DST, oh how I love thee!

Sometimes I think I am in the minority that I *love* daylight savings time. Love it, love it, love it! Always have! I love having that extra hour of daylight at the end of the day when I'm actually able to enjoy it. I'm pretty sure it stems back to my horse riding days and how much I longed to get out of the stupid indoor arena after a long winter. I've never boarded at a facility with outdoor lights, so the only way I could ever ride outside was when it started to stay light later than 6:00 p.m.

Not to mention that our long dark winters are just so freaking depressing! I can't believe how many people complain about "losing" an hour of sleep each year. Come on, folks, we are GAINING an hour of LIGHT! Happy, bright light! Oh yes, my mood goes up considerably this time of the year. Thank you, US Government, for extending DST. Now the next best thing would be to just adopt it year round...

Now that it is actually light past 6:00 p.m., we have only one more thing to wait for..... The ground needs to dry up and then we can start to PLAY again!!

That's the bike trail where we walk during the day. The frost started to come up today and it was a sloppy mess. The back yard really isn't much better. I have hopes that perhaps it will dry up by Thursday, but seeing the trail go from firm to puddle-filled mess overnight makes me worry that the frost will wreck the same havoc on my yard. Guess I'll find out when we get home tonight -- But overall, the yard is coming along nicely. Last night we tried in desperation to play fetch along the back fence line, the only real dry patch to be found. Alas, even when my aim wasn't horribly pathetic, the dogs typically found great delight in veering off to run through the slop on their return. It didn't last long...

Secret LOVES to be muddy....

At any rate, since there wasn't much we could do in the yard, I ended up taking Secret into the basement for a jumping session. We didn't do much, pretty much just worked on tight wraps and a couple of rear crosses and figure eights. She was an amped up wild & crazy girl. Secret's newest "favorite toy" is the bigger Holee Roller ball we had Karen bring for us at the last trial. It's not significantly bigger than the one I turned into a tug toy, but it's large enough that I don't worry for the safety of my fingers when we tug on it. I can't wait to use it outside where she can really dig in and run after it.

Look who SAT in the mud on our walk today....

I'm crossing my fingers that maybe we will be able to set up some agility stuff outside on Thursday, but if not, I feel pretty secure that Secret will still kick butt at our trial this weekend. We are traveling up to Lindstrom, MN and participating in Saturday only of the Agile Canines NADAC trial! It's in a giant indoor horse arena that I've never been to and don't know what to expect, but everyone says it's really nice. I love running the dogs on dirt, so if this trial goes well we'll hopefully shoot to do both days there in April.

Secret is once again running four classes -- Both rounds of Regular, Jumpers and Weavers. She has a chance to finish her Novice Jumpers & Novice Weavers titles! I opted to leave her in Novice for her Regular runs at this trial. I need to make sure that the last trial wasn't a big fluke or anything before I move her into Open. :o) If she continues to do well at this trial, I will more than likely move her into Open for the La Crosse trial the first weekend in April. I'm not one of those who is inclined to stay in the lower levels to earn the extended titles -- Plus, there is a part of me that thinks, "Hmm, maybe I can get her Q'd for Champs...." It's a massive long shot, but entirely doable if she were able to keep up her streak. We need 10 Q's from Open or Elite in Regular, plus two in all of the games. But really, I think if she got close she could get in. We'll see. Granted, that's just ANOTHER $250 entry to worry about. She's already lined up to be on a team, that is, if we ever come up with a team name!