Seattle

Lillian spent three weeks in Seattle this summer taking a course at the University of Washington School of Public Health. I flew up for a weekend to visit her and fell in love. Seattle is a wonderful city! And Lillian was the perfect guide to it. When I tentatively suggested, "Well, I kinda hoped to see the Seattle Central Library..." she enthusiastically responded, "Oh super! I've been really wanting to see it too!" The apple doesn't fall far from the tree! It's a fantastic glass building designed by Rem Koolhaas.
In addition to being drop-dead gorgeous, it's a very functional building and a lot of fun to be inside. Attention, I.M. Pei! It matters what goes on INSIDE the building too!!
We also got out of town and drove out to Snohomish Falls. In Seattle, it's water, water everywhere!
The Asian food in Seattle is absolutely wonderful. There are so many inexpensive Thai and Indian restaurants to choose from, especially in the area around the University.
A slideshow of photos from this weekend shows more pictures of the library, a trip to the anthropology museum on campus, and the Pike's Market.

On the Clark Fork River

Vivian's spending the summer as a river rafting guide on the Clark Fork River in Montana. Tundra is the best sport ever and loves the water!

Vivian is such an amazing outdoorswoman! That's her friend Tyler in the raft with them.

Dogs and Eggs

Daisy and I spent a long Saturday morning up in Valley Center at Anna's. A special treat was a flat of eggs brought over by Robin. Each color of eggs was laid by a different variety of hen.
It was sunny and 89 degrees up there, so we all enjoyed the cold water and beers chilling in the cooler below those eggs!

Returning to La Jolla Shores, the marine layer was still in place and it couldn't have been warmer than 72 degrees or so. So, as you might expect, neither Daisy nor I are well-acclimated to the heat, and both of us sacked out when we got home!

Despite the heat, Alli was as perky as ever. I'm going to miss that little dog when she goes out to all the cattle dog trials in Wyoming soon.

Riddle's already proven herself well in the cattle dog trials. In this picture, Tikkle is almost saying, "Hey, I'm good to go too!" She's only a bit over a year old, but she is quite an independent ranch hand. She's always on the alert, and if something needs doing, she'll just do it. If a student is moving sheep through a gate, she'll position herself wide, just to make sure nobody gets any wise ideas. There's not much escaping that girl!

The Pack at Wags

"Wags for Wishes" is a fundraiser for the Make A Wish Foundation, and as the title suggests, it's all about dogs. It's basically a dog fair, with just about every dog event you can think of. Herding, agility, dock jumping, fly ball, conformation, disc dogs, lure coursing, and canine good citizen testing. Daisy and I spent Friday afternoon with the Stock Dog Ranch group at the herding venue.
Dave, Patty, Danielle, Anna and I were the humans, and Dojo, Sophie, Chesney, Riddle, Tikkle, Alli, and Daisy were the dogs. A great pack! Anna is a happy Mizz Natural surrounded by her dogs and friends. As you can see, Daisy is enjoying being a member of the group.

The herding was divided into three classes. Not surprisingly, in the highest class, Anna and Riddle took first place and Anna and Tikkle took second place! Alli, who is the white dog with the black face on Anna's left, is Tikkle's littermate. She was raised elsewhere, but her owner recently died and Anna brought her home. She hasn't had nearly as much training as Tikkle, but she did marvelously as well. This video shows her run. All three dogs are cattle dogs, so when they work on sheep, they tend to work closer in and be a bit faster and more aggressive. Cows don't push quite as easily as sheep! Nonetheless, all three know their commands and handle the sheep well too.

Danielle and Chesney did well, and so did Patty and Sophie. The youngest competitor, by far, was a second grader, who worked her dog with some assistance from her mom.
Next year, I'm planning to do dock jumping with Daisy. We'll practice in Verda's pool beforehand.

July 4th

Last year July 4th fell on a Tuesday, which was kind of a perfect storm for our neighborhood, since virtually everyone had a four-day weekend. And everyone and their friend came to the beach! This year, the police and parks & rec folk really staffed up and were ready. Fewer people came to the beach, but those who did come came early, and there were way plenty of people. At 6:00AM the park was full.
Rumor was that people had started setting out tents and barbecues at 5:30AM, before the sprinklers came on. Daisy and Duncan completed the morning walk early, and we hunkered down for the rest of the day. No fireworks for Miss Daisy!
Fortunately, the news was that the amounts of trash and drunken behavior at the local beaches seems to be declining -- "Beaches take a beating, keep on gleaming!"