Spring Watch

Both Ian and I love watching “Spring watch” on BBC2 every year and this year was no exception, we decided to join in with a few of their tips on how to encourage wildlife to your garden and as we love watching the birds feeding from the feeders, which we have located in various places around the garden, we thought we would attempt to make a few bird boxes – Yes, even I used a hammer and off course I got to paint them too (outside of the boxes only) Ian’s boxes that where made free hand were rather large, so I got the measurements from the web site and made some suitable for Blue Tit/Robin rather than blackbird, woodpecker ones!
Not that we have seen any woodpeckers here – Yet !


We had strong winds over the weekend and unfortunately it was too much for one large tree which fell over into the garden at the top near the house – I was very sad and “Mrs Grumpy" all day long. I wouldn’t let Ian chop it up, I made myself do it later on in the day, Yes we get some wood to burn in the winter, we have had to cut so many down since we have been here and I have a soft spot for trees. This one seemed so strong and healthy,we had put some feeders in the branches and enjoyed many an evening watching the birds feeding. That's life, I know.

Ian, started on the foundations of the new sheds today, thankfully the digger helped dig the trench, that's why we bought it – to make life easier.

I worked all the dogs on Saturday, before it rained. We tried doing some “grid” exercises (my interpretation of it!) and also an “S” shape line of jumps, this exercise was mainly for Harry, to get him to see things at different angles and pick up on them, he was good at picking up on the jumps, but I struggled turning him at the end to come back down the line of 6 jumps – it was like turning the QE2. So this morning I did some wrapping around wings with food and a clicker, then a toy and then progressed on to using my "stop arm" as a “Q” – Charlotte on her web page (Red’s mate Ricky, on my links) has done a great video of teaching Ember it, when she came to stay with her, this was totally alien for me, as I have always worked my dogs from behind, I’m gradually learning it! Red is great with it, this may be because now that she is slowing down, I can be nearer to her, Buzz can’t cope with it at all, too many hands/arms moving around and he hates me being anywhere near him (some times!)
Red has her second injection tomorrow, she is becoming a lot more relaxed now and not quite so "Mrs Angry", she has been playing a lot with Buzz, so I think she may be feeling a lot happier. Harry is missing out, as she only wants to rough and tumble with Buzz, he seems to only get to play with us or other dogs at shows or at club, perhaps we will have to get him his own play mate!!!!!
Watch this space.