Lexy Kubicka and Steve York came up from Savannah, GA to COMPOUND DVANGEL and spent the weekend. It was mine and Selma's birthdays coming up soon, so we had a little birthday party get-together, watched the dogs have fun, grilled out, played video games and had a great time.
They arrived on Friday night at about 11:30, so there wasn't much doing that day. We couldn't even let the dogs out into the large yard because its not properly lit. So the dogs just greeted each other (Soleil was the only one that didn't know anyone and was a little spooked by all the weird looking deer-dogs in her yard.) We made nachos, talked a while, unpacked and settled down for the night.
Sat morning, I got up and finished mowing the front yard, having gassed the yellowjacket nest the evening before. Bastards nailed me for running over their nest with the mower. Maso was up as well and we let the dogs outside to play and romp. Soleil settled in with the new dogs nicely and was chasing Oddy non-stop. Anyway, I cooked breakfast for everyone.
Once everyone was stuffed, we watched the dogs in the yard some more and decided we should take a nature trail walk down to the Eno River State Park. Then entrance to the park is literally 1/4 mile down the street from our house. We leashed up the dogs, threw on a couple camelbacks and had a wonderful walk through the forest. The path takes you down and along the river, and there are a couple great spots to let the dogs walk in, get wet and drink some river. After the walk, we head back out and up to the house to cool off, not that it ever really got that hot. I love the temps here.
Getting hungry again, we decided to head out and find something down on 9th Street in Durham. We wander down and hit the Blue Corn Cafe for an amazing lunch that was pretty reasonable. We make a wine and beer run and head back home. Let the dogs out in the yard for some more running and then we rocked out on Rock Band and Guitar Hero: Metallica until about 11:30. I decided that we should go ahead and grill out tonight, so we fired up the grill @ midnight, a very drunkenly thing to do, and grilled those mothers up. Delicious.
A very hungover Sunday morning came and Selma was nice enough to make crepes for everyone. Post-crepes, we headed out and setup the lure coursing machine in the backyard. Being only .9 acres fenced, I was seriously concerned about the size constraints, but figured that if we did this right and didn't allow the dogs to build up speed, we'd be ok. We setup the course to pretty much run the perimeter of the fence, but at the first major corners out from the machine, we put brush piles at opposite sides of the field. This gave me the ability, along with the reversible machine, to stop the bunny in the bushes and make the dogs go and investigate and flush out the rabbit. The beezers and Soleil thrived on the game, but the adult afghans were having none of it. Our neighbor with the SCH German Shepherds came over to watch and we asked him to bring his young male, Reno, over to course. Reno did a fabulous job, only stopping once because of the amazingly interesting new smells in the new yard (he's also used for tracking). He gave great chase though. We also got Merlin, Lexy and Steve's poodle, around. He was doing great for an old man <sniff>.
Overall, what a great weekend we and the dogs had. I wouldn't change a thing (except remembering to bake the birthday cake we'd planned on making).
