Two weekends without agility competitions, and Chico has been a prisoner of my work on the house, and, sometimes, of the heat. When it’s hot and sticky outside, Annie is a wimp and spends rather too much time hiding in the dark*, cool house. It’s a perfect excuse to spend hours, sigh, looking at lighting fixtures on line.

Weekend before last we spent some time over at the family house on Kezar Lake, and walked up through my woodlot to see what the beavers had been up to. They had been busy. Busy as those proverbial beavers.

For a good 150 yards, the road is soggy-boggy wet.

The dam now goes across the road and the culvert under the road is redundant.

Chico can wade, he likes it. Me, not so much.

So, I engaged a strong young man to chop through the dam and insert some PVC pipe to continuously drain the pond. Or that’s what my forester says will work.

Run-throughs tonight, class on Thursday night, a few runs at an AKC trial this Sunday – that’s the plan for agility this week. Maybe a happy-dog visit to Dr Amanda (Chico is now actively seeking treats from her at class, big progress from a few months ago when the sight of her made him hide behind me), a trip to the coast to pick up a rug I had repaired. That’s what Chico and I will do while the insulation subcontractor’s team does their work. After that, wallboard goes up and the interior spaces will really become spaces. I’ve enjoyed being able to walk through the walls of my house, but imagine being quite happy and relieved to see walls appear. As will my builder I’m sure, we’re rather behind their original schedule. That had me moving in right about now. Not happening. Look for moving madness in September or October.

*In summer, this house gets opened wide, with fans blowing out upstairs and in downstairs at the late-afternoon moment it is cooler outside than in. Then in the morning it’s “lock the doors and bar the windows”  time – shut windows and doors, draw shades. It can stay almost 10 degrees cooler than outside if I act at the right moment.