honest, I think she thought it was cute!)

I'm starting to get the hang of this now, the whole thing about flushing the birds out. It's all so very exciting! And I love watching the birds flying!

On one of the drives, a lot of birds got up right in front of me, but mom wouldn't let me chase them :-( I was a good girl though and listened to the whistle and didn't go running after them. Tony (who has the pointers) told me that if it hadn't been for me, a lot of those birds wouldn't have got up and flown! Everyone kept telling me what a good girl I was and how well behaved I was (even the keeper said I was very good!) I think mom was very proud!

One of the drives went through the woods. I wasn't too keen on the briars in the beginning, but I was a brave girl and tackled the briars just like a good little Spaniel should. I did try and follow mom on this one as well, it made it easier! It was fun though going through the woods with mom.

It was a very exciting day, yet also tiring, and I curled up on the backseat of the car and went to sleep on the way home. I heard mom say something about the final number being 148 birds, which apparently is good. One of the last things I remember is Tony telling me that by the end of the season I was going to be a good little beating dog :-)

Last day of the season....

"Shooting is not just about the bag at the end of the day, but also the enduring memories created by the best shot you have ever taken, the jovial chat amongst friends, the fine countryside and the conviction that a good day in the field is second to nothing else".

The end of the season is upon us. Shooting is coming to an end for another year. Today (the last day) was beaters' day. This is where the beaters have a chance to shoot, and the guns do the beating! All but four of the beaters shot, and the rest of us, well, beat! I chose not to shoot as I have not shot for over a year and had wanted to get in some practise on the clays, but as this did not happen, I opted not to shoot today. And whilst I did regret this choice later on, it was still good fun beating with the guns, whom we don't usually mix with a lot. They are really nice bunch of guys (and ladies), and it's great that most of them turn up for beaters' day to give something back to the beaters. After all, if it wasn't for us, they wouldn't have any birds to shoot!!

We had perfect weather today. Blue skies, no wind, and a stronger-than-usual winter sun. It was the perfect day to finish the season with. Although the birds did let us down- I think we ended with 46 birds, a very small bag. None of them wanted to show their faces! They're the lucky ones - they will live to see another year.

After we had finished the morning's shooting, we all (beaters and guns alike) headed over to the shooting lodge where we ended the last day with a buffet lunch.

It was a really good last day, and although I don't want the season to end now, walking through the woods today I noticed bluebell shoots starting to poke their way through the fallen leaves. Spring will soon be upon us, and with that, the season must come to an end.

And it gets colder....

The snow has stuck around for the past few days, and it remains cold and iced over. A lot of the roads aren't getting gritted, so they are just turning into ice rinks that a death trap.

Beating today was miserably cold! I have never felt such pain in my feet and hands from the cold before. Whilst it was incredibly beautiful with all the snow covered fields and blue sky and sun, it was so, so cold! It was one of those days where, while I was in the middle of it, was absolutely miserable, but at the end of the day when I had begun to thaw out and warm up, it was a good day. Which, despite the cold, really was.

Tired though because we had to walk so much. The only time we actually went in the game cart was to get to the location where we were shooting for the day, and then after that it was just walking everywhere. We even had to walk back to the keeper's cottage because the game cart and truck got stuck in the snow!

Got back to the cottage and had cups of tea. Amazing how a cup of tea can warm you right up!

Still haven't thawed out though, even after a hot bath. My hands and feet still feel sore from the cold.

More snow pics. Nice heavy snowfall

Dylan & me

Skye & Dylan. She was trying to eat the snowball from his hands

Dylan & Dad, snowball fight

Skye trying to catch snowballs

Dad & Mom having a snowball fight

The playground

Mom & me

Skye in the snow

The field

The church

Our street