Dog Agility Training

Jeff and Shasta started dog agility training a couple weeks ago. This is something Jeff has wanted to do for a while, but we just found a good training program in Wilsonville, offered through the Columbia Agility Team.

Based on Shasta's early enthusiasm for the equipment, we believe she'll be quite good at it. Since she is still pretty spastic even at 3½ years old, it's probably just as well we didn't jump right into agility training a couple years ago after the obedience training.

This is the wobble board that helps the dogs become accustomed to unsteady footing.

Wobble board

This is the teeter totter. Apparently the training is started with the board all the way down, and then it is gradually raised. This get the dogs used to staying on the board while it is rocking and then gradually the height.

The teeter totter board

 Shasta was a natural at the dog walk ramp. She was practically running by the third time across.

Dog Walk Ramp

Shasta enjoys the tunnel. Sharon tried repeatedly to get a picture of her going through, but Shasta was just too fast for her camera.

Tunnel

At the end of a run, the dog has to get onto a table and hold for 5 seconds. This was another easy one for Shasta.

Table

It should be no sweat for her to pass this class!

For fun, This Old House has an article on how to build three different pieces of agility equipment. We'll have to do this soon.

Laurelhurst Clean-Up Day

Our neighborhood association is hosting a neighborhood clean-up day this coming Saturday so we've decided to get our act together and clean up all the misc. building materials which have been accumulating in our garage and yard. So our project this week is to get this stuff out of here!

We have a pretty large stack of wood window frames leftover from when we took out the glass for the leaded glass windows; those are going. And we have various metal bits all over the place, and they'll also be going. And we've got several *large* tubs of stuff in the garage that Sharon is currently sorting and we'll likely either sell or give away the contents this week.

Most of what is left in the garage at this point is salvage and we're still not sure what the fate of all the salvaged building materials should be. We'll surely be keeping the pieces that are designated for the chicken coop and garage remodel, but there is probably some of the stuff we could part with. The hard part is deciding which bits are expendable. We likely have too many painted cabinet doors; we should probably get rid of some of them, but it's hard to decide. There is always a special satisfaction when you're able to reuse something in a house remodel, especially when it seems nicer afterwards.

Jeff loaded up the back of the SUV and took a load of SCA gear off to storage this afternoon.

Back to Work

We had another beautiful day today so Sharon found herself looking for a project she could do outside. Since Jeff was going off to an SCA event, she decided to get started stripping paint on another bedroom door.

She spent nearly 7 hours on the project. She finished going over the first side of the door with the heat gun and scraper and then got started on the second side. She worked until her hand decided it was beyond done—Oww. It will be a few days before she can get back to this project.

Heat Gun Finished on First Side

Heat Gun Started on Second Side

This week we're planning to turn our attention to the garage anyway. If the weather cooperates, we're planning to spend several days sifting the garage (again) with an eye toward renting a trailer on Thursday to move the bulk of the stuff out of there. Then we can really evaluate the condition of the garage and decide how to proceed with the project.

Historic Garages

As our attention turns to our garage rebuild, Sharon thought she should go ahead and share some of the period resources she found to inspire our garage rebuild project. Again, we're sorry to our followers who have no interest in Craftsman period resources.

As with most of our projects, we do try and start with a period design and then, if necessary, make modern compromises. Most of our compromises for this project are due to cost; we simply cannot afford custom swing doors, but they would be awesome. We'll have to settle for modern roll-up doors.

First, there is a free ebook available at Google books entitled "Garages, Country and Suburban, a series of Authoritative Articles"  and was published in 1911. It has some great ideas for detached garage designs, especially mega-garages built by the super-rich in the period, i.e. three car garages!!

Sharon has saved a number of images and some of her favorites are included here. This first garage is one of Sharon's favorites. It was grabbed from American Bungalow's article, "The Bungalow Garage." There is no date cited for this garage design.

The following catalog pages show garages sold by Pacific Ready-Cut in 1925. You can peruse a scan of the original house kit catalog at The Daily Bungalow.

Pacific Ready-Cut, 1925

Pacific Ready-Cut, 1925

There were a number of garage images published in The Craftsman Magazine.

Craftsman Magazine, Feb 1913

Craftsman Magazine, Feb 1913

Craftsman Magazine, Nov 1914

Craftsman Magazine, Jan 1916

And here are four more images pulled from various house kit catalogs.

Gordon Van Tine, date unknown

Aladdin Kit Garage, 1912

Aladdin Kit Catalog, 1908

Aladdin Kit Catalog, 1914

Chicago Millwork Supply Kit Garage

Liberty Garages, 1926

California Bungalow Co., c.1920

Harris Bros. Garage, 1915

Gordon Van Tine, 1929

Wardway Garage, 1924

Found a few more ebooks about garages on Google:

Garages and motor boat houses: comprising a large number of designs for both private and commercial buildings 1911.

Making a garage by A. Raymond Ellis 1913.

Radford's garages and how to build them 1910. This one has some very creative designs!

Cleaning Up

We've had a relatively unproductive week this week, but we did get started on cleaning up the driveway for our garage emptying project.

As we've said so many times before—Craigslist rocks!! We managed to get rid of a very large pile of cardboard and a large mound of broken up concrete. We didn't have to pay to dispose any of it because somebody came and picked it all up! This large pile of rubble turned into this small pile of rocks. Unfortunately the last guy who came by couldn't quite fit the whole pile in his truck, so we still need to deal with this last bit of stones. Hopefully, we can reuse some of this pile in the rain gardens.

We also had an unusually large pile of cardboard. At some point during our remodel last year we told our contractor we wanted to keep cardboard to lay out on the lawns before covering with mulch so we could kill off the grass. It turns out the re-siding project did the trick to kill the lawn, so we found ourselves with a whole lot of cardboard stored in the garage that hadn't gotten thrown into the dumpster before the end of the job. Luckily, through craigslist, we found someone who actually cuts up cardboard to build planter boxes that can be "planted" in the ground at the end of the season.

On the garage front, despite Sharon's earlier rant, she continues to pursue our rebuild plan. We've slowly started to empty the garage and once we get most everything out, we will really inspect the condition of the cement pad and the wood structure. If all is well with the existing structure, then we'll probably go ahead and patch it up and live with it. But if the structure is as bad as it looks, we'll have to pull a permit anyway to do dry rot repair, so we may as well go ahead and rebuild. We think we found a contractor who will help us build for an amount close to our budget.

This weekend is mostly going to be spent working with plants. On Saturday, we'll both be working at the Multnomah County Master Gardeners Incredible Edibles Plant Sale. Then, on Sunday, we'll no doubt be planting quite a few vegetable starts.

Spring is Here!

Look who is awake! Judging by the number of unopened flowers, it's going to be a beautiful year.

More Quilted Ball Ornaments

Sharon is really enjoying making these "quilted" ball ornaments in the evenings. She obviously purchased more styrofoam balls and she had to buy lots more pins too. She's made a dent in her quilting fabric scrap bin. Such fun!