Sodden sunshine

Some good progress was made today, I can tell by the fact that my muscles are stiffening up!  After collecting six bags of very good manure during the week, we dug four of them into the trench for the hedgerow that's going around the new vegetable garden.

Then I continued with the long task of clearing the flower beds that surround the patio. Happily I made it all the way to the corner of the wall.  There were lots of stones to take out, both small and large, an old raised bed structure with rotten wood and an almost collapsed willow hurdle.  I salvaged the uprights from that but the rest was rotted and went into the garden waste.  By the time I'd removed all that I was down to the layers of sodden soil and puddles were forming, so I abandoned it for the day.  The remaining manure was dug into the other flower bed which is pretty much ready for planting, unless I can persuade the OH to build up the stones a bit more so I can have a deeper bed!

Noticing that the tips of the tulips are just peaking through in the patio pots I decided it was time to move them around to the front of the house.  This involved many trips with the wheelbarrow, and a Rosie dog escaping out of the garden! Tidied up the leaves around the front, and moved some of the pots that need a bit of TLC...

Dog training, lesson one

So we tried our first training session today. Started off with a run down from the house and up Chapel Lane and then Dark lane. The main road was more hard work with Rosie pulling lots, but loving when we ran - especially the sprint to the lights. Once we were on the back roads she calmed down a bit and was pulling less. I just had to be careful with her nose following running style as she has a tendency to dart in front of me... Once we'd got to the end of Dark Lane we started walking to do some training - she was getting tired from the running at this point and had calmed down quite a lot.

All I did with the training was stop. When she pulled on the lead. Just stop. Not say anything. Then when she slacked the lead/turned or looked towards me, I'd start walking again and praise her. As soon as the lead went taunt again, I stopped. By the time we got to the crossroads, she was starting to understand what she was supposed to do and was definitely pulling less.

Rosie dog learns about walkies!

Poor fat nextdoor's Beagle was left alone for the day with us to keep a eye on her. So we went exploring in the woods to look for an iron age fort... Not much left of it, but loads of cheeky bits of trail that would be great on a mountain bike!